Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

wr ° : ; ~~ 7 7 o* a ‘ieee JUNGLE LOVE. Present only in the café was the stained scum that froths on cities’ human tides. Young men whose youth was dead, old men whose eyes were sepulchers of unfor- gettable things, and—smiling, smiling wo- men who cluttered the divans and lounged at tables. Some of the men, not yet totally submerged, sat moody and silent facing their smiling partners of the passing. mo- ment. Others tossed back with meaning grins the women’s empty wanes, and others _ told whispered tales. A faint ripple of curious interest, such as stirs and throbs beneath some stagnant pool when a vagrant, bright-winged butter- fly falls and cloys its delicate. body with slime, passed among the scattered habitués of the Mog café de luxe as Julie trotted after Artie to the section of the big room reserved for diners. Sly-featured, servile waiters, chosen by the management to suit the patrons they served, pussy-footed together in twos and threes -to exchange opinions and bandy- worn, unclean jests. Here and there a man nodded a greeting, wigwagged a con- gratulation, or sneered with cynic jeal- _ousy. All was murmurous drone of the fish that came to -their foul nets, and Julie was quite young and pretty. As for the women, their smiles remained fixed, but in some. hard eyes showed a trace of part savage, part pitying contempt. In others was a dumb» blank indifference to this old, yet evergreen prelude to gradu- ation in this sisterhood of smiling women. Yet, although more than one subdued, mirth-void, tinkling laugh broke through the place, there were girlishly dressed womeh there whose blistered hearts suffered still another searing reminder of what might have been, had they *not followed the pied piper of loveless passions. A few there were whe once had all but reached the haven of happiness, and being cast out had spirit- ually. died and now—sat smiling. Bondaged slaves, too frail to ever rise again until they heard the call that would. for all time remove them from their dreary place in the market. One there was also who half rose from her chair as Julie passed. ‘“ Another,” she murmured and sank back again to a languid pose of elegant ease Fa -rowly studied the girl. ---— when the man facing her laughed coarsely and remarked: . ‘Nix on the buttinsky stuff, Leila. That guy ain’t had his rake-off yet. Whadder you kid yourself for anyway?”’ ‘ But she 1s not—”’ The man made a gesture of casual finality. “She will be,”«he retorted. ‘ She’s here!” Then he commented critically. “ Artie don’t pick ’em dressy, but she’s new.’ I'll say she is.” Tenderly as if he were oozening a fragile bit of thistledown, a big, clumsy-looking servitor wafted Julie into a chair set com- fortably back to the curtains draping the raised orchestra platform. In appearance, the waiter’s hands were red, coarse, hairy- backed hams; but in practise they were trained marvels of dexterity: He, like his fellows, was branded: Mog. He was a serv- ing machine, and his all-weening obsession was tips. The small, cunning brain con- trolling his big body was wedded to the ambition of acquiring a monument to John Barleycorn by cornering enough chicken- feed and greenbacks. Some day that lord of forks and teaspoons was going back— back to his native land to cultivate a beer- garden. He was a Mog waiter, and very naturally his tip-congested brain was inevi- table; but those flaccid muscles of his could have been used to better purpose than tot- ing teacups and spreading napkins for bifur- cated ghouls and satin-swathed sorceresses; but, and, well, an eight-pound sledge-ham- mer 7s rather heavy, and the fires of a steel furnace a bit too fierce for a flabby-spirited giant. Haying seated Julie where she can see the length and breadth of the café, Hamfist, being merely the flunkey in the picture, an accessory tp the scene as it were, passes out of further’ consideration. Artie is the principal in the. orbit of Julie’s ex- periences, and supers must not be allowed to distract attention. - Following a brief but impressively con- fidential conference with the waiter, Artie Falwell leaned back in his chair and nar- Julie, in her turn, would presently and more lightly do the same with Arthur; but just now the novelty of the scene, the splendor of the café, the CONMUC 393. OOOLK (COL