Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

By JOHN D.' SWAIN Author of ‘‘So This Is Wedlock,’’ ‘‘ The Owl Man,’’ etc. A NOVELETTE—COMPLETE IN THIS ISSUE in whose bland precincts as mo- mentous events have happened as in any garden of history save possibly that of Eden, two men sat talking earnestly. They had met casually through the time- honored preliminary of a borrowed match, but their conversation had gradually taken a momentous turn. | The elder, a cosmopolite of a possible thirty years, was in morning coat, lavender gloves and cravat, Austrian velour hat, and snakewood walking stick, a fine and un- tamed specimen of the true boulevardier. He had a little pointed beard, and a mono- cle dangled by its black silk ribbon. The other was unquestionably an American youth of good family, frank, ingenuous, and in the hands of his chance acquaintance at least ten years younger than his real age, which was somewhere in the early twenties. 2A QO: a bench in the Jardin des Tuileries, He was lean, broad-shouldered, clear eyed, and dressed with the sort of careless smart- ness which is characteristic of our college lads. “And so here I am,” he was saying, a rueful smile on his lips. “In Paris, ‘ the Queen of the World,’ with fifty dollars a month to do just whatever I please with! Like a chap sitting in the lobby of the Ritz, with a quarter in his pocket.” Without in the least seeming to do so, the elder had led George Strong on to talk about himself. To be sure, this was not an insuperable task. All his brief and care- free life long, young George had been mak- ing damaging confessions to chance listen- ers. It wasn’t conceit. Nor were there any dark secrets in his past to lighten the cor- ners of club lounges and smoking cars. It was in reality a sort of honesty carried to excess. 657 16) <S 000) (<)