Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

A PORTRAIT OF HOPE. introduction? I’m asking you,” says Tommy, as he inspects the junk he’s lifted off the lob. The guy grins. He’s a big mutt, and Tommy should have known better. ‘““ Well,” says he, still grinning, “ I admits” —and here he tands a punch in Tommy's slats—‘ that a breach of etiket has been committed”—and here he hands Tommy a. drive in the pantry—‘ but I[ considered the gathermg to be rather informal’’—and he plants one in Tommy’s eye—“ and that good people don’t need an introduction, nghow,” and with this he puts our little friend down and out with what looks like an easy one on the point of the jaw. it was all over in a pair of minutes, but Tommy takes the full count and then some, and when he come to he wants to know if the engine hit him or if it was the ca- beose. “it was an awful wreck,” says Temmy, trying to sit up, “ the cries of the dead and wounded was heart-rending,”’ says Tommy, and then he sees the guy kind of smiling as he rolls a pill. “Did you say something about wanting to mingle with us?” says Tommy. The eink says he did. “ You're elected,” says Tommy. “I don’t know who you are, or what you were, but you seem to be there with the rough stuff, and we need it from time to time. Slip us the makings,” said Tommy, and after he’s fixed up and has a wet rag to his lamp he shakes hands with the guy and gives him back hts stuff, pick- ing it off the ground where it went when, the ‘hay-maker was handed out. There’s something about the new fellow that makes you feel he’s all rizht, and we ali gets talking to him. He don’t spill noth- ing about himself, and of course we don’t ask no personal questions, though Stim wants to know if he’s. wise to what he’s getting in to if he joins on. = / “It am’t,” says Slim, “as if our hittle jaunts hither and yon was. entirely aim- less. We is all possessed of a yearning for travel, and gratifies it.in a manner which might appear crude and barbaric to thoSe whe have a yin for sinful luxury. The poet guy says: ‘As we journey through life let us live by the way,’ and in order to do that little thing we find it necessary to 9A 513 raise a little kale now and again. And as the small-town banks sometimes carrya little cash on hand over and above what the directors loan to themselves for specula- tion, we often and frequent avails ourselves of of tas hoarded surplus when it’s posstble so without attracting undue atten- ray “I appreciate the situation,” says the new guy, “and though I regrets the fact that my early training did not include the detail and technique of safe-cracking I have atways maintained that a man of ordinary intelligence may become proficient in many lines of endeavor to which he had previously given. slight consideratien. There are, no doubt, several and sundry © features connected with this—er—industry with which FT must become familiar, but I feels I have made no mistake in the se- lection of able instructors.”’ Say, to hear him and Slim and Tommy pullmg that line of chatter you'd think they was ail professors in some knowledge box, and all I can do is to give it to you the best I can, not being there with the flossy talk like I should. 1 don’t know where Tommy and Slim gets it, for they’re both blowed-in-the-gtass stiffs, but they can sure pull the language in some swell manner. Tommy wants to know if the new suy Is wise to the patter of the broad high- way. “ You see,” says Tommy, “ some- times you gets in with a bunch of hard- boiled eggs, and if your language shows - Tack of culture you might be mistook for a gay-cat, or even for a blanket-stiff. Of course your looks ss a fair alibi, but it’s best to avoid the appearances and mane nerisms of those who are not all they should be. So now, when I asks you if you can batter the stoops for a handout, or could you frame a getaway if you was vagged on the main drag by a harness bull, I’m only a asking you to get a line on what you: needs mn the matter of education. The new gink ts awful willing to wise up, and it’s a pleasure to teach him. He don’t see no sense in some of the things we tells him, and I admits he’s right at that, but 1f the proper name for a mush-faker is’ ‘* mush-faker,” and for white-line is “ white- * CORNIC AOOLK Colin