Argosy, September 1955 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

“~ 20 WILLARD MARSH Chong Hong Friendly Society headquarters and Sam Yup’s Fish Market, they fell in love. They stood at the corner of Clay Street, looking up at the stars. “ Aren’t they gorgeous?” Pearl said. “ How many are there altogether, do you suppose? ”’ And because the stars and everything they surveyed indeed were gorgeous, and because she so believed in him, the knowledge came automatically to Humphrey. ‘““A couple of hundred anyway,” he said. “ At least.” “What keeps them up there? I mean, why aren’t there more shooting stars?” “Gravity and things. It’s pretty complicated to explain.” “Oh, look, darling, there’s one now!” ‘They watched the falling star, dropping in the direction of Portsmouth Square. ‘““ Quick, make a wish before it’s gone.”’ They just had time to, before it vanished below the horizon. They loafed down Clay Street in its wake. “What'd you wish, darling?’ ‘Then Humphrey remembered he wasn’t supposed to ask. Pearl hesitated. ‘“‘ It looked so pretty,” she said shyly, “I wished we could have it all to ourselves. You? ““T guess I only wished that whatever you wished for, I’d be in it.” They came down into the leaf-locked slope of Portsmouth Square, opposite the Hall of Justice where no one should have been behind bars, no misery should have been abroad when love, their love, was proof enough against all chaos. And then Humphrey tripped over the star. At first they didn’t recognize it. It lay, small and deceptive, in a cushion of grass. ‘They knelt above it, jointly lifting it to the wayward light. It was cool to the paim, and_ blurrily orange-coloured. It had five points that seemed to shift and twinkle, depending on how you looked at them. “IT thought they’d be bigger, somehow,”’ Pearl said. ‘They’ re all different sizes,’”” Humphrey said, with a casualness he had to force. It was a beauty, all right, no getting around it. “Sort of makes a nice souvenir, doesn’t it? ‘To round the evening off.” Humphrey weighed the star experimentally. ‘‘ Maybe we could have it dipped in bronze or something to preserve it. You know, like baby-shoes.” He didn’t realize the psychological implication of the remark till Pearl giggled in embarrassment. Arm-in-arm, they floated back up Clay Street, down Stockton Street, through the tunnel again, with the star lighting a vague comiclbooks.comn