Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

936 His face was flayed raw by the sportive wind. His feet and legs felt like wooden stilts. Tears streamed from his eyes. “Steve Brodie did it!” he gasped, and Staggered the last half block, visions of warmth inside keeping up his courage. Blocks of solid ice were thundering down the chutes into waiting wagons. Barey shuddered and burst in the door. A breath more bitter cold than outside hit him like a rock heaved at his chest. He spied a small, partitioned office from which came a warm glow of light. He staggered to it. There was a jolly, round- bellied stove within and there he established himself to take up his new duties. About half an hour later Watkins came down from the main offices to visit his new superintendent. Barney’s feet and legs had just reached the point of reminding him they were still his property. He had man- aged finally to clamp his numbed fingers about a pencil and make marks on paper. *“ This place is close!” said the president of the Germless Ice Company severely. “Tt’s abominable. A menace to health. But don’t you worry, Wilder. Ill remedy that! The health of my employees is my first consideration. We'll have that stove vanked out of here before you can say ‘Scat!? Meantime we'll look over the plant. “ Come on, boy! Out into the cold, fresh air, that’s what you need. Come along, I want to show you my pride, the achieve- ment of a lifetime, the biggest ice ware- house in the world. Mountains of it, boy! Uncounted tons of pure, germless ice, glis- tening like pure diamonds. It’s the one place in New York where a man can draw a breath of air that really stings his lungs!” It didn’t snow any more for days. just kept on getting colder. Inside of his clothing Barney wrapped layer on layer of newspaper until his every move sounded like the crackling of thorns under a pot. At the end of the week President Watkins visited him again. “This is better,” he declared joyously, beaming on the unheated office. ‘‘ Notice It ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. how much sweeter the air is with those windows all removed. You get that sharp tang that comes right off all my stored ice—” Barney checked his clicking teeth long enough to voice an agreement. ‘And now, my boy,” said the beaming president of the Germless Ice Company, ‘* you’ve proved to me you can make good. I have a pleasant change for you next week. Be ready Monday morning to go with me on an inspection trip. I want to look over a couple of lakes that have been offered to us. They’re up in Maine, just below the Canadian border. Some little trip, eh! Think of it, boy, days of tramping through the frozen drifts and never a minute when the mercury gets its head above zero! If we're lucky we may get a chance to sleep out all night, right in the snow!” “Steve Brodie did it,” Barney muttered, his teeth syncopating the words, the while he massaged his numb ear with a splinter of ice. “* What’s that?” “IT said, sure, that ‘ll be fine, Mr. Wat- kins!” On the bitterest morning of winter, Bar- ney reported himself at the office. Watkins was not there. He had left a note: So sorry. Called to New Brunswick for the next three weeks. May make that trip later, but I can't promise you real zero weather. Barney grasped the import of this news with a yell. He dashed from the office and the building, hailed a taxi regardless of ex- pense, and gasped the address of the district police station. Into the station Barney burst like a bomb. | ‘‘T want my benny!” he gasped. “ Show me the judge that’s holding out my new brown benny and I’ll talk him out of it if he’s got a heart of marble.” “It’s here,” said the smiling lieutenant in charge. ‘“ Been waiting for vou here all week. I guess it has to turn off pretty sharp before you bundle up, old-timer?” ‘Sharp enough for me right now,” Bar- ney agreed. “I got my health to consider. Going to be married next spring, and I can’t take any chances.” COMIG DOO! (©