Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

60 is the first thought that comes comes to me, and I say it. ; Sell it at auction! “ You’re—”’ ‘Yes, ma’am,” I nod. ‘‘ Now, you wouldn’t like this whole neighborhood pias- tered up with notices of the auction, would you? You wouldn’t want all your neigh- bors to know that your furniture’s bein’ sold for debt?” ~“ Gee, Emily,” have—” “Shut up!” yelps the head of he house. ‘“‘ Young man,” she tells me, “‘ plaster away. You won’t bother me none.” “ You’d rather have an empty house,” I say, ‘‘ than pay a couple of dollars—”’ ‘‘ T’ve said all I’m goin’ to,” she informs me, liftin the chair a couple of inches. “Come along, Mr. Taylor,” I tell Ed, who’s already slipped through the door and is waitin’ at the top of the stairs. ‘ Ma- dam,’’ I sing back over my shoulder, “ I’m sorry for you.” “You needn’t be!” she snaps. take care of myself.” She slams the door, and, as Ed and me sneak down the stairs, we can hear her raisin’ hob with her spouse for lettin’ us _into the house in the first place. . - “Ed,” I say when we made the front stoop, “I’ve always done right by you, ain’t Er” ‘““T don’t get you,” says Ed. “ Battlin’ Annie back there,” £ explain, pointin’ up-stairs with my thumb. “ Why _ didn’t you tell me I had her to deal with?” ‘““She’s a new one on me,” says Ed. ‘‘ She was never around any time I called.” ‘Well, both feet! ” T say ferventlike. “T guess the job’s off,’ comments Ed like he was relteved. !»? she exclaims. says Elliot, ‘“‘ we can’t “T can ‘ Off—nothin’!” I- tel him. “I ain’t even begun on that pair!” | “But she won’t pay nothin’,”’ objects Ed, ‘and she won’t let him noe nothin’.” ; She may feel different when she sees that furniture goin’ out of her flat stick by stick,” I predict. : “You don’t mean to say you’d have the nerve to—”’ “Ed,” I say, “ that auction sale I spoke huskies. she was there to-night—with THE ARGOSY. of to help us with the aeway has given me an idea.” I take from Ed the list of furniture he’s made, write ‘Auction Sale for Debt” across the top of it, and attach it to the front door of the house with four red seals. ‘That'll never scare that dame none!” says Ed, shakin’ his head. ‘“Maybe not,’ I ‘admit, “but I’m thinkin’ she’ll take it real serious when she sees the sale go through.”’ “ Sale!’ exclaims Ed. off no sale.” | “ T know I can’t, but I’m goin’ to.” “But who'll you get to buy the stuff? That dame’ll just pull your sign down as soon as she sees it, and, when we come back, there won’t be nobody here but our- selves.” ‘Oh, won’t there!” I laugh. ‘“‘ Will you take an even money bet for ten bucks that I don’t sell everything in that flat that be- longs to Flubb & Company and have it loaded on a van at this time to-morrow night?” Ed looked at me puzzled. ‘““What’s the dope, Joe?” he wants to know. I tell him. It was a neat plan, I thought, especially since I’d made it up while we were standin’ there on the stoop. The followin’ night me and Ed was to return to Elliot’s flat. With us was to be one van and a set of huskies. We was to “You can’t pull enter the flat, and, before the Elliots had recovered from their surprise at the mob scene, I was to sell the furniture to the Piece by piece as they’d buy it they was to move it out,-and by the time the Flliots woke up to the fact that they’d just been treated to a demonstration of the old game of furniture pullin’, the stuff _ would be in Flubb & Company’s warehouse, our agency would have its commission and the Elliots could squawk and be hanged to them. Ed dug up ‘he supers from among a hard gang he hangs out with. There was eight of them, and the crew of four that went with the van I got from Flubb & Company. I held a little rehearsal of the sale around the corner from Elliot’s house. “ Boys,” I told Ed’s goofer friends, Co DOO nN) SS C@