Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

656 were for the most part older boys, laughed at these antics and the idiot’s words. They urged the almost weeping Jimmie to fight. “Push him off the fence, Jim!” cried one. “ That’s right, Harold. You spank him! ” _yelled another. As Corvan drew nearer, he would have turned his. eyes away from the repulsive spectacle, for he was a fastidious man, but in that instant an urchin, inspired by the encouragement of his elders, rushed forward and gave Harold Trench a violent shove. Trench, releasing Jimmie’s arm, arose . With his feet on a lower rail of the fence, and tottered with wild gestures for his balance. With an inarticulate cry, he tottered there, then his face fell into a horrible twitching, and with a fit upon him, he plunged for- ward, to fall with a thud upon the sand. At that, several of the younger boys scattered in confusion and horror; the others, equally horror-stricken, closed in. Corvan, who had seen the fall of the idiot. boy, and caught a glimpse of the twitching form, and sick, green face, before the boys closed about it, instinctively veered away. He was too well controlled, and too fas- tidious, to be thrilled at the sight of an accident, and having lived his life in a city where such occurrences were taken care of with almost automatic promptitude, he felt no obligation to assist. With involuntary, unconscious distaste, he now veered away, just as Margaret Fiske appeared magically in the store doorway, and rushed toward the little knot about the fallen boy. She had seen Trench’s fall through the store window, but she appeared to Corvan -with the startling suddenness of a vision; a vision of lithe, fresh youth in _ pink and white calico, and she bore down upon the frightened boys like an avenging tracks and watched. . “Vou fiends!” cried the girl. ‘“ You’ve hurt him!” And, scattering the shame- faced youths, she fell to her knees upon the sand and drew the idiot’s twisting head toward her. Corvan winced with distaste as he saw that horrible head drawn upon the crisp calico of her lap, and then winced again ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, as he saw the girl draw forth a snowy handkerchief and wipe away the froth from about the writhing Hps. Her fine, fair head was bent toward the face of the strick- en boy. | : _ Corvan frowned. It was too uncannily like Beauty and the Beast come true. ~ “Oh,” she murmured. “ We must carry him in.” She looked up and studied the faces about her hopelessly. - Then a peculiar thing happened to Cor- van. He had never looked upon a thing ‘ike this before. Here was charity, stripped of all consciousness. the clean and the wholesome, bent to succor the stricken and repulsive and oppressed. But while he, a strong man and, he saw Here was the delicate, _ in that moment, not of the finest; a crook, - in short, had veered away from the fallen idiot.as a thing too horrible to touch, this: girl had rushed to the boy without hesita- tion, without a question of whether she was too delicate a thing to deal with it. And even as Corvan felt that wave of emotion, which mingled. admiration for her with a disgust and deep reproach for him- self, the slight and fragile figure of the girl was striving to lift the heavy idiot to his feet. ress Serer, CHAPTER V. “YOU SHAMED ME!” WIFTLY upon his thought his action followed. Corvan sprang to the girl’s _ side without a word, and took the bur- den from her. The boy’s limbs were twitch- ing spasmodically, and“his mouth worked open and shut, snapping his teeth. A trickle of blood ran from his lips.. Seizing the boy vigorously by the shoulders, Corvan ‘drew him up to a sitting posture. and ministering spirit, Corvan halted.in his -— “Tt’s epilepsy!” he pronounced. briefly. “ Give me that bit of wood!” she hurriedly obeyed him, her eyes turn- ing from the pallid face of the boy to the countenance of the newcomer which shone now with a vigor and purpose that appeared upon the confidence man’s face like a new © found life. He snatched the bit of wood from her and deftly insinuated it between the working jaws of the epileptic. COMmiicloe Cc S CO@