Argosy All-Story Weekly — 'The Metal Monster' — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

by Magda Leigh CHAPTER I. ‘6 DEHYVSICALLY UNFIT.” Tose opened his eyes. Not a startling enough statement or a thrilling enough movement to merit a line by itself, you say? You haven’t Thorpe’s head! The opening of his eyes required consid- erable effort. Strange, but as soon as he had accomplished it, he shut them again as speedily as he could. What he muttered with thick lips and thicker tongue is some- thing I shall not bother to chronicle. It would be blue-penciled by a scandalized/ wasn’t his room, therefore how could it be echtor. For a few minutes Thorpe lay motionless. He wondered—although wondering hurt— why there was a throbbmg, an audible throbbing separate and distinct from the one he felt in his head. He wondered, too, at the heaving sensation—a sensation quite distinct from the one in his stomach. - He lifted his eyelids again, slowly and earefully.. It was more or less agonizing, but this time he kept them open sufficiently to enable him to view, ander heavy | lids, his surroundings. “ What in—” he began vaguely. Then, after a short pause, he indulged in that time-worn bromidic eye-opener: ‘“ Where am I?” Only he put trimmings.on the query. “~ , With a little added effort, his burning eyes could take in his surroundings. A tiny, narrow room with white walls, and one very small round window. Under the window was a built-in settee, and there was some sort of wooden affair with a small mirror at the top, built in the wall. DS A Thorpe put forth a shaking hand, which immediately knocked wood. He closed his eyes sharply and lay, inert and miserably sick, in a hopeless sort of lassitude. Suddenly there came to his ears a sound, softened by distance. Ding - dong! Ding - dong! Ding - dong! Ding! ‘“ Seven bells!” Thorpe muttered me- chanically. Funny how different his marine clock sounded this morning. Just like everything else. Everything seemed differ- ent. He stirred impatiently. This certainly his clock? Did every one have a ship’s clock in his house? Whose house was he in, anyway? Or was it a hospital? 65 “Qh, damn!” Thorpe groaned weakly. Thinking nearly burst his head. He heard the quiet opening of a door. Some one came to his side. He managed to open his eyes again, and he looked up. ‘ Feeling any better now, sir?” A negro, so light as to be easily mistaken for a white, was gazing down at him. He was dressed in 2 neat blue ‘uniform with > siver buttons on it, and he carried a cap in his hand.* - “ Are you feeling any better, = he re- peated. ‘* Better? I never felt worse in my life!” Thorpe shut his eyes for a second. Then he looked up and asked: good enough to tell me just where I am? And what is the matter with mé, anyway?” ‘You’re aboard the Barbuda, sir. I’m the chief steward—Parker’s my name. You cante aboard yesterday afternoon in Brook- lyn, quite—er—quite ill. So I helped you “Will you please be COMIC AOOLK (CO