Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

SPEAKING OF the pressure. The crowd jammed tighter than ever, then let out a gasp like a dying whale. Horace Q. had hit! He gave just one littlé stage-whoop, and stuck out his hand for the money. Then he looked at the clock and jammed the bills that I’d handed him into a pocket. ‘“‘ [ve got to make a rush for it,” he says. “You know it,” says Ed, helping him with his grip and edging him along. “ Hey, boys, let the man through. Hear me, let this man through.” But the crowd had got excited and was jamming around yelling and sticking out their hands to congratulate him. Ed, push- ing and shoving him, was trying to get him through, but the crowd was all around him now. And then— Somebody’s hand slipped and hit his hat. It came off—and with it came a toupee! And just then I saw that geek’s face, and I knew! It was the one on that reward sheet, and there wasn’t anything more needed, as far as I was concerned. Oil stock, oil lands, oil gushers—they were the bunk; Ed and me had a bum cer- tificate, and a crook had our cash! I gave just one jump and cleared the roulette-table. Then I dived head first into the crowd, spread ’em fanwise, and took a wallop at the bald-headed guy who was struggling his best for a getaway. I missed. I swung again, then something jammed itself in front of me—Ed Steele. What was more, he was mad, and showed it. And what was still more, he smashed me straight in the jaw with a right uppercut, and as I went to the floor, I heard him yell to the bald-headed geek to beat it. I tried to get up. Something plopped on top of me and walloped me again. It was Ed. I yelled at him, but it didn’t do any good. He stuck his hat in my mouth and whanged me again, while outside I heard a taxicab chortle away, and I knew that a bald-headed guy and our hundred thousand bucks was in it. Then I passed out. Ed had me in a back room when I came to, with a towel on my head and a piece of beefsteak on one eye. And when I opened the good one, I saw the most sorrowful face I ever saw on a human being in my life. “Lucius!” says Ed, and the tears were science wouldn’t let me. CONSCIENCE. 571 right at the surface. ‘I wish I’d let you go on with it.” “Youre darned right you do!” I snapped back at him. “ Here we are, a couple of fine goofs, slippirig our kale to a common, ordinary forger or somethin’, and when I try to stop it you wallop me in the chin and help him make his getaway. Of all the—” But Ed shook his head. : “Nope, that ain’t it, Lucius,” he gulped. “That ain’t it at all. I thought I was doing © right, but I done wrong. All wrang; and he’s gone now, hunting parts unknown, and I can’t repair the damage.” “Damage?” I just sat and stared at him with my one good eye. ‘‘ What damage? Seems to me that. the damage has been done to us.” “Nope.” Ed swallowed hard. “It’s complicated, Lucius, but I’ll do my best to explain it to you. I got that face the minute I saw it this afternoon, see? But I had made my promise, and my conscience wouldn’t let me do anything but keep it. I had my duty to do by ourselves; my con- Science wouldn’t let me forget that—” c¢ But—”’ “Of course, I could have stopped it all by turning him up as a crook, but my con- 3 We wouldn’t like to be turned up, now, would we, Lucius? So I figured there’d be a crowd, and that I could pick his pocket easy enough in the jam when he turned away. And that’s why I stopped you; I didn’t want the poor fel- low pinched, Lucius. It wouldn’t have been ~ right, but—but I wish now I’d done it. -You see—like a chief mourner at a camp- meeting—that guy pulled out a roll of bills as big as a horse’s neck. “ IJ—I just dived at random and got my hands on everything I could grab. And—” “And you got our money?” Ed’s face was longer ’n the Lincoln High- way. _“That’s just the trouble, Lucius,” he groaned. “I got our money and—he must have been somewhere else just before he saw us—because I got sixty thousand more with it! And—and he’s gone—and I can’t give it back!” What’re you going to do with a guy like that? mM (S| QO) NOOK