Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

908 electric chairs in them days. And the hang- man, he was a new hand, well meaning but clumsy. It took twenty minutes to strangle poor Hen—the poor man. I’ve got a piece of the rope in a little cabinet in the closet. Would you care to see it?” Mike passed a forefinger inside his collar band and grimaced. “ Gawd, no! Lady, I don’t wanta see it. Your word is good!” Miss Prime gazed pensively at him for some time, as if trying to make up her mind. Suddenly she reached out to where, on a whatnot shelf, reposed a fat book bound in worn leather heavily embossed with brass. She hitched her chair over beside his. “ Boy,” she whispered, “‘ because you're so young, and it grieves me to see you spoil your life for mere revenge which in the end can’t harm nobody but yourself, I’m going to tell what it hurts me cruel to do. Look!” She opened the book upon his knee. It was a photograph album—a book such as may be found in any country house, filled with a chronological display of whiskerage, bangs, curls, pompadours; reproducing the eras of stocks, bustles, flowered waistcoats, melon sleeves; likenesses of the departed, of languidly posed bridal couples, of ugly ba- bies, of others whose very identity has been forgotten, but who are permitted to enjoy in the ancient album a species of immor- tality. Many of the photographs were of the same perdurable, uncompromising qual- ity as the enlargement Mike had noticed on the wall. “I’m the last of my tribe, and there’s been plenty of shame and sorrow in my life,” Miss Prime confided. Her bony fingers twirled the leaves and paused at the likeness of an idiotic young man whose greased and carefully banged hair left him a bare half inch of forehead, and whose chin, if he had any, had not taken in the picture. “ Here’s my poor nephew, who had a grudge against the fellow that stole his best girl away from him. He’d ought to been grateful; she was a regular shrew, as it turned out. But my nephew kept brood- ing on his wrong, and one night he got into his rival’s house and chopped him all to ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. pieces while he slept. A meat cleaver he used. He run the village market.” The Wop’s eyes, now fully opened, stud- ied the sanguinary nephew with horrified in- terest. “ Did they hang him, too?” he asked. ‘“No. He was too smart for ’em. He went home and shot himself with an old squirrel gun. Twice, in the chest. Blew him wide open.” There was Uncle Gregory—not men- tioned by name, however—whose piratical whiskers and outstanding ears made con- vincing his tragic tale. ‘““A farm hand pi’zened a hound dog he set great store by,” Miss Prime recited. ‘““ Uncle waited two years till he caught him alone, and made him drink the same stuff he give the dog.” ‘“ He was the goods, I’ll say!” admired the Wop. ‘‘ What happened to him?” “He run away to sea and was never heard of again.” “Well—I’m betting there was rough times at sea, lady!” It was a gory, sinister chronology that the old album unfolded. When its curator closed and laid it aside Mike sat staring pop-eyed at the open grate. ‘Young man,” Miss Prime spoke softly, “TI ain’t talking religion, but plain sense. Every man whose picter you’ve seen had a grudge to settle—and every one of ’em set- tled it. But was they happy? Ask your- self! The hangman’s noose, the life sentence, the suicide, the lonely exile— all com- ing to a mis’rable end. Jt don’t pay! Let alone the grief it brings on innocent folks. Why, I’ve got the blood of these men in my old arteries! Don’t you s’pose I ever wanted to git even with somebody? I’ve had to struggle ag’inst it all my life. And to crush it down I just set out to do all the good I could while I’m spared. Like to- night, when you come. I didn’t ask who you was, or what. You was wet and cold and hungry. That was enough for me!” Mike the Wop rose, stretched, and looked for his coat. “You win, lady!” he said. “Is there a depot near here? I’m off to New York.” Miss Prime rose, too, her eyes eager. COMIC dool ©