Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

570 well,” drawled Geoff. party she give last summer that Lane met Miss Millie, and I had’a kind 0’ idee mebbe the little gal had somethin’ to do with the beginnin’ 0’ the friendship between him and her uncle, same as she had with the bustin’ 0’ it up, and that she wasn’t no more to blame for one than t’other. “Td figgered it out that if Benkard hadn’t needed Lane in his business he wouldn’t have made up with him and he’d have told him to go to blazes when he come sparkin’ the niece. Now, this here Mrs. Van Wert would. do most anythin’ to git ‘took up by the big bugs, and if Benkard had baited his hook for Lane with little Miss Millie I wanted to find out if Mrs. Van Wert held the rod a puppose.”’ ‘“ Did you?” Lyons asked quickly, with a new respect in his tone. “I don’t know how you doped all that out, but it seems like the straight goods to me. Had this dame been acting as capper for Benkard? How’d you get her going?” “Well, I let on to the feller that buttles for her when I sent in my name that I couldn’t come before because I’d been work- in’ at the Cayley place, so she was all fixed for gossip when he took me to her. I give it to her, too; I’ve told more lies to-day than I'll likely be able to live down the rest o’ my life!” Geoff chuckled. ‘‘T kinder made out that Miss Millie had took me into her confidence, bein’ as how I’d worked round their old house summer after summer since she was a little gal. I ‘lowed she was grievin’ ‘cause Lane had seemed to be sort o’ coolin’ off to’ards her after her uncle’s death, but that she’d told me Mis’ Van Wert would help her to git him back, that she’d interdooced ’em in the beginnin’ and had made the match. Mis’ Van Wert swallered it like it was candy and said it was true and she would do anything for the dear child. Then I let her drag it out o’ me after a lot more coaxin’ that folks were sayin’ Lane blamed her for gittin’ him in so deep with Benkard through her society inflooence that when she presented his niece and he saw Benkard wanted him to marry her he had to fall in with the idee or Benk- ard would wipe him out down on that there Stock Exchange.” ‘Tt was at a house © ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘Great Jehosaphat!” the doctor explod- ed. ‘‘ Where’d you ever get such a notion, Geoff?” ‘“ Didn’t git it nowheres,” Geoff respond- ed artlessly. ‘‘ I was baitin’ a little hook o’ my own, and Mis’ Van Wert riz right to it. Afore she stopped to think she said that Lane didn’t even know Miss Millie was Benkard’s niece till he was head over heels in love with her, and that she and Benkard had fixed it up between ’em. ‘“Then she kinder recollected she was just talkin’ to a country workman, and a gabby one at that, and she shut up like a clam, but I’d found out what I wanted to know. ’Zeppa, the cook at the Cayley place, had a’ready told me how partial Benkard was to remindin’ Miss Millie and her ma o’ what they owed to him, and you said yourself, doc, that after the readin’ 0’ the will this afternoon the little gal ‘lowed she was grateful to her uncle’s mem’ry for all he’d done for her even though she knew the motive. “Tl kinder figgered it out that Benkard never did nothin’ for nobuddy without mak- in’ it pay him in the end, one way or ’nother, and that he’d only brung Mis’ Cayley and her daughter on from the home town six years ago because he thought his: sister would be a help in gittin’ into society, the sort o’ society that would further his Wall Street schemes. Then when he seen how purty Miss Millie was he had her eddicated and groomed just like one o’ these here trained hosses at the county fair so’s when she was old ’nough to git married he’d fix it that it would be to somebuddy who’d be the greatest help o’ all to him. “Lane must ’a’ been the feller he needed most now to have with him and not ag’in’ him in some mighty big deal he was a-plan- nin’, so him and Mis’ Van Wert put their heads together. The little gal herself, though, didn’t take to the idee and it must have s’prised him a lot. Reckon she’s ’bout the only livin’ critter he .ain’t been able to git the whip hand over somehow. Any- way, last Wednesday night it looks to me as though she give Lane his answer good and plenty, and he seen how he’d been played for a sucker like he said, and the. game was up.” Gomichbooks:com