Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

THE TRUE STEEL. ing quality of the insolence from one who was wont to come seeking his customers had helped decide Warriner to go; he even found himself eager as he began to dress shortly before candle lighting. He would have dressed with equal care for a ball, a duel, or a dog fight. White nankeen trousers, revealing the contours of his mighty thighs and calves, a tight coat of blue broadcloth with rolling collar and long tails, a waistcoat of flowered silk with silver buttons. He pocketed a pair of beautifully chased pistols and a packet of money—both being necessary in all dealings with Snarg. At length Warriner was satisfied with himself; having made sure for the third time that his shirt, of linen as fine and soft as silk and worked with a multitude of pleats, was spotless. As particular as an Incroyable of the period of the Directory he, neverthe- less, looked the Viking for, like nearly all Warriners, he was tall, yellow-haired, barrel- chested and pink and white. A man with whom it was exceedingly dangerous to trade blows. Warriner leaped into his chaise without putting foot to step and gathered up the reins. The stable boy sprang away from the horse’s head and the chaise left with its iron tires striking fire from the roadway. For an hour the two-wheeled vehicle swayed and bumped, and fields and forests passed in a green stream. Then Warriner pulled down his powerful horse at the residence of Tobias Snarg. There was a curl of disgust upon his lips as he drew up in front of the big brick house, once a mansion, that Toby Snarg had acquired since his prosperity. [It was dark now, night having come during the hour, but Warriner knew that the gardens were choked with weeds, the hedges un- trimmed. The many windows of the house seemed like sad and hollow eyes. Dogs barked. The black boy came running to take the horse. Then the door opened and Snarg’s heavy carcass appeared there with the lightness of a dancing master. Snarg was surprising. He was gross, with iron muscles concealed beneath layers of fat. His teeth were yellow and stained, but strong as the teeth of a horse. He 615 grinned much and the corners of his mouth turned up broadly, but his grin was as likely to prelude a knife thrust as a handclasp. Now he stood bowing and grinning, so that Warriner could see the top of his cropped poll in the light from the doorway and note how the hair grew down upon his temples and into a peak above his brows. “Good evening to ye, sir!” he said. “ Come in, sir! They’s French wine wait- ing, Mr. Warriner, and some of the longest and blackest cigars that ever come out of Cuba!” How Toby Snarg hated him! Warriner smiled faintly from his seat in the chaise. But he loved money more. each other for no reason except that each was what he was. Snarg hated and feared and made money: and Warriner used him with a devil-may-care indifference to his venom which intensified that poison. Money! Snarg loved money even more’ than he hated a gentleman. “Well, Snarg!” Warriner vaulted from the chaise and stood beside Toby, looking down into his upturned, grinning face. “You've a mighty good reason for that note, I trust?” “Yes, sir!” Snarg led the way into the house, chuckling. “ It’s business to be done after dark and spoke in a whisper! You'll see why I didn’t come to you, Mr. Warri- ner! And you'll be thanking Toby Snarg that he wrote that note to you instead of somebody else!” They went into a room littered with guns, bits of harness, even smelling of the stable; but furnished with battered mahogany, with magnificent, tarnished silver candelabra. Odors of stale food and stale spirits. For a missing pane in one of the tall windows a piece of horse blanket had been substituted. “Have something to drink and smoke, Mr. Warriner!” Toby waved his fat, un- washed hands at the table, where sat half a dozen cobwebbed bottles and some bundles of cigars. He poured wine and stood grin- ning and rubbing his ale-stained shirt front. ““Tnr going to ask you to come upstairs and look at what I got for you,” he said. ‘“ Yow look first and then we'll talk business. Here’s your health, sir!” Warriner held his glass to the light and They hated = ¢ > — sae) 8. comicbooks;com pA eS 7a