Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAN WITH A THOUSAND LEGS 3 49 green suckers in its tail and lookin’ like the devil on a Sunday outin’ or a knowin’-lookin’ skate what ud glare and glare at me, sir. But never nothin’ like this thing, sir. I caught it on the top o’ its Bou and it had the most human-lookin’ eyes I ever saw. They were blue and soulless, sir. It spat at me, and I throws down my line and beats it. I beats it, sir. Then I hears it come lumbering after me over the beach. It made a funny gulpin’ noise as if it was a-lickin’ its chops.” July 26. Elsie and I are leaving tomorrow. I’m on the verge of a lethal collapse. Elsie stutters whenever she tries to talk. I don’t blame her for stut- tering but I can’t understand why she wants to talk at all after what we've . seen. . . There are some things that can only be expressed by silence. The local chemist got a report this morning from the Board of Health. The stuff found on the beach consisted of hundreds of cells very much like the cells that compose the human body. And yet they weren’t human cells. The biologists were completely mystified by‘them, and a small culture is © _ now on its way to Washington, and another is being sent to the American Museum of Natural History. This morning the local authorities investigated the curious black pool in the rocks. Elsie and I and most of the other vacationists were on hand to watch operations. Thomas Wilshire, a member of the New Jersey constabu- lary, threw a plummet line into the pool and we all watched it eagerly as it paid out. “A hundred feet,” murmured Elsie as the police looked at one another in amazement. “Tt probably went into the sea,” someone exclaimed. “TI don’t think the pool itself is that deep.” Thomas Wilshire shook his head. “There’s queer things in that pool,” he said. “I don’t like the looks of it.” The diver was a bristling, brave little man with some obscure nervous affliction that made him tremble violently. “You'll have to go down at once,” said Wilshire. The diver shook his head and shuflled his feet. “Get him into his suit, boys!” ordered Wilshire, and the poor wretch was lifted bodily upon strong shoulders and paadtormed into a loathsome, goggle- eyed, monster. In a moment he had advanced to the pool and sani tica into its sinister black depths: Two men worked valiantly at the pumps, while Wilshire nodded sleepily and scratched his chin. “I wonder what he’ll find,” he mused. “Personally, I don’t think he’s got much chance of ever coming up. I wouldn’t be in his shoes for all the money in the United States mint.” After several minutes the rubber tubing began to jerk violently. “The poor lad!” muttered Wilshire. “I knew he didn’t have a chance. Pull, boys, pull!” The tubing was rapidly pulled in. There was nothing attached to it, but the lower portion was covered with glittering golden slime. Wilshire picked up the severed end and examined it casually. “Neatly clipped,” he said. “The poor devil!” | The rest of us looked at one another in horror. Elsie grew so pale that I > conniclbooks.conm