Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

100 THE ARGOSY. his card to the first person who met him, and immediately an old man, with a very disturbed look tpon his face, came forward. “You have come just in time, Mr. Barber,” said this man, who was See- borg, the head of the house, “1f you want us to fill your order.” “I believe I have your acceptance of my order,” coldly answered Joe. “Yes, but we did not understand the situation. Here are old customers of Ours anxious to buy, and we cannot supply them. Naturally that should enable us to raise the price on freezers, to say nothing of the fact that we don’t fancy putting off regular customers for an unknown concern.” “Has this man,” excitedly put in one of the Ponce caterers, “ been buying up all the mrOesets in St. Thomas? ” “ He has control of the market,” be- gan Seeborg, when Joe interrupted sharply : “T decline to discuss my business in the presence of these gentlemen. I shall hold you to the terms of your agreement, sir. What they may think, or do, is no concern of mine.” (To be continued.) THE THIRTEENTH PENNY. BY JEROME CASE BULL. A homely romance of a miser, a street boy, and some particularly toothsome ginger cookies, the whole savoring of the Christmas season. H® was an old man, dirty and ragged and gray. He sat at the foot of a flight of stone steps that led up into a dark and poor tenement on a smoky back street of the city. He was counting the pennies he had made that day from the sale of shoe strings, but he was not satisfied with the result ; he made his returns only thirteen cents ; and so over and over again from the palm of one dirty hand into the dirty palm of the other, penny by penny, he counted his money. Thirteen was an unlucky number; he could not put that amount away into the bag with his other savings ; what was he to do? Near him stood a little street boy, ragged and lame. The lad had been watching the old man with wonder in his eyes at the display of thirteen cents, and now, as the man turned and looked up from his earnings, the boy’s eyes met his. There was a frank smile on the lad’s face and for once there crept into the old man’s breast a feel- ing of fellowship with the world. He took a penny from his store and held it out to the boy. The lad’s face was thin and there was a sadness about the eyes and a drawn expression about the mouth that told plainly of a hard battle with the world; still, as the lad took the proffered money, his face brightened and into his eyes came a look of gratitude. “Fhank you, sir,” he said, “ you can get two ginger cakes for a cent at Aunty McGinn’s at the corner. [’ll ’ buy a couple and give you one,” and he hobbled away, whistling. The old beggar sat still on the stone steps and looked after him. Why did the boy smile, he wondered, and why did he want to spend the first cent he had for cakes? The thought exasperated the old man and he shut his fingers tightly over the coppers m his hand and put them deep into his pocket. Then he ‘got up. He was all bent over with age and poverty and when he moved it caused him pain. At the corner of the street Geanes tt RE eo