Adventure Magazine Cover — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

The Mask “Oy gewalt, that’s a hot story. You should make a sucker outa me, yet.” ‘¢*Senough,” he decided. ‘‘Here in Rus- sia you ain’t nothing. We got it a way we should hendle fellers like you.” He whined an order to the sergeant. ‘‘Ves, comrade.”’ The hearing was at anend. The soldiers closed in about them and they were led out through intermimable corridors and pas- sages, thrust through a door and the key turned upon them. “____.”” remarked Morgan. ‘This is a fine mess I’ve got you into.”’ Barret made no reply. Dazed, sick and hopeless he stared about the little room with its cracked and stained plaster, its one barred window with a view of a blank wall opposite, and its two cots. It simply didn’t seem possible. Here he was, a law- abiding American citizen on a vacation from the wholesale hardware business, locked up in this place at the will of a little East Side Jew. Vaguely he wondered what the folks at home in Zanesville would think about it all. “Cheer up, bo, you'll soon be dead,” remarked Morgan again. ‘You look like you didn’t like this jail.’”’ “Eh, I beg your pardon?”’ “T said “Cheer up.’ ”’ “Oh, not at all, not at all,” said Barret vaguely. He was wondering whether he could get word to the American Consul somewhere—or did they have such a thing in Russia? “Well, have it your own way.” Morgan put his feet up on the cot over which he had previously draped himself and whistled a fragment of rag-time. “I’ve seen worse jails,” he suggested. “Beds are something, and a blanket is pretty Biltmore for this kind of a dump. Naturally it’s lousy, but you can’t have everything. What’s the matter?” Barret had risen hastily and was staring horror-struck at his cot. “Lice?” he managed to gasp, striving with a horrible nausea. ‘Sure,’ assented Morgan cheerfully. “You'll get used to’em. Takes your mind off your other troubles.” “My Pa At home lice were almost risqué. You didn’t speak of them in mixed company unless you knew the people very well, and then it was rather bad taste. But actually 137 to have them in your bed Of course they had cooties during the War, but some- how it didn’t seem quite the same thing. “Lice!” he moaned again. “Oh, forget it,’ Morgan advised him. “This ain’t a bad jail. There’s lice in all of "em.”’ Barret strove to conquer his disgust as he sat down gingerly on the edge.of his cot. “Have you—were you ever in jail be- fore?’ he asked hesitantly. It seemed to him a rather personal sort of question. Morgan laughed ironically. “Off and on,”’ he said briefly. you? Well, you would do it.” ‘You speak as though it were my fault,” snapped Barret irritated. “You ought never to have slipped that soldier so much,”’ Morgan explained. ‘‘He figured you had more, so he come back after it.” “The dirty crook,’”’ muttered Barret at the recollection. “Oh, he’s got to live. He’s no worse than the rest of us. Naturally he was going to get all he could. You can’t blame him for that.” ‘“You don’t blame him for cheating us?” = no. We’re all out after what we can get, ain’t we? ”’ “But there’s such a thing as common honesty.” “‘Not where it don’t pay, there ain’t. The biggest boner you can pull is to trust anybody—provided you ain’t got ’em where you can watch ’em, of course.” “‘Well,”’ said Barret, shocked, “‘I’m glad I don’t feel that way.” “If you had you’d be on the train to Moscow now.” ‘‘And where would you be?” Morgan yawned and grinned sardonically. ‘“‘There’s something in that,” he ad- mitted. ‘Here we are.”’ The words brought Barret back sharply to a realization of his predicament. His round, pink and white face fell. ‘“‘How long do you think they’Il keep us?” he asked. _ “Not long, probably. No percentage in feeding prisoners.”’ “Lucky for us. they’ll let us go?” ‘Shoot us, you mean.” Barret felt suddenly faint. This con- tingency had occurred to him of course, but it was different having it actually put into ‘“‘New to When do you suppose (i) COMIGHOO S (C©