Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

oy ae FRANK BELKNAP LONG, JR. my grasp and made for the door. I endeavored to follow, but I stumbled | over something slippery and fell flat upon my face. | When I got up, the young man was gone, and in my hand I held some- thing so weird that I could scarcely believe that it was real, and later I flung it from me with a cry of disgust. It was a reddish, rubbery substance ~ about five inches long, and its under edge was lined with little golden suckers that opened and closed while I stared at them. se I was still laboring under a fearful strain when Harry Morton entered the shop. He was trembling violently, and I noticed that he gazed fearfully be- hind him as he approached the counter. “What’s the best thing you have for highfalutin-acting nerves?” he asks. “Bromides,” I says. “I can mix you some. But what’s the trouble with your nerves, Harry?” es 7 : “Hallucinations,” he groans. “Them, and other things.” “Tell me about it,” I says. | | “I was leanin’ ’gainst a lamppost,” he says, “and.I sees a big lumbering yellowish thing walkin’ along the street like a man. It wasn’t natural, Henry. I’m not superstitious, but that there thing wasn’t natural. And then it flops into the gutter and runs like a streak of lightnin’. It made a funny noise, too. It said “Gulp.” I mixed the bromides and handed him the glass over the counter. “I un- derstand, Harry,” I says. “But don’t go about blowing your head off. No one would believe you.” 4. Statement of Helen Bowan I was sitting on the porch knitting when a young man with a bag stops in front of the house and looks up at me. “Good morning, madam,” he says, “have you a room with bath?” 3 / “Look at the sign, young man,” I says to him. “I’ve a nice light room on the second floor that should just ‘suit you.” Up he comes and smiles at me. But as soon as I saw him close I didn’t like him. He was so terribly thin, and his hand was bandaged, and he looked as if he had been in a fight. 2 “How much do you want for the room?” he asks. “Twelve dollars,” I told him. I wanted to get rid of him and‘I thought the high rate would scare him off, but his hand goes suddenly into his pocket and he brings. out a roll of bills, and begins counting them. I gets up very quickly and bows politely to him and takes his grip away from him, and rushes into the hall with it. I didn’t want to lose a prospect like that. Cousin Hiram has a game which he plays with shells, and I knew that the young man would be Cousin Hiram’s oyster.