Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

onnors’s oft-repeated command to one his aid de camps. ‘ You got to make em thoisty as a camphor ball before they’! irrigate.” Standing in the small barroom, with its low ceiling yellow with the fumes of violent Nicotine, one could hear the throbbing life of the Brooklyn Bridge, high overhead, where the cable wheels of that day sang an incessant metallic drone. The deep-throated whistles of the Sound steamers might just as well have popped their signals in Connors’s back room, so close was the Cracker Pot to the East River, and the gossiping bells of the old-time horse Cars were always jangling not more than a block away. A section of New York where the odor of tar and tobacco hung over each alley, street and slip. Connors had acquired the sobriquet of Chink-nail by assiduously nursing the growth of the nail which decorated the little finger of his right hand. It was a full half inch beyond the hygenic danger zone which prevails in polite society, but quite orthodox, according to Chinese standards— hence Chink-nail. Had you asked any of the frequenters of the Cracker Pot: ‘“‘Do you know where Connors came from?” they would have an- swered: ‘“Sure—the Bowery.” But the gentleman himself, in what you might term his loquacious moods, would hint of a pre- Bowery career; one which had culminated in pugilistic honors; all of which the most skeptical might have believed, after witness- ing Connors’s modus operandi when ejecting an undesirable. “ The gent is going to say ‘ Good night,’ ”’ Connors would announce, and if by reason of stupidity the “ gent ” failed to accelerate his departure, Connorg would invite his Cracker Pot audience to witness the ease with which he would speed the parting cuest. “I'm going to put him out with four sers,” he would observe, meaning that he j use his right hand without disturbing ‘shed beauty of the chink nail. ind the barroom there was 4 Parlor” to which any stickling ht have access through a hall- r of which was uncom- e. ah shed ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. In turn, behind the ladies’ parlor, there was a roomy hall, the like of which—pro- viding the modern cabaret acknowledges any embryonic prototype — must have served as the parent stem, and as our story opens, the raucous piano within this hall js vibrating under the hammer touch of Mr. Eddie Carbon, a most versatile ivory spe- cialist, whose color harmonized with the name he bore. Out in the barroom Emile, who flatly insisted upon being called ** The Manager,” had assumed the professional ‘at rest” pose, which only a certain type of New York bartender can negotiate; a bit of elegant slouchiness, and the haughty countenance that goes with it. He was waiting for the return of Connors, who usually dined in Chinatown on Saturday night. Facing Emile across the bar was one of the habitués of the place; a human atom who still bore some trace of his former dig- nity and intelligence, but who was fast slid- ing into the catalogue of derelicts. Even now he was known to the Cracker Pot patrons as “¢ Joie the Jug.” “It’s this way, Joie,” said Emile. “ We are dealing with crooks and I don't know which way to play the game. Connors has got the goods, but Captain Jake knows their value—so there you are.” Joie was about to reply, but Emile inter- rupted him. “ Easy there—easy—here comes Connors now.” With toothpick perked at a jaunty angle from the corner of his mouth, Connors paused at the corner of the Cracker Pot bar. “ Everything going all right, Emile?” he asked. “Cer’nly,’ replied the white-aproned manager. “ Any word from Captain Jake?” 0.” “ That's bad.” The smug satisfaction of animal comfort, occasioned by a full meal, gave way to a scowl that crimped the lines radiating from Connors’s eyes, while his beauty nail beat a speculative tattoo against the erstwhile polished bar. “No telegram or nothin’?” he asked. comicboo Ic