Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

450 reading right away because the results were certainly beginning to show—and hed ‘better stop neglecting himself and go see an optician before he went totally blind instead of only three-quarters, the way he was now. I told him that as a Ziegfeld his official batting average was about six degrees be- low zero. And I think I said, too, that in my opinion his foot had slipped, or something, and he’d heaved one right into the grandstand when he assumed that he was a picker and choser of .youth and beauty. He’d missed his calling by several inches. If he’d started in at an early age as a collector of antiques, or got himself a job as scout for some reliable home for old ladies, no doubt he would have made a whale of a success of life. But now it was too late. And there were a few other things I was going to tell him, when he interrupted: “Say!” said he. ‘If you don’t like the way I do things, why don’t you stick around and do ’em yourself? Instead of laying down on your job and sneaking off into Maine or somewhere, and lying round loaf- ing all summer, and me here in the city working my head off, and that’s all the thanks I. get for it! Answer me that! ‘After acting the way you did, quitting your job cold without asking anybody’s advice or consulting my wishes or anything, where do you get off talking to me like that, huh? You make me tired Maybe if—” However, I guess we can get along all right without the rest of Aleck’s burning words. He spoke from the heart, and there was a good deal more to his oration than the part I’ve quoted, which was merely the introduction, but we'll let the rest of it slide. I'll merely say that Aleck’s further remarks were exactly as uncalled for as the one’s I’ve credited to him. Of course, I didn’t forget to remind Aleck that it was only on his own advice that, extremely con- trary to my own wishes, I took that trip up into Maine. It got me a whole lot, that did. Well, a few years later, Aleck’s interest- ing collection. of historical relics—I told Aleck he ought to bill ’em as the original cast of the “ Follies of 1776,” and I’d guar- —_—,, Pe — <2 - a ~ ante ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. antee they’d defy detection, and maybe by skillfully working on the Colonial Dames and the Sons of the Revolution, and the - Bolshevists and other revolutionary societies we could rouse up a little interest and save . the day—a few days later Aleck’s veteran girls, accompanied by Aleck and me, left the city and invaded the sticks. And without going into the harrowing details, I'll merely say that when I lacked confidence in the production that Aleck Wheeler had tinkered together while I slept, I did some mighty correct lacking. As a lacker of confidence, I qualified right there and then as an expert. The show was one of the worst frosts in — history. We had a couple of very good comedians—I’ll grant Aleck that much, anyhow; and our leading lady might have been worse—yes, a good deal worse; she had a first-rate voice, but then, again, you had to admit that nature hadn’t over- whelmed her with kindness in the matter of looks; yes, you had to admit that; and —well, all in all, it shaped up something like this: “ The Moulin Rouge Revue” had three or four fairly good points—and thirty bacd-ones. Aleck’s vintage chorus damsels, of course. And considering the proportion of good to bad points, it wasn’t any wonder that the public remaiited cold. Perhaps I didn’t say that our route took us up through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other well-known New England States. At any rate, the only reason that Aleck and I are still partners in business is be- cause, at the end of. our first month on the road with the ‘“ Moulin Rouge Revue,” I had presence of mind enough not to say to Aleck, “I told you so!” If I’d said that to him we wouldn’t be in business together now, because one of us would not be living at present; he would have passed away quite a while ago of foul play. What the local dramatic experts did to us was criminal. I still have a little sheaf of those bush-league reviews, and whenever I feel that Aleck needs taking down a peg, I pull ’em on him, and they do the work. Yes, on the whole, that first month on the road with Aleck’s large assortment of fe- male souvenirs was certainly a very bad mionth for Aleck and me. EGORNIG OOO SS co wo