Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

132 Roddy simply, turning toward this indivi- dual. Without even lifting his head from his task the proprietor counted out five of his ten-dollar bills and thrust them back- ward upon the bar in the direction of the gunman, who picked them up with his left hand and clumped them into a little ball beside his glass. “Told you ev’rybody likes a gunman,” he said smilingly. ‘Fill ’em up, Joe.” New York Roddy was very evidently on home soil. This jolly sniper against so- clety was as strongly entrenched here as a machine gunner behind his barricade. The fireman suspected that the “joint”? was pationized chiefly by a regular underworld clientele, and that New York Roddy, who had been operating boldly of late, was sus- picious of the errand of every stranger, no matter what his garb might be, who in- truded therein. “Have a drink, dad,” said the gunman affably, turning toward a tall dignified old gentleman who had entered unobtrusively from the back room. He might have been either a deacon or a _ prohibitionist—so eminently proper and respectable did he appear in his neat black suit and full beard, gazing about him with fatherly, bespec- tacled eyes. After he had drunk and de- parted Roddy nudged the fireman in the region of his left ribs with something small and hard that he held in his right-hand overcoat pocket. “See that old lad?” asked the gunman good-humoredly. ‘‘That dignified stall fools lots of people. You’d never think he was one of the slickest operators in the game, would you? What ship were you on in the outfit, Jack? Fill’em up, Joe.” The fireman began to be exceedingly perturbed. Already he had swallowed sev- eral glasses of the vile stimulant, just as any fireman on shore-leave looking around for liquor would be expected to do. He rea- lized that to back down now, when drinks were coming his way so frequently and with- out cost to him, would prod New York Roddy’s lurking suspicions into immediate certainty. As a rule when firemen go ashore and begin to drink, they keep right on drinking —that is, as long as financial or fraternal considerations permit. They almost in- variably drink as much as they can get. At any rate these were the well-established firemanly characteristics as observable in Adventure the Mott Street neighborhood; and this coal-heaver, knowing that the ice under his feet was thin, decided not to risk the slight- est chance of detection. He was behind the enemy’s barricade— within the enemy’s power, even, and not being gifted with sleight-of-hand attributes, he did not try to dispose of the liquor through any channel other than the logical road’ to his gullet. He knew that under New York Roddy’s imperturbable joviality was a nature like a tiger’s and that his mer- ry orbs owned the swift vision of a lynx. The fireman saw with grim foreboding that this was an issue to be decided by John Barleycorn, New York Roddy or him- self. Which of them could swallow the greater amount of this vile decoction and still live and retain his balance and his faculties? Being forced at the point of a revolver to drink himself drunk—that was a brand-new experience in a career already replete with novel sensations. What effect would further consumption of alcohol have upon the disposition of New York Roddy? Would he ultimately become sufficiently careless or sufficiently assured of the fireman’s harmlessness to re- move the muzzle of his gun from the direc- tion of the fireman’s ribs long enough to enable the latter to dive under his sweater and produce his own artillery? That was the question. Or, on the other hand, would he himself eventually become so maudlin from the liquor that he would lose control of himself and betray the secret of his presence? It seemed to him, in fact, that this was the very purpose that was hidden back of the gunman’s smiling eyes. Confound his sweater and his hesitation at the start! That was the fatal combination that he allowed to beat him thus far. New York Roddy, like a good general, had taken and held the initiative; and now the fireman knew that even one suspicious move of his own right hand in the direction of his hip pocket would have resulted— Well, the coal-heaver felt that his was a rather useful career and that he would as lief have it prolonged. “Want to see me get an- other fifty?’ asked Roddy with good- humored braggadocio. “T guess you can get it all right, partner,” admitted the fireman witha wink. He con- tinued to keep both his hands in plain view on the bar and to drink dutifully, asan honest COmiclbook C©