The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 295: what you’re looking at

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

TIME. frame, with trembling fingers peeled back the sheet of sensitized paper. No, he had not been mistaken, then; it was a view of himself as he had looked that memorable morning, the bird’s nest in one hand, the other shading his eyes from the sun while he sought to locate the mother-bird. It was a wondrously clear picture; even the French maid, stooping over to pick up a fledgling from the ground, could be distinctly recognized. Following on his excitement, a holy calm stole into the soul of Wallace Allerton. “TI must find her now,” he told him- self. “She never meant me to know she had taken it, but she never would have taken it at all unless she cared some. I am sure now I can make her care more.” Of course he would have to explain about developing snap shots that did not belong to him, but that was a sim- ple task in the light the subject-matter of one of them had thrown on matters. The first thing to do was to find the rir, . That very day he guided his car over the familiar road, and at the late home of Esther Smith ascertained that Mul- dred Kent lived not so very far away from town. A _ letter .to her was promptly answered, and a call speedily followed. “And only think, Mildred,’ Aller- ton told her some six months later, after she had said yes to an important but scarcely needed question of his, “if vou hadn’t snapped that picture of me, I should never have had the courage to think you cared to see again the for- ward chap who spoke to you that morn- ing without an introduction.” 291 Whereat this strange girl began to laugh, just as she had that other day, only this time much more heartily. ‘Oh, Wallace,” she gasped, “ that picture of you with the birds! I meant never to tell you, but it is too funny to keep.” * What on earth do you mean?” de- manded Allerton. ‘ You can’t con- vince me that was a picture of some other man. I think I ought to know my own phiz.” Yes, my dear, it was you all right, but I did not take it,” and again Mil- dred fell into a paroxysm of mirth. “Not take it!” cried Allerton. “You must have done so. There was nobody else.” “You forget, there was your chauff- eur. He took it for the sake of getting Maric, my maid. And as he couldn’t get her without you, you were thrown in, you see. Now do you comprehend ? ” “The impudence of the fellow!” ex- claimed Allerton. “ Tl settle with him for meddling with things that don’t be- long to him.” “Oh, that was already settled. You see, the camera wasn’t mine, but Marie's. A former mistress left it to her, and | have reason to think that she gave vour Frenchman permission to use it 1f he hked. But never mind, Wallace, the picture served its end, it seems, even if it did take the wrong track to. set there.” “Well,” remarked Allerton, drawing in a long breath, “ I suppose I ought to feel a fool, but instead ”? “You only feel glad that Marie for- got the camera.” Mildred finished for him. And Allerton straightway gave indis- putable evidence that she was right. TIME. TIME oft is limned decrepit, wizened, old, With wintry hair rough shaken by the breeze, One who on life has but a feeble hold, A graybeard ambling upon tottering knees. Ah, the dull folly of such portraiture ! Time gray ? Time old? See how he runs, forsooth ! Within his veins there courses, swift and sure, The Olympian ichor of eternal youth ! Clinton Scollard. ECOMRRIC LOG (GO) awa