Avon Fantasy Reader No. 12 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

Tiger Dest by Brassott Wore an Bassett Morgan’s best known story is the remarkahle “Laocoon,” a tale of a sea serpent, of a scientist wild toith entriosity. aud of a Chinese wha traded his haman soul for that of the deep-sea beast. “Laocoon” has been made available in other collections—but Bassett Morgair’s output: teas uot restricted to that classic alone. “Tiger Dust” is replete with the same tropical Asia background, with feeling for the ways of jungle-dwelling people, and with the putency of the oriental magic that may transform a tiger from a beast to a thing of marvel. The story of a Malayan wife's vengeance is a fantastic classic reminiscent of Somerset Maugham’s tropical tales. ITH an order for Paradise birds to be shipped to a pri- vate collector, Dineen decided to see. if any could be bought from Omar Sung Loo, a native dealer whose unscrupulous trickery had made all dealers wary of him and caused the captains of cargo boats to refuse to carry his trapped animals and birds, Dineen had been cheated by Omar Sung Loo in his early days of collecting but he had cut his eye-teeth in the game and wiped off his score against the native dealer. He was on his guard, aud with him went bis chief trapper aud right-hand man, Tom Rourke, big, devil-may-care Irish- man, equally at home with the uatives and white men in their gather- ing-places of Malaysia. Over a drink before they started, Rourke unbosomed the fact that he had taken a native wife. “Faith, a man that might any day set his foot on the tail of a kin cobra has no business to marry a nice white girl,” he said. “Should [ meet up wid a hungry tiger, my fate wouldi’t be good for her to con- template, But native women understand their country an’ its peculiar accidents. What’s more, they have ways of aveugin’ a man just as white widows have accident insurance claims. There’s a savin’ that where nature grows a poison the antidote is near by, Maybe ’tis true. But anyway I paid dear for a little golden native woman from the temple. She dances finely, an’ she knows native magic. I hope you'll feel free to visit our bungalow any time, sir.” Time came when Dineen wished to God he had not bothered with the order for Paradise birds or met Rourke’s native wife. 84 comichbooks.com