Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

GENTLE the plug?” the big swiper howls, sticking out his jaw and doing a mean glare up into the face of the escaped laughmaker on the seat of the wagon. ‘ Listen,” says this comedy poster, tak- ing off something which is supposed to be a hat and wiping some beads of dew off his face. ‘I ain’t seein’ no guy lick @ in- nocent horse. Get me?” “Sure [ll get you!” yells the tough gent. And he. reaches up to haul the other dodo out of the chariot. * Don’t do nothin’ wrong,” says the wag- on driver, trying to wave the manhandler off with his hat. ‘I never hurt nobody in my life, but I ain’t here to see a horse picked on.” ‘ T’ll eat you alive!” bawls the big know- a-lot; and he grabs the baby which f after- ward learn is Joe Gender; he yanks him down off the seat, and is about to smack him for a iron cross. This here is where we all go wrong some- times, as they says that every bozo has some weakness; and the weakness of the gent which was going to murder Joe was over- confidence. When the fireworks starts to blow I has the ringside seat, and it was a show I’m glad I didn’t miss. Joe, he don’t do nothing only wait for the big brass molder to haul back for the fatal spank; which he does—and Joe does a side-step and lets go with something which must ’a’ had cast-iron doorknobs in it. I hears the crack of light artillery, and when I gets through blinkin’ my eyes, the big boy is lollin’ in the dust of the street the same as if he has been kicked by a cannon ball. Then the funniest thing which I has ever witnessed in my life goes on: Joe gets out a ragged handkerchief and wipes some. real tears from his eyes. “Say, mister,” he moans, “I ain’t no guy to hurt people. I told him to lay off me. Sure I did. Look what I went and did to him. Mebbe he’s dead.” I looks at this surprise package in deen dismay and some wild perplexity; then I looks at the baby in the gutter, and I thinks maybe he is dead, the way he sleeps. But pretty soon he stirs round a little and sits up, wipin’ the mists from his eyes and try- ing to find out where is the freight train GENDER. 589 that socked him for the third rail. I lets him go right on sittin’ there in the street, and I turns to the boy wonder and grabs his arm, “Looky here,” I says throatily, “has you been drivin’ a express wagon all your life?” “No,” he says with a far-away smile; ‘““T used to be the porter in Robert Burns’s barber shop.” Under the circumstances of normalcy I would have done a wailing laugh, but this here kid gets me crazy; when you stops to figure it out that the bozo he smacked must ’a’ weighed more’n a hundred and ninety, you can see for yourself that this one must have something in his mitts which might make history if they is guided—and [I is just the gent to guide him. All this dope runs through my head like a whirligig as I surveys this buddin’ rose; but he don’t seem conscious at all of what he’s done. I hears a shuffling sound in the gutter and snaps round; and the big boy is stag- gering to his feet, trying to press something to his head to relieve the pains of disaster. He don’t do nothing, only take one hard, long look at Joe; then he goes over and gets his hands on his horse and wagon and quiet- ly, and with some gentlelike care, leads the pony on down the street. “You likes the animals?” I asks with a confidential smile. “Sure,” he says. in my life.” “You has it In you to break rocks with your fists,’ I remarks eagerly. | “‘T ain’t afraid of nobody,” he says, mod- estlike. Smack! Right there in that one little speech this guy gives off the thing ‘T never hurt nothin’ which makes me know he has fighting ma- » terial in him. When you get a bozo in the ring or out of it that ain’t afraid of nothing in this wide world, they is nothing which can stop him once he gets started. ‘“* Looky here,” I says, drawing him over closer to me; “ ain’t you never had no in- spirations to be a prize fighter?” “ Sure,” he returns with a monkey grin; “‘T been practicin’ in my studio for years.” Snigger that off, will you? Here I thinks T is going to break some good news to this freak of Jersey, and he comes right back S oO ECoOmichoo (S@)