Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

CAVE MAN STUFF. ~soft words he draws, but that’s all. Mina, maybe, is kind of enjoying herself. If it ~ was fun to make one man climb a tree when she shook her stick, it must have been twice as much to see two of them running rings around her. Anyway, she don’t show no intention of stopping the merry dance. Bunt, he sells peanuts and pop corn, like there was no three-cornered problems had any interest for him. Some women is natural that way—like kids playing with matches, and the closer they camp to a nitro-glycerine factory, the more fun it is. It gives them a thrill like there ain’t nothing else like it. They’re al- ways surprised when they tear loose an ex- plosion that busts right in their faces. And, believe me, this gorilla Sam, even if he was goofy, wasn’t no penny firecracker that siz- zles and fades away. When he got to the blowing-up point, we looked for the world to come to a sudden end. We was all going around in sneakers for fear we’d make a sudden noise that might jar him loose. Sam almost quits shooting off his face on the lot, and that’s a’ mean ‘sign. Mina still shoots a wicked smile, like Sam’s feelings wasn’t destroying no sleep for her. shadow. Some days you couldn’t hardly ‘see him at all. And Pete Girston, him that could have stopped the works in two min- utes by making one slice at the pay of all three, he was keeping away from the lot as much as he could. Every time he showed up, some of the boys that Sam had abused was sure to back him up against a tent and spill a bucket of woe. That wasn’t like Pete. We couldn’t figure his game no way we piped the lay. Pete was the best hand at minding his own business we’d ever seen. He was mind- ing it so good that a fair part of it, mean- ing us, was like to be ruined without him having a word to say. We might have knowed Peter better, but it seemed to stack up that way. Pete wasn’t worried none about Sam beat- ing us up; there wasn’t no hospital bills being paid by him. But he did notice Sam was laying down on the job. That was bad business. Sam was walking all over the lot for pleasure whenever he wanted to Bunt wasn’t no more than a stretch his crooked legs. a free show, even without trimmings, by parading around outside of the front. The second week that the money from the Sam- son tent took a zero skid Pete gives this hyena a ballout before the bunch. That week we was pitched in a corn belt dump where the Wows was giving a bean feast, trying to pay for a wooden, two- story skyscraper where they could go to get away from the women at home. In - them hick towns, no matter how much ex- citement there is after the cows is fed and the chickens milked, nothing ever busts open much before noon. It was about ten o’clock, before the first opening, Sam picks his time to take a stroll. And Pete, he waylays Sam. Talks quiet, as if Sam was listening to talk after being in training the —_—_ way he’d been. It happens out in front of the Samson tent. “Sam,” says Pete, pleasant, “ the last two weeks you ain’t been pulling good. Last week was a hundred counters less than _ the week before. What are we going to do ; about it?” There ain’t no boob that’s simple enough to pay two bits to look at a freak when the freak gives them $05 “Nothing,” says Sam, with a nasty Took ce in his eye. “ What you expect me to do?” ““ Keep your ugly mug back of the front,” says Pete. mush a mutt can have and still live.” “That’s my business,” says sulky Sam, him with not sense enough to know he’s be- - ing insulted. | : “Wrong,” says Pete. ‘“ It’s my business, and it ain’t so good as I want it. Which if it ain’t better this,week, you wander down — the road.”’ “ Fire me?” asks Sam, — to see red. “You’re a good guesser,” says Pete. He figures the conversation is closed. Sam roars: “You fire me! tell you—try it—” That’s Sam’s idea of a snappy come- back. Pete gives him a calm once-over like _ he was a tent pole or something. “ All I say is, stay in that tent to-day till I tell you to pull on your pants and — oO “So you don’t scare the rubes. —~ cold before they pay to see what an awful Can’t—try it—try it—I_ “COmicbooks.co