Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

550 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. There was Mme. Jeanne to consider, too —poor little Mme. Jeanne, who dared not tell her husband that she would, before long, have a baby. Teddy, the sullen, wretched victim of his father’s abortive paternal pride and egotism. ‘Teddy goaded to a ren- dezvous with a juke-girl! And the more he thought about it the angrier at Teddy he became. ‘The selfish young beast! The unspeakable coward! He deserved a sound thrashing! Javalie endeavored in vain to cast these dangerous thoughts out, and he only be- came more hostile toward Teddy. He had been caught protestingly in the hot, racing cogs of a machine whose product was emo- tional impulse. So far and no farther he retained his precious faculty of looking the situation objectively in the face. He knew that it would be wiser to sit down somewhere and cool off rather than risk a talk with Mme. Jeanne’s husband. But the march of events carried him sternly on to that meeting. Dan Martin was wait- ing for him on the service porch when he passed. Mr. Teddy was not in his room. He had had a late breakfast, and had been seen a half hour ago walking down the path toward the ocean. He was, presuma- bly, going swimming, than which there is nothing better for banishing the horrid, aches of the morning after. Now, Javalie had made three prophecies the night before, and all but one had al- ready been realized. The first was to the effect that Nanette Banning would flirt with him; the second, that Mme. Jeanne would come to him weeping, having been weeping, or about to weep, pleading for religious comfort; thirdly, he had prophesied that Theodore P. Banning, Jr., would find some excuse for picking a quarrel with him be- fore he had been in the house twenty-four hours. Something more than prophetic instinct assured him that the trio was now to be completed. Teddy, in a white-and-black silk swim- ming suit, was lying face down in the hot sand. He had been in; the suit was plas- tered to him and his hair was wet and sandy. He looked up when Javalie was a dozen feet away—looked up from crim- soned eyes with dark pouches under them, and a slow, curling smile. He pushed him- self up on his elbows and waggled his feet in the air. ‘ Hello, holy roller, how many souls have you yanked off the coals so far this morn- ing?” Javalie gazed down at him pensively. “Five souls have been gathered into the fold to-day, my friend.” The young man scowled. “Say, can’t you talk plain American? I am sick of lis- tening to that holier-than-thou stuff.” “* [ will say this much in plain American, to begin with,” Javalie replied evenly. “You are a contemptible little coward. Is that plain enough to suit?” Ted Banning stared up at him with an expression of stunned amazement. Slowly he came to his feet, and slowly his face became crimson, next his neck and shoul- ders, even his arms. He was, as his mother had been, rather slow to anger. “ T’ll give you a chance to explain that,” he drawled, ‘‘ but you’d better talk damned fast!” Javalie had not moved, but a muscle under his right eye was twitching. He stiil stood about ten feet away from the heir to the Banning millions. His eyes were steady and frostily hard. “JT will try to explain a number of things,” he said. ‘‘ You are a coward be- cause—”’ “Tf you call me that again I’ll smash you!”’ “ You—are—a—coward !” Ted Banning came at him like a charging lion, with lowered head and flailing arms. Javalie sidestepped quickly and caught him sharply under the chin with his cupped hand. The boy’s head snapped back and he dropped sprawling into the sand. He sprang up, spitting. “Damn your soul!”’ He threw himself at Javalie recklessly. Javalie struck his fists aside with the sweep of one arm; then, with the other, caught him about the shoulders, lifted him face up over his head, kicking and cursing, and walked down the beach and into the water. The boy hammered and clawed at him, but Comic oookS Conn