Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

BEWARE OF She was, on the contrary, an angel of light! She, in her lovely person, was the hallowed incarnation of the way out! “ Well—I don’t know, Sally,” Thomas © said languidly. “I decided not to go and still I’ve been sitting here and catching a bar of music now and then and—vwell, this last ten minutes I’ve been kicking myself!” “Well, I think you’re foolish to sit here alone, if you enjoy that sort of thing. I ~ don’t myself, but—” She ended with a smile. Thomas, for a little space, grew even more languid, only to brighten suddenly, as if staggered by a happy thought. ‘Sally! By Jove! I wl go!’’ he cried. “* You've just given me the idea! I haven’t anything to wear and you'll have to fix me up! > é¢ How?’”’ ‘Give me some of your clothes — old ones, of course—and I’H go as a girl. Give me an old suit and a hat and shoes and everything, will you? Oh, yes, I can man- age the shoes, if you have a pair that don’t matter—and if I put ’em out of business, I'll make good, of course.” — Sally Noble laughed merrily. “Can you really wear them, Tom?” “Will you let me try?” : ‘Why, of course,” Peter’s wife said cheerfully. ‘‘ You wait here and I'll get them!’” Laughing again, she returned quickly to the door, ajar, across the corridor. She vanished—and Thomas thrilled astonish- ingly as he slid to the curtains and hissed: “ Did you-get that, Mary?” “Yes!” Mary whispered eagerly. “Ts it pretty good ?”’ ‘* It’s—wonderful, Tom!” ‘You can wear her things?” 66 Yes! Pi] “T guess it’s all over but the shouting, Mary!” Thomas chuckled. ‘“‘ But afterward—”’ ‘‘ Leave it to me, kid!” young Mr. Hen- ning said brightly. ‘‘ You'll have to send them back just as soon as you can, and I'll do all the lying necessary to cover the in- terval. I do get a bright inspiration once in a while, Mary.” “Oh, yes, Tom!” THE BRIDE. 14f ‘“‘T think so, too!” said Thomas, with more complacence than he had been able to feel for a long time. ‘“ Sit tight!” The steel bonds upon his very soul snapped suddenly. Thomas, head up, burst into song. Thomas also laughed be- tween notes and did a few possibly artistic dance steps in the center of his living- room. It is impossible to keep a good man down; it is flatly impossible to lick one of these really good men! Across the hall steps were sounding. Thomas calmed himself, for Sally Noble was returning. Sally, like the proper person she was, had loitered in the public hallway, smiling, three minutes ago. Now Sally, with no thought of propriety, stepped straight into Thomas’s flat—and she was not smiling! No, by no stretch of the imagination could one have fancied that Sally was smil- ing. Her cheeks were white. Her eyes blazed. In one hand she carried a jacket. “So that’s it!” observed Mrs. Noble. ‘“ Why—er—yes!”? Thomas stammered amazedly. “ That ought to work, Sally. It may be a shade tight, but— “Never mind all that!”? Mrs. Noble in- terrupted, and her voice rang cold steel. ‘What woman has been living in my flat since I’ve been away, Mr, Henning?” “ What—er—what?”’ “Qh, the innocence isn’t a bit effective!” Sally cried with a harsh little laugh. ‘‘ Spare yourself the effort, please! who the lady is!” ‘ You—er—you—”’ f I know ‘Yes, it’s pretty little Mary Lawson— Mary Emerson she is now, I believe!” Mrs. Noble cried viciously. ‘“ It’s Mary Law- son, if you please! Her clothes are hang- ing in my husband’s closet!” CHAPTER XXV. A LADY FAINTS. LTHOUGH five solid stories of steel and concrete were between his eyes and a sweep of the open heavens, it’s simple fact that a swirl of stars blazed before Thomas! COLM G AOO!K (COUNT