Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

wasn’t a pleasant sound. Pull any on but I guess you can get that, eh, Sam?” Sam goes crazy with what he’s got in “You fire me! You want fight, eh? You talk too much—you try! I liek you right now—” He starts for Pete with his head dropped like a battling bull. Pete puts one hand in his coat pocket, but he don’t move @ step. “Sam!” he yells sudden. This strong guy sort of hesitates and looks up, him being in the habit ef doing his best work when he gets a guy on the run. Somehow Pete don’t look like he knew the steps. *“Sam,” says Pete, “we ain’t fighting to-day. 1 don’t aim to bother with no ehunk of cheese. But I pack a gun for mad dogs, and the first move you make I'll show 2 you how a nutmeg grater got so it looks that He was talking real nice, but it ‘““ Come on, now, Sam, and get punctured. There’s a nice, way. >» = quiet grave in this burg just waiting for you. ‘Fhey don’t charge no more when they make them big. What are you waiting for, Sam? -€ome on, and get killed, nice and friend- ly, and Pll have you planted under a wil- low tree. You’ve got enough pay comimng— and you won’t need it, you being dead that way.” Sam stares like one of these hypnotized ginks at Pete’s finger, which makes a nasty, wiggling kind of a bulge in the side pocket of his coat. The big gimmick gulps once or twice, but don’t show no special anxious- neces t0-Step. wp and te ted he he gets a bright idea—for him. “JT quit!” he says, not so loud as he yelled before. -“T thought so,” says Pete. “ Get into that tent, and don’t. show your flat map outside it the rest of the day.” “J guit now—I. quit you—I quit the = show—lI don’t stay no more—” yapps Sam, __ trying to make himself clear. Pete never ___ batted an eye. ae Thanks,” he says. ‘‘ And if you're not off ae lot in fifteen ne and out of — ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. quit. And no rough stuff! me, and I'll knock you so far you'll be a ‘week crawling back. I know you're thick, town by to-night, to-morrow morning you'll look worse yet than you do to-day.” Pete was a great man. He’d kept Sam’s ~ number when the rest of us had throwed it away. But Sam wasn’t fimished. With his nerve and no sense he’d tried to swim the Atlantic thinking it ended at Coney and he’d get a lift going across. Here he goes now, after Pete has messed up his feelings, beating it to the women’s dressing tent. In the show-shop, that’s a hanging offense. Mina was in there. That’s all he needed to know. He busted in like a wild man. ‘Two or three of the janes that was dolling up to get out on the job said afterwards he wasted no looks at them. Just the same they started yelling like they’d found a herd of porch climbers under the bed. Mina was sitting down by her box putting on her face for the day. . Sam rushes up and grabs her under the arm. “You come by me—” he says. Mina just gives one yell, and looks around for a weapon to bean him with. ‘““Get out of here, you big stiff!” she hollers. “ You turn me loose! You'll get the can for this!” “Ym quit,” he says stubborn. “I leave the show—you got to pack up and come.” “JT see myself!” says Mina. “ Ain’t you got any decency, busting in here?” Sam’s got one idea, and he can’t get, away from it none. “You come with me! Me, I don’t go alone! You come now quiet, or—” Whango! Mina lifted up the trunk tray and busts it over his bean. Sam shakes his head, brushes the splinters off from his shoulders, and jounces the frame down on the ground. He makes a pass at Mina and lifts her off her feet. She wasn’t no feather, at that. She claws like a cat, yelling twice as loud_as before. She’d of spoiled his face, if there was anything could—kicks hard enough to bust in the side of a barn. Sam starts with her like he aimed ta carry her the rest of the week. -“ Bunt!” she howls before even they’re outside. “Bunt!” What do you know Sout that? Her that’s been hounding him, the poor tripe, till he’s thin as a a hair, yelling for him te save =comicbooks Ss com