Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

HONEST FOOL. Mumphy had been all night in a day- coach, for his funds were low. His pale eyes looked tired. His neck was still thick, his front still advanced in an imposing curve, but his cheeks drooped. His hard hat of brown felt was not in its first bloom, nor yet in its second; and his vest of a delicate fawn tint showed several spots. In short, he looked a trifle seedy in attire as well as in face. The pockets of his vest still bulged with cigars which, whatever their quality, lacked nothing in bulk. The handsome chain of many fine strands of gold still crossed the salient of his front from one lower pocket of his vest to the other; and if no timekeeper nestled at either ex- tremity of it, the effect on the eye was the same as if there was a watch at each end. He carried a large Gladstone bag in his right hand and a suit case in his left. These were not heavy. None of the trunks in the baggage-car belonged to him. Ignoring porters, the walked unassisted along the platform and through and out of the sta- tion. With a cigar cocked in his mouth he looked almost what he pretended to be—a prosperous man with sportive tastes. Mr. Mumphy was hungry. He had been hungry more than once since he had last seen the Hercules of the North, as he had been several times before his first meeting with that simple strong man. Within easy foot-play of the station he soon found an eating-place which promised the maximum of food and the minimum of damage. There he disposed of fishcakes and coffee, smoked his cigar and perused a last night’s paper upon which some former patron had already bestowed mustard and beer with a liberal hand. His pale gaze passed swiftly and blankly over foreign and political news, editorial comment and literary notes. His attention was all for small-typed, out-of- the-way corners of the paper. He departed at last, after staggering the soiled waiter with a quarter all for himself. He found a modest hotel a few doors farther along the street. Perhaps modest is scarcely the word, Its charges were moderate and its appearance was low. He paid a week’s rent in advance for a room on the third floor, then bestowed two cigars on the mildly interested clerk. 589 Mumphy went up to his room, removed shoes and coat and lay down on the com- plaining bed to think. Poor Dills Mumphy! The more he thought about his experiences since the desertion of the herculean Jules, and about Jules, the sorrier he felt for him- self. After the first brief pursuit of the North Woods Hercules he had discovered and undertaken to manage a _heavy- shouldered youth who promised great and profitable performances in the squared circle. The youth had failed signally and at every opportunity to keep his promise. With a punch Jike the kick of a mule he had punched nothing but air. His agile feet had refused to remain where they would do him and his manager the most good, which was under him, between his knees and the floor. His muscular neck had served him only as a thing to alight upon. That venture had chilled and expired on Mumphy’s breast, leaving the good sports- man poorer‘by a third of his wad and two- thirds of his illusions. Thus bereft, he had renewed his quest of Jules, that star ex- ploitation. He had exploited many bread- winners in his day, even bread-and-butter winners, but never another luxury-earner like the big boob from St. Pierre Miquelon. So he had carried his quest all the way back to that foggy isle of fish and cognac; but without a ray of success. He had returned to civilization a poorer and angrier man, had faked a risky living whenever faking was possible, had pawned his watch and diamond pin and diamond rings, had been reduced twice for brief periods to the actual performance of honest work; and now he lay on his back on a third-rate bed in a fourth-rate hotel In Montreal. Montreal was not entirely new ground for Mumphy. He had been here before, twelve years ago. It was here that he had discovered and persuaded io depart hence with him a clog-dancer of the name of Kate McMurragh, who, as the Senorita Esmer- alda, had done very well for him until such time as she had left him and returned to her own country, preferring a husband to a manager as a recipient of her earnings. At his advice, Kate had given up clog-dancing with her Irish name and adopted the tango, then in vogue, with her Spanish appellation, cComicbook COL,