Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

_ TINY, THE TERRIBLE TURK. dering and liable to break out into a blaze any minute. They looked as if they had ‘hidden fires in ’em. You know the kind. It ain’t a very comfortable kind. I might as well tell the truth: Those eyes started in worrying me right away. He was somewheres in the vicinity of seven feet tall, and I judged he weighed something less than a very gross ton, but I didn’t hazard a guess as to just how little less; the difference wasn’t worth the mental effort. He shoved a letter at Aleck, and Aleck read it and handed it tome. It was signed by the New York wrestling manager, and introduced -Abdul—I forget the rest of the name, which was something like @ cigarette —to Aleck and me. Aleck’s New York sporting friend said that the grappling game was pretty quiet thereabouts, and Abdul hadn’t been under his management very long, and consequently he hadn’t had a chance to get much of a line on him. But in his opinion Abdul was a world-beater, and he ought to make a very good man for Aleck’s purpose. Yes, he certainly looked as if he ought to make a very good man for the purpose. I think I’ve neglected to say that Abdul wore his hair very long—a shock of straight, coarse upholstery material that just gently brushed his coat-collar; he also wore a large, weeping, walrus-effect on his upper. lip and vicinity. He had a somewhat re- treating chin—which somehow failed to comfort me much—and his mouth was very large and very full of gleaming, competent- looking teeth. ~° He looked as if he could bite his way out of a bank vault. Aleck took a chance and shook hands -with him. “Welcome to our city, Tiny!” said Aleck. ‘“ You'll excuse me if I call you Tiny, won’t you, because I don’t seem able to twist myself around your regular name, and somehow Tiny seems to fit. How’s the boy?” It struck me that Aleck was getting pretty familiar on short acquaintance, and besides, if it. was me, I’d rather choose somebody else to go out and get liberal with, right off the bat like that, or later. 158 I certainly would. But Aleck never did have any sort of tact, anyway. Still, Tiny didn’t seem to mind it so much, though I thought he looked a trifle more morose, if that was possible. Any- way, Aleck shook hands with him, and still lived. As for me, I missed the pleasure on account of a shoe- -string coming untied just then, or something. “ Hm, ; ventured Aleck. ‘“ Excuse me if I seem to be inquisitive, but what are your—a Turk or something like that?” “Yeh,” said Abdul. ‘ Turk.” “Where do you come from?” went on Aleck. ‘‘ What particular place in Turkey is now mourning your absence?”’ ‘* Constantinople,” the Oriental informed him, shortly—or as shortly as possible in view of the circumstances. ‘““That’s what I call a remarkable co- incidence,” said Aleck. ‘‘ You come from the only place in Turkey I ever heard of. Or is it? But never mind; we ain’t inter- ested in geography just now. Let’s get down to brass tacks. You look to me as if you were going to fill the bill—even un- comfortably full, maybe, but we’ll let that go. How tall are you?” “Six feet seven,” said Tiny. “How much do you weigh?” asked Aleck. “<’Two hundred and _ ninety-seven,”’ swered the half-portion of the Orient. You weigh quite a lot,” said Aleck. ‘‘ Just for instance, what size collar do you wear?”’ ‘“ Twenty-one,” said Aleck’s little pet. “That ain’t a collar, it’s a belt,” re- marked Aleck. “ What size—but never mind. Anyway, you’ve surely got a great development. And you’ve got nice teeth, too; and you seem to talk pretty good English. Lived in this country long?” Abdul admitted that he’d lived in this country a long time. Then they talked over Abdul’s act. It was finally settled that Tiny was to flop any gentleman in the audience inside of twenty minutes or the management would surrender the usual hundred bucks to the lucky man. And I might say that the management, which of course included me, wasn’t doing any worrying about that hundred. an- COLM G AOO!K Colin