Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

it I know what Chet did. He had a gun in his hand, and he had some sort of it to Lolita. That woman would knock yg your eye out, and Chet had shed a lot of the family fortune, battled with his family, and generally raised shrieking hell on her “account. Well, it looked like she was plan- _ hing to toss hin. _ “**What—Lolita!’ he says, in a sort of a seared whisper. | ~ Ive told you that she wasn’t particular in her language. ‘ Take that little chick and get out,’ says she, only she didn't call Maida a chick. ‘I’m through with you,’ says she. * That automatic did make a lot of noise. [ just stood there, with my mouth open, and listened to it spit. One, two, three! Chet gave him the trio while Montana came to- ward him. “I’ve got to give that Western guy credit. He'd stagger, but he kept on coming. When he reached the table he seemed to crumple up and fall sidewise. He turned over a couple of inkwells, and his hand went to his heart. “ After a while I closed my mouth. I had to. I felt the round muzzle of Chet’s revolver sticking in my side. But Chet didn’t have the gun. It, was Maida. 4 “* Don’t make a sound,’ says she. ‘ Keep your mouth shut, and lead the way to the taxi. I’m going to get Chet out of this.’ You can bet I stepped softly. I took one glance at Lolita, and saw her staring at the gentleman on the table. By now Chet was a white ghost; all the booze was f him. He clung to Maida’s hand like tened kid. ida upstairs,’ says Maida when we 2d the hall, ‘and push the button for ator.’ We all climbed up one flight, oors began to open. We were , me jamming the button wearing a nightshirt—I dy wore one of them now d out of the door. atter? Burglars?’ says ord, but Maida was ene LIC. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Lolita, on the floor below, let loose the loud- est collection of shrieks I've ever heard Of course we three didn’t know anything abo t it. When the elevator finally came y a our floor there was a crowd around bert tening to her scream. And so we got Chet to the Grand Central Station without any trouble at all.” Eddie sighed and looked reflectively at his empty coffee cup. “ There’s a good Story for you,” he said. “ Why don’t you write that and sell it toa magazine?” “Oh, for about a dozen reasons,” I re. plied. “I’ve listened to you, but— Look at what you’ve given me! A man kills an- other man and escapes. That’s no good. I’m going to write the story of the poor girl who marries the rich young man. Every magazine prints that story ever so often. I need nourishment, Eddie.” He smiled in a superior and extremely irritating manner. “ You've got me wrong,” he declared. “ That’s the way with you bum writers; you listen, but you don't hear.” He shook his head sadly. “He eats, he sleeps, he talks. He looks like a human being, but-that’s all. Your head should be used as the corner stone of a mausoleum.’’ “ ‘You can say what you like,” I retorted, a trifle brusquely. ‘I never argue with a man twenty pounds heavier and ten years younger. But the story you told me is hopeless! If you don’t write the story of the poor girl who marries a rich young man, you've got to write the story with a twist on the end. Now, you haven’t given me either.” Eddie gazed mournfully at the ceiling of the Automat. I looked upward also and saw it for the first time. At last he spoke. “ At times,” he remarked reflectively, ‘ 1 believe you have the mental development of a moving picture actor, but at other times J am doubtful. Take the story I have just told you, for instance. There’s about a dozen words more to it. “ When the gang in the apartment house came into Montana’s place, they expected to see his dead body lying on the table But it wasn’t there. And it wasn’t on the floor under the table. And it wasn’t in the comic 900ks.com aula