Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

CIRCUMSTANCES. posing political party, and to have been frequently in his company since. Lastly (and this showed signs of having been rushed into the edition) the Press was prepared at the proper time to prove that Miss Spalding (Peggy Archer) had made a dinner engagement for that night with Prosecutor Pendleton. 7 Summing up, the Press declared that not only had the authorities been negli- gent, but went on to allege that there was a conspiracy to suppress the true facts of Mrs. Spalding’s death. CHAPTER VI. A TWENTY-DOLLAR BILL. “ @ HUFFLIN’ JOE” MADDEN was in again—for vagrancy, as usual. As a rule, Madden found one jail as good as another, and generally better, so far. as sleeping was concerned, than “ flopping ” in a hallway, box car, wood-shed, or open lot. But this particular time Shufflin’ Joe regarded being jailed as a bitter fate, for in the ragged lining of his dirt-glazed coat was a twenty-dollar bill. The iron of remorse turned in Shufflin’ Joe’s soul when he thought that if he had ‘only spent two bits of that double tenner for a bed in a lodging-house he might still be enjoying liberty and the remaining $19.75. That was something for him to think about as he chewed on the plug tobacco that he always kept hidden against the ever-present possibility of being put where there was a strict no-smoking rule. Madden had come to town with Bob Genroe, a former traveling acquaintance he had met on the deck of an east-bound freight. Genroe said he had worked the town before, and he proved a good guide. They passed up the fashionable quarter and struck into the section of more modest homes. Foraging around for dinner was emi- nently successful. When they met later Genroe had landed two handouts and a half-dollar, while Madden, following the other’s directions, had been asked in for a ‘* sit-down.” 155 They had previously picked out an emp- ty, tumbledown stable as a place to sleep, and, as a general thing, that would have been next on the program. But Genroe said he wanted to look up one or two people he used to know, and told Madden to go ahead to the stable and he’d be there later. Genroe woke Madden up when he got back to the stable. Madden smiled when he remembered how excited the other had been—and good reason why. “Some luck I had, Shufflin’!”” Genroe had whispered. ‘“ Picked up a hundred dollars. This twenty is for you. I won’t ask you for none of it unless I get cleaned. I’m going back down-town. S’-long.”’ That was the last Shufflin’ Joe had seen of Genroe. Tor a few minutes Madden considered edging in at the lodging-house they had passed, but at length he decided that the barn was plenty good enough, hid the twenty-dollar bill in his coat, and went back to sleep. When Madden woke it was to find him- self in an unfamiliar part of town, standing on the sidewalk, with a policeman holding a generous handful of his collar. It wasn’t the first time Shufflin’, Joe had walked in his sleep, but it was the first time he had ever somnambulated into any such trouble as this. But he was too well tutored in the uses and effect of the locust wood night-stick to fall into the error of offering the policeman any such excuse as sleep-walking. The policeman lost no time in having Mr. Madden transferred to the local lock- up, and the next morning the judge had made the usual remark about thirty days. The only substitute for a silver lining that Shufflin’ Joe Madden could see was the tattered lining of his own coat. For hidden among the rags of that garment his twenty-dollar bill had been smuggled, along with his chewing-tobacco, past the police frisking. And even if he was for the mo- ment denied the luxuries the gold-back would allow him, he still had the money and ample leisure to devise ways and means of enjoying it. Madden knew nothing of the death of Co DOOK (©