Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

‘that mothers are just as selfish as men are.” “Some of them are worse!” Eddie de- clared heatedly. “ Why, I could tell ous” are Don't,” I interrupted. “I'm going to go home and write the story about the poor girl who marries the young millionaire. ‘That varn has been printed seven times 4 month for the last five years. It’s what the public wants, and I’m going to give it to them.” Eddie groaned, and sipped his coffee si- lently. His eyes traveled over the queer crowd that inhabits the Automat. Song writers who have never sold a song, moving picture actors who have never been filmed, weird-looking people who were born and raised in New York City, smart, well- dressed people from the Middle West, a chorine or two, stage hands from near-by theaters, soda fountain clerks and their sweeties just from the opera, college pro- fessors newly produced from a moving pic- ture show. “You gimme acute indigestion with that chatter,” he said at last. ‘I read a maga- zine once, and it wasn’t half as interesting as the joshing in the cigar store. Why don’t you write some of the things that have happened to me? They’d make a good story; better than the ones they print in magazines.” 1 had heard this sort of remark before, and I knew what he meant. Unfortunate- ly the sort of things that had happened to him were more suitable for publication in the Smoking Room Gazette than in a mag- azine that was supposed to travel through the mails. ‘There’s stuff happening on Broadway every day,” he persisted, ‘‘ that makes the magazine stories pale and sickly. Now, take the case of-——” “Wait a minute! Is this sweet and pretty? No devilish mothers in it? No cold-blooded murders? No—” “ Pin your ears back and listen,’’ Eddie interrupted. ‘‘ Here’s men and women. They eat, sleep, fight. They fall in love. What’s a murder or two?” “Tl cut the murders out,” I murmured, but Eddie was off. — somewhere 1n nations that have got nounce. But Lolita de 5 from the usual run of hu 1k “ For one thing, she had sma ankles, and a tiny mouth. But it 1 anything about her looks that got her though the photographs in the Clipper m her look different—and interesting—in ¢ queer way. No; Lolita got by on clothes, — and—-the thing that one woman in ten — thousand gets from the devil. ‘Tt makes a man stare, and then start in her direction. I’ve seen her drift out of her hotel and just pass across the sidewalk, and men walking along in a hurry would skid to a stop. Lolita had it—she was like that girl you saw in the subway train last week; the girl you saw for a bit of a sec- ond, and that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. “Clothes? She had ’em by the dozen! Anything she put on looked a thousand times better than it would look on any other woman in the ,world. That’s what Broadway thought, particularly Chet Van Wert. And she drew down what she could, which was much, and she played around as much as she liked, which was much, and the Van Werts got worried. ‘‘ For Chet backed Lolita in a couple of flivver shows; that is, the shows flivvered, but they were in the Rolls-Royce class when it came to cost and upkeep. You know the sort of chatter that flits about Broadway about the angel of a show; well, I’m not saying a thing, because I’m busy concealing my own crimes.” ““ Eddie, when does something happen in this story?”’ I asked sadly. ‘“‘ Are you going to drift into autobiography ?” “Not to you,” he said, grinning; ‘“ what- ever that is. I’m busy telling you about Lolita, Chet, and the bulldog-faced boy from Montana. j “‘ Montana was first seen in Row A, Seat Tor, on the first night of the third show Chet had purchased for Lolita. Everybody _ in the cast got into the gravy, to say aan ing of the lad who staged it, the sce ers, the costumers, the ushers, cCOMICE tho ent ¢t