Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 13, 1925 — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

516 The avenue was thronged.. Mr. Ben- nett’s promenade was virtually wuninter- rupted. True, Jones, of Bickerman, Jones & Company, the rival agency, tried to halt him with “Hello! What is the answer?” Mr. Bennett, breaking into a sweat, replied, hurriedly, “Beg pardon,” and did not pause. He heard Jones’s remark “‘ Oh, f guess the answer is yes, all right,” and then he shook the pest from him. After that, Mr. Bennett watched the faces of the throng to avoid acquaintances and especially friends. This campaign was beginning to harrow him, he conceded, and it added to his irritation to note that he seemed to be the only person abroad who was unhappy. Never had he seen so many smiling faces, nor so many young people strolling in couples, the girls striding along in tailored suits, flat-heeled shoes and toques, as masculine as their escorts. It was the city of youth. Mr. Bennett was down in the “ splendid, idle forties” before he was aware of it, blinking under the incandescent glare. Here in this haunt of senseless gayety, he felt safe from the insidious enemy. The con- flicting beams of light confused him some- what and he stared at the wriggling masses of molten electricity surrounding him. A great sign on the roof of a building facing Longacre Square drew his eye. As he looked, the huge frame darkened, then out of the blackness burst a furious meta- morphosis, like a dragon writhing in a con- strictor’s coils. For an instant the pvro- technical battle raged, then the dragon ap- peared to expire, the serpent raced around the frame, broke into sections which tri- umphantly arranged themselves in this wriggling interrogation: What's the answer? Mr. Bennett did not wait to see what the answer was nor what preceded it. He knew, and to rid himself of the pursuing thought of it, he plunged into the lobby of the near- est theater, as into a sanctuary. He was confronted by realistic photographic dis- plays of young women swinging their limbs -—~all four of them—high, wide and hand- some. For this was the citadel of the ‘‘ Jollies,” that celebrated revue dedicated ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. annually to the magnification of the Ameri- can maid. He was not interested in the altruistic enterprise. Indeed, in a deliberative mo- ment and a state of reason, he never would have entered the place, but he was far past the state of reason and there was no time for deliberation. After all, this was the last resort of the tired business man and as- suredly no business man ever was more tired than he at the moment. “ Two?” said the shirt-front in the box- office window. “Oh, one! Here you are— seven seventy, with tax!” The price was preposterous, to be sure, but then the whole world was preposterous when an impudent young blackguard could flaunt his indecent impudence through newspapers, subways, public highways and the postal service. The revue had begun when Mr. Bennett entered the theater. An usher spotted his coupon with a torch and glided swiftly down a side aisle ahead of him, into a vacant box and to the chair closest the stage. Before Mr. Bennett realized how conspicuous was the position, he sat down, and then he remained seated, rigid and frigid. For the pseudo-South Sea siren on the stage, in all the glory of her bleached bobbed hair, vivid stained face and undu- lating anatomy, side-stepped to the synco- pated orchestral strain, then knelt on one rouged knee, directly in front of him, stretched her arms forward and chanted: “The answer is ‘ Yes, dear, But I'm in distress, dear, For I must confess, dear, That father won't bless, dear—” Mr. Bennett was suddenly aware that perspiration was streaming from his every pore. If his thoughts could have been ex- pressed, they would have formed one long, quivering, intense stream of liquid fire directed against the brazen young baggage before him. The hilarious laughter of a half-witted audience rumbled to his ears through the doggerel of the song. Infinitely more humiliating he felt than if he had been tossed half-naked on the stage to caper about with the vixen. It was a scourging = A 6)(0)©) S (C(O)