Adventure, June 1911 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

Denny the Rat bacco-shop, The five hundred would make it his, and then there was a girl. Even if she hated him, she was a good girl and would obey her mother. Mercury, pro- tector of nimble-fingered rogues, enveloped his head in rosy clouds. {il IN THE Holland House one after- noon two gentlemen were seated side by side. They were evidently strangers, for they did not speak. Pres-— ently the younger one, after puffing sev- eral times on a dead cigar, asked his neighbor for a light. The millionaire, for it was he, smiled disagreeably and was about to refuse, but somehow he didn’t. He searched in his pocket and brought forth a dirty little pine stick with just a tinge of red on one end. It was not much of a match as matches go. In the pocket of a millionaire it was a crying offense. As might have been expected, the match flickered feebly and went out. The younger man turned around and talked. His words were not. such as the Holland House is ac- customed to hear. They were not directed toward the unoffending lucifer, but toward the man who would carry sucha article. Larry then stalked solemnly to the cigar- stand, lighted his cigar and returned to his seat. The millionaire was charmed. He had never had any one talk to him like that. To his mind it represented the quintessence of what he most desired—disinterestedness. The words themselves fell from his back like water from a duck’s. Like Achilles, he had only the one vulnerable spot, and his heel was in his pocketbook. At last he had found a man who wanted nothing. This was no beggar for a philanthropic cause, no soft-voiced confidence man! An apology for the match, and the two fell into conversation. The millionaire had a hobby, like most of us. Two, in fact— books and municipal improvements. He thought every city should be beautiful. To this end he would abolish the ugly. The poor and ugly going together, he would abolish the poor likewise. The laboring class could be allowed to enter the city at daybreak. Having done. their work,: they should be driven out. Larry, while hating him, spresd. He went one step fiurtlien: he thought all poor lionaire as gracefully accepted. 293 should be isolated in some sort of colony such as lepers have. This idea met with the millionaire’s instant approval. - Over a cocktail they talked of books— Larry paying for the drinks and showing a vaster knowledge than the millionaire’s own. ‘Toward the close of the afternoon they had another drink and some cigars for which the millionaire was too slow in finding his change. The Rat, transformed into a monkey, stiffly informed Larry that “de car was woitin’.” Larry graciously offered the millionaire a lift. The mil- It was something for nothing; why not? In the luxury of the car, Larry momen- tarily allowed former suspicions to be lulled to rest; it had seemed too easy. Like many successful young men, he was too prone to. self-confidence. He forgot his own teaching—in time of greatest ap- parent security to be most vigilant. But his eyes ached from the study of civil im- provement; the Spring air was soft and | balmy, holding more than a hint of radiant Summer; the macadam smelled as though freshly boiled; the car scarcely bounced at all; the millionaire’s raucous voice seemed softened a little. He would be very gentle with the old man when he took his money. The Rat, too, was not such a bad sort— sneaky, of course, and would bear watching, but he had played his part fairly well. He would give him three hundred instead of the promised two. After that he would go away. New York was no place for a gen- tleman in Summer. He was scarcely aware of his companion’s saying, ‘‘ Now, my idea of a model municipality”—or of his own vague answer when the car came to a sud- den stop. He saw the Rat leap from his seat and run to the shelter of a massive gray build- ing, heard the millionaire’s protest and felt those hands at which he had so often jeered ' seize him and drag him out. Instantly his old-time alertness returned. He thought for a minute of trying to bluff; it out, until he saw Denny talking with the; sergeant. Then he knew he had been be-; trayed. He suffered peaceably the two officers to take his arms and lead him inside with only a backward glance at the avenue deepening into purple twilight, the low- bodied car panting eagerly to be off, the millionaire gesticulating wildly, and Denny, COnmicloocekSs.G©