Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

62 he, John Malcolm, to be at the death-bed, he’d ask the veterinary mani to tell him that. So about then the motherly old landlady would scold kindly a little more and send the old man up-stairs, and later on climb the four flights herself to bring some table- scraps that a toothless mouth couldn’t eat; and occasionally she’d fetch along that morning’s paper for the master, when she didn’t forget it, and when it hadn’t already been used to wrap up garbage for. the can. Malcolm was ever grateful for the news- paper; and although his old eyes could compass nothing but big head-lines now, he was careful never to mention it to her. He'd have liked to read aloud to Collieboy, but spectacles were so darned expensive. She had brought him the morning paper this very day, on his unexpected return home at noon, and what the old eyes had peered out of it was the cause of this quite unusual going out in the evening, and his customary good-by at the door; ior the second time he said it this time, you”! recall. He whispered it: “It won’t be so very long to-night, Collieboy, and you mustn’t let yourself get too lonesome. I'll soon be back with you again ”—half unconsciously, for the words had become a habit. A habit will grow perniciously in you, whether it be rubbing your tongue against that jagged tooth, or forgetting to return the borrowed postage-stamp. So were the old man’s good-by words to his dog habitu- ally the same, even when he was to be gone but ten minutes, to tramp down-stairs to the basement, and then back up again with the scuttle half-full of that high-priced coal. Down the precipices of stairway she trudged now, and out into the dusk of an October evening—John Malcolm, a plain- tively wizen little pretzel of a man. He was less than five feet tall. He was modernly dressed this evening, at a dis- tance; close up his clothes were of a cut antedating our last two wars. John Malcolm, an eccentric character- actor of the play-days gone by, but not a ‘legitimate ” actor, as that class is known; far from it, he would have insisted, had'he ever been so accursed. No; he had been a general actor of the natural school. He was one still, he should THE ARGOSY. have said, and radically different from the kind who hem and haw and spout. “I cannot bri-hmg you your hot sha-having water, because I have not goh-hot your sha-having water hot!’”’—together with a sustained shrug of the shoulder and an ex- aggerated walk on imaginary stilts. No; Malcolm was not that sort. He had been an actor who acted without seem- ing to act—his delivery of text always crisp and to the point. He was no elocutionary ‘mime. Reaching the dim street, he felt he must again make sure of the date. As he moved into a main thoroughfare and mingled with the throng of pleasure-seekers, he drew the precious newspaper out of his inside-pocket. How lucky the landlady had thought of the paper at this particular time; yes, this was undoubtedly the very day and date. MAJESTIC THEATER Wonderful Revival of a Famous Play Greatest British Actor SIR SIDNEY BARBEE And here even this print was a bit too fine to see. Wish he could afford that pair of glasses— . As BILL SYKES In the English Melodrama “OLIVER TWIST” One Week—Starting Monday, Oct. 27 Malcolm paused where there was always a calendar in the insurance office-window— getting so dark now he could only just manage to see it. Yes, this was beyond all doubt the twenty-seventh, Sir Sidney’s opening night; and the old man was doubly sure it was Monday, for day before yester- day had been pay-day, and he’d had com- ing, let’s see, six times a dollar and fifteen cents were— Pshaw! why must he count it up afresh every week? Why couldn’t he remember? And to-morrow, Tuesday, was egg-day for Collieboy—he recalled feeling the string he’d tied to the door-knob to remind him; so to-day must be Monday. The arc-light in the street sputtered and suddenly blazed up, and the insurance man’s window had obligingly become a cComiclbooks.com