Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~~ world!” he cried. 604 Gosh, you'll be selling me a hooch mine, next. ; “Yt mean it,” said Corvan. Maddox shook his head. s ‘Not for me,” he said. “I know where I get off, and it’s before I come to your station. Give me time, and Ill be right with you. I ain’t in that class. No, sir; YT blow to-night.” Corvan frowned at him thoughtfully. He would get the lay of this youth -yet, and when hie did Maddox would stay. “Dinner is ready,’ announced Mrs. Bland from the dining room doorway; and the eyes of Snake Maddox shone. ‘Oh, boy!’ he enunciated, and turned to Corvan with enthusiasm. “ You get bet- ter meals here than anywhere else in the before in my life. Come on.’ Corvan fell in behind him with profound ~ relief. He knew his Maddox now. He _knew that-he need worry about his youthful henchman’s departure no longer. As long as Mrs. Bland was in the house Maddox would-stay. CHAPTER IV. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. ND Maddox did stay. Mrs. Bland’s remarkable cooking and the luxury of a home such as poor Maddox had never dreamed of in his life did their subtle work. They combined to persuade the 1m- petuous Snake to “ stick around for a day or two,” and: Corvan’s gift of smooth and persuasive talking made his tentative Teso- Jution firmer. Corvan was an artist in the holding forth of promises, and, determined that Snake Maddox should not desert him, he pushed his chair back frém the breakfast table the following morning and poured. balm upon the desolation of the Snake. _ “Pye been thinking over what you sald yesterday, Snake,” he set forth. ‘“ And it doesn’t sound so bad. You certainly have looked the crowd over down here, and I don’t believe the oldest capper in the game ever got as good a line-up on the local situ- ation as you seem to have obtained.” ‘ T’ve mevet ate like it. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, * “ Shucks,” quoth Maddox modestly. “It was easy pickin’s. You just roll in and-make yourself nice to the ladies. I ~ don’t know how it is, but give me half an hour with a skirt, and I don’t care whether she’s young or old, a peach or a lime, she’s - got to come across. “ Just get ’em talkin’, and they give you a guide beok to the whole works.: And can I get ’em talkin’? Watch me.” He tipped back his head and inverted his- cof- fee cup over it, to drain the liquid sugar at the bottom. with peculiar noises. cawfee,”’ he pronounced.’ “¢ You’ ve certainly learned about all there is to learn,” assented Corvan heartily. ‘“ As far as this village is concerned, you’ve made me feel as if I’ve lived here always. After thinking it over, that old man Humphrey appears to me like a good lead: He sounds like a natural born sucker—the ane it’s a pleasure to bunco.” “Bunco? Huh, you wouldn’t have to do anything more than sild a brick to get a rise out of. him,” said Maddox disdain- fully. Corvan grinned. “Tt does sound sort of tempting,” he remarked. ‘“ You keep your shirt on, Mad- dox, and I’ll run down to the village this’ morning and look ’enr over.” But as the Great Corvan drove his big. car toward the village that morning he was | conscious of the fact that he had not been quite frank with Maddox. The life of this obscure fishing village, as retailed to him by the eloquent. Snake the preceding after- noon, had interested Corvan; but it had not interested him as a prospective sucker list. He was surprised and somewhat discon- certed: to discover that those parts of Mad- dox’s recital which had appealed to him the most had been the parts which dealt with the grim fate that hung over the Fiske homestead; the futile, stumbling, career of Henry Sumpty; the grim tragedy of mis- . understanding in the marriage of Albert Humphrey, now Albert Trench, and the boy who grew up an idiot. A long experience had brought Corvan to the dark suspicion that every human being was what is known to the profession which -he followed as a sucker; and every “ Good - cConnicloool. CO