Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 164: what you’re looking at

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

By LESLIE GORDON BARNARD To o’clock in the market square of Trois Fourchettes. Two o’clock, and an after-dinner somnolence about the place. Horses, drooping their heads in contented laziness, or sniffing the ground in search of vagrant oats dropped from noon nose-bags; their masters, con- tentedly also, reclining under awnings pro- jecting from the line of stores, in which they hoped their good mesdames were not allowing the lure of new finery and such things to overcome their thriftiness. Out- side the small plated window that bore the name, ‘‘ Flaubert Deschesnes—Drugs, Con- fectionery and Novelties,” old Joseph Be- dard took slow and cautious revenge on M. Saucier for a defeat at draughts on the last market day. Within the store, Mme. Bedard oscillated between kitchen duties, following the noon meal served in the resi- dence above the store, and the sale of per- fumes and novelties and limited confections to the farmers’ wives and their numerous progeny. ‘““Draughts!” snorted madame. “ A\l- ways draughts for that old fool of mine, and concoctions of the devil for M’sieu’ Deschesnes himself!” She indulged in a very red-faced nod and frown in the di- rection of the small curtained-off laboratory at the back of the little store. “‘ But for me we would be with the bailiff in a week!” She fanned herself prodigiously in a mo- ment of respite. “ Hot? Mon Dieu, I should say! Old Grandpére Vadboncceur passed out in the heat two days ago. It is hard on the old and the sick. They say now that poor Raymond La Marche is very low. Just.a while ago I saw the La Marche rig drive by and go for the curé. I should not be surprised, poor young fellow, if he— But hark!” Unmistakably the sound of a bell—a bell of familiar tone. Madame shook her 799 fs EComicbooks.co =) _*