Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 16, 1921 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

AMN that lint!” Audibly expressed and uninten- tionally, it caused Sebast Moore, who had uttered the profane words, to look down from his lofty perch upon a row of prim but flushed spinsterly faces. -Sebast Moore, A. B., the “ A. B.”’ recent- ly acquired, utterly inexperienced at any- thing practical, working only because he had to eat, starting at the bottom, as all successful men do or say they do, had made rapid progress that morning—with the aid of a step-ladder. Otherwise he would have still been at the bottom. He was washing windgws, the dingy windows of Clute & Williams, Insurance, and he wouldn’t have been doing that if old man Clute had dared trust this son of a departed friend with work such as his efficient old maids were doing. 7 At washing windows, Moore was no suc- cess. Perhaps because he had never done it before. He could sop a wet rag around until it was grimy, he could renew the water on every other window, he could ap- ply soap and remove the dirt, but when it came to drying them with a clean cloth, the lint remained behind, as adhesive as cooties, as annoying as a cheap tooth-brush that leaves bristles in its trail to be discovered hours later. After damning the lint, and forgetting the looks of the shocked ladies, and con- by Leonard Edw 2 ; eA, ee) 4 i? By eS ns bie 4 rv, t cluding that haste really does make waste, and not fancying going over each speckled window until it was glossy and speckless as all newly cleansed panes should be, Moore remained seated atop his pedestal and hope- fully contemplated obtaining or inventing a remedy. ‘“ How did they wash windows, anyway?” He thought of asking one of the women, but concluded not to do it—you never know when a maiden lady will be offended—and besides he didn’t dare after that cuss-word. He did remember drawing pictures on win- dows that had been soaped, had dried, and then had been wiped clean. But he didn’t have that kind of soap. His was a yellow bar, smooth and greasy, and besides old Clute would not tolerate the purchase of a soap solely for windows. No, indeed! And since Moore had to be at his janito- rial duties by 7.30 A.M. he had come in con- tact with a new group of wage-earners, a group he never knew existed, the window- ‘cleaners, who needs must arise early in the morning and finish dousing vast expanses of plate glass before feminine feet begin to tread the sloppy sidewalks. Moore remem- bered that they wielded a wicked, long-han- dled mop, dripping lavishly, and then scraped the water from top to bottom with a rubber and lintless tool that did a finished job the first time over just as a good lawn- mower should do. 3 114 Go DOOLK C©