Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

152 and behind it were shelves stocked with herb-filled jars. A slatternly white woman appeared from behind a rear curtain as the door closed after Brann. This would be Louis Fung’s spouse, the sailor thought; his unknown friend of the street corner had mentioned a Caucasian wife. She was not a woman to inspire Occidental desire. Her dirty blond hair straggled about her neck and ears. Her lips had a vicious, flabby sort of droop. Her cheeks were sallow and puffed. Her figure—well, whatever the creature’s physical endowments once had been, they included no figure now. She regarded Brann through lusterless, uninterested eyes. “ What you want?” she asked. “ Eng-ga-pai,” said the sailor. The woman set out a teacup filled with the liquor. She stepped behind the turtain for an instant—then returned to look at Brann with that same gaze of utter detach- ment. Perhaps he would talk and relieve her life’s monotony. After his second drink he did. “ You lived here long?” was his question. “ Yeah—years and years.” Louis Fung’s wife glanced wearily about the room. “I don’t remember how long now. Plenty, though.” ‘‘ Maybe you knew some of the girls that worked along the Coast,” said Brann quick- ly. The distilled rice of the Chinese had begun to take hold, and the world had a slightly more cheerful aspect now. He tipped his chair against the wall and con- templated Fung’s unlovely spouse slumped across the counter, She was nodding her head in assent, her eyes seeming to brood over dead and half forgotten things. Yes, she knew lots of the girls, she said. Did Brann? “ T knew one in partickiler,” he told her. Then he paused while the woman filled the cup again and took his silver. ‘“ She was the finest girl I ever set eyes on, barring none, ma’am. I seen plenty women in my day, traveling the seas and putting into dozens of foreign ports like I’ve done. I’ve seen plenty of handsome women, but none like the one that I met not two blocks from this here joint. Me and her is going to get married as soon as I find her.” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Louis Fang’s wife shifted her shapeless bulk a bit and seemed about to ask a ques- tion. But Brann answered it before she could speak. : “Her name’s Pansy Delande. know her by any chance, ma’am?” The slattern gasped. Her sluggish eyes Did you ‘jerked open. Her flabby lips sagged lower. She straightened up, the knuckles of both hands resting on the counter. Brann, his words the slightest bit thick, was talking with eager enthusiasm now. ® “ Maybe you wouldn’t know the lady by her name, but they called her at times the “Red Headed Queen.” She had a snake tattooed adown her left arm, winding round and round like it was coiled, with the fangs ending up at her wrist. Do you recall the lady now, ma’am?” A crafty look crept into the eyes of Louis Fung’s wife. Picking up the whisky jug, she walked heavily about the counter and poured Brann a drink. Magnanimously she waved aside his money. “Put it away,” she said with a new brusqueness, staring closely at the sailor as she spoke. “Seems to me I do remember that Pansy Delande, now that you mention the snake. Did you say you was going to ’—she hesitated at the word—“ going to marry her?” Brann bolted his drink and plopped down the cup with a gesture meant to denote, it would seem, great decision. Certainly he was going to wed the lady! She was his affianced bride—had been ever since he sailed from San Francisco port eight years before. With some pomp and not a little pride he recounted his conquest of Pansy and repeated, almost word for word, the promise she had spoken. “And, mind you, ma’am,” Brann con- cluded, thumping his fist upon the table— “mind you, she picked me out from hun- dreds, you might say, of devoted sweet- hearts. Yep, bully old Brann McDonald, o’ the schooner Gull, was top choice of the handsome queen. Now, what do you think of that?” ‘‘ M-m!”’ mumbled the slattern, curiously agitated as she poured another drink. Her rough hand trembled and the liquor slopped upon the table. It ate into the lacquer, COMICLOOokKs (C@