Adventure, January 20, 1922 — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

Men of the Night and though she sat stiffly as if on a throne she smiled encouragingly, and all the while scarcely heard a word of what he said. The wolfhound dropped at her feet, and this gave her pride; for she caught the faint expression on Middleton’s face—just a glimmer of surprize that his own dog should crouch adoringly before a stranger. By the dim lines of amusement that then appeared she knew he was cynically thinking that even dogs fell under her charm. Billy took her pleased smile unto himself and grew more animated. WHEN Silkeen Harry came Mid- dleton met him in an adjoining room and talked with him there. Silkeen came forward respectfully, mov- ing with a lithe slouch, alertly furtive. He was thin of body and face. His cap was in his fingers. His chest looked bigger than it was because of the padded leather.coat. He wore leather puttees, and his shoes had rubber soles. There was nothing of bravado in his appearance. He looked sickly and at that moment apologetic. : Before he spoke he glanced watchfully behind him, from force of a cautious habit. Putting out a claw-like hand, he showed a platinum ring, glittering with stones, and said: “Dis was dere. Some un o’ dem gar-ige guys might’ve found it. An dey’re all tieves. It’s wort’ a couple hun’red bones.” Like all crooks, he estimated value by, not the jeweler’s price, but the fence’s. Middleton gave it an appraising glance and put it aside. Silkeen went on, nervously humble: “Hope youse don’t t’ink I was off my nut, Misser Mid’ton. I lamps them chives an’ I tears loose. I hear on my way up dey was bot’ dagoes. Dey sure out to make a bum-lookin’ corpse 0’ youse.”’ “But they must have mistaken me for some one. Don’t you think that possible, Harry?” “Dagoes is humans. Like de rest of us, dey sometimes croaks de wrong guy.” Middleton scrutinized the thin, sharp face, lighted up by deep, black eyes un- naturally glowing. The eyes had the tilt of a yellow man’s, and were nervous, almost abashed, restless; the sort of eyes that any student of human nature would say were not to be trusted. Students of human nature, preachers, judges, professors, almost everybody, talk as if there were no kinship between the evil and the virtuous, and have not yet learned that the cleverest rascals have steady eyes and a handclasp warm and firm as a brother’s welcome. “They made a mistake, Harry. It would be stupid to try to thank you.” “Youse welcome. B’lieve me, youse welcome t’ anyt’ing I got, Misser Mid’ton.” “That was the fastest gunwork I ever saw even you do, Harry. Incredibly fast. And accurate. It was all over before I got myself turned around. You must have thought e Z , Misser Mid’ton, I don’t t’ink. I jus’ shut me eyes an’ shoots,’ he said with uneasy modesty, shifting his feet, shifting his shoulders, looking down at his cap. Middleton watched him, then nodded slightly, saying with irony too subtle for ilkeen: “That’s the way most people shoot. Not every one has your luck.”’ “Youse said it!” “Those poor devils made a mistake—a bad one. But just supposing, Harry, they were after me; say somebody was out to put me away—Cabron for. instance.” “Dat ’d be awful,” said Silkeen Harry moving his feet; and from an angle his black eyes watched Middleton. ‘“‘He was really as bad as they say, Harry? This Cabron.” “Worser.”’ “They sent him up, didn’t they? This Cabron?” Middleton asked it casually, idly. “Yeah. But dey oughta give dat guy a million years. He was wicious, dat guy.” “You had a run-in with him once, didn’t your”. Middleton might have been inquiring about something that had happened in a play, dimly remembered. - “T t’rowed a rod on ’im. But I wasn’t lucky dat time.” “What was the argument, Harry?” ““Dere wasn’t no arg’ment, Misser Mid’- ton. None a-tall. I done a little job f’r him. He promised all kinds o’ protection, ’n’ wouldn’t come t’rough. He give me the double cross an’ I had ’o duck an’ lay low. When I comes up f’r air I takes a shot at him. I said I’d get dat guy, an’ he’d better crawl in a coffin an’ let somebody bury him if he don’t want some lead pills in his guts. I’m tellin’ youse.”’ COmicloooks 99 - (C@