Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

134 A merry Christmas will work wonders; even in extreme cases. It worked wonders with the Old Man, who climbed from his slough of despondency with indescribable alacrity, and who purred over his plateful like some happy kitten. “Delicious,” purred the Old Man, sink- ing gleaming teeth into a leg of fowl, crisped | “Delicious,” he “What is it, and seasoned to a nicety. reiterated his contentment. may I ask?” “That,” replied Sleepy Caldwell, hovering near by, “is what you might call—might call——”’ “The satisfactory substitute,” I put in quickly. | ‘“‘Well said, Lewis,”’ thrilled the Old Man. “Well said!’ And he launched another at- tack on his plateful. Presently Sleepy Caldwell called for three cheers for his cooks; three cheers for his waiters; and three cheers for m’sieu whom he dug up from behind the smoking kitchen and who turned out to be none other than the little old man Canning and I had seen at Sleepy’s billet. “Without whose aid,” Caldwell explained to the diners, ‘‘this dinner would not have been what it has been today.” The cheers were given. Then, and not until then, did Colonel Talbot, C. M. G., D. S. O.—and one bar, not heretofore men- tioned—rise to his feet, demanding an audience. “Men,” bellowed the Old Man when he had got a pin-drop hush, “TI just want to lead you in three hearty yells for Santa Claus,” WE WERE all there when the Old = Bx Man handed Sleepy Caldwell his © $M leave warrant. “Have a good time, Caldwell,” he said. ‘‘Permit me to say—ahem!—you earned it.” Thank you, sir,” grinned Sleepy. A woman’s scream from the chateau yard whipped into the room. Sleepy Cald- well, a strange look on his face, started from his chair. The Old Man hopped to the window, from which he bent his eye on the chateau pond. “Tt’s madame,” he said, as more yelling reached our ears. ‘“‘She’s running up and down and tearing her hair. She went out a few minutes ago to bring in her ducks. The pond’s frozen over. And by the looks of things she’s found her birds frozen, too. Adventure Come to think of it, I haven’t heard a squawk from the flock for some time now.” Sleepy Caldwell got to his feet. “Well, s’long, gang,” he grinned. “Got to be off.” The door slammed and he was gone. More shrieks from the pond. The Old Man said: - “Funny mixture, Caldwell. One is apt to misjudge him. Who would have ex- pected him to stage the surprize he did? And that fowl! Delicious, eh? I guess we were lucky we didn’t waste good money on those ducks. Long-necked things—tough as nails, likely.” The door to our room had slammed open. Madame Deuquet, wild-eyed and breathing hard, stood on the threshold. In each hand she clutched a bunch of feathers. “Voller,” she cried and threw the feather things straight at the Old Man's head. Sleepy wrote from Paris. Here’s the very note; and this is what he wrote: “DEAR GANG: “I’m sorry I couldn’t see my way clear to staying for the final curtain. When the dear old lady hol- lered the way she did I figured she had discovered all was not as well on her Potomac of a pond as appeared to be. You may have the thousand I won off Canning. Put it down as my contribution to the little box of heartbalm the dear old lady likely demanded of you. May I confess that I planned that Santy Claus dinner when we first came to Falpart. ‘“‘At one time I had the doggone ducks bought for two hundred francs. I mean I could have bought them for that. Then you chaps commenced to run hog-wild on that competition business with the result that I had to do some tall stepping to land the birds a-tall. Thanks, however, to M’sieu oe I was able to carry my plans to a successful end.” ‘Wait a moment!”’ It was Canning who had blatted interruption. I stopped reading. “One thing at a time,” he said. “Let’s get this M’sieu Cauche business straight. Who’s he? What’s he got to do with our story?” “Why,” I smiled, “‘Cauche is the little old frog, as you called him, with the funny- word sign over his door; in other words the taxidermist who built those dummy ducks that madame found in her enclosure. It’s quite clear to me now.” “Tt does seem —— clear to you,” sniffed Canning. ‘‘Just how much did you know, Lewis, about these goings-on?” CORNICLO© (©