Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

The man, amazed at the words he had spoken, stopped short. He was speechless. A great silence filled the room, a silence that was broken faintly by the entrance of a number of late comers who tiptoed in to seat themselves along the wall just inside the door. Corvan looked up, noting them. Welsh and Jim Noylan were among them, and the gambler sat to fix a cold stare upon Corvan while Noylan sneered upon the room in gen- erin == Mrs. Humphrey was on her feet. Feel- ing in her heart that all had not been said, that the silence following Sumpty’s out- burst demanded imperatively a confirming voice, she had arisen as though enchanted. She, who bore the repute of cold indiffer- ence, spilled forth the overflow of a heart that was hot with an emotion she could not fathom. She spoke of men, young men who had been boys. ‘|... They would come into my kitch- en,” she said, her voice soft, and her eyes far off in retrospection. “ They tracked it up. .... And we didn’t know what would be called for from them..... But it seems they had been called, these boys, and some of them had not returned. .... Then we didn’t have the heart or the spirit to re- member them. We quarreled and wrangled while they laid out there dead in strange lands. And who was it that understood at last? Who was it that must come from heaven knows where to set us right and see that the thing was done? .... “Tt seemed as if he knew almost better than us what was in a mother’s heart and mind..... And that wasn’t all. Do you remember what Harold Trench was like?” They did; they did. Who among them had not viewed the twisted, idiot boy with pity as he wandered about the village? Cor- van remembered, too. Under the words of the homely, gentle woman as she stood twisting nervously the napkin she held in her hands, he writhed with a feeling akin to shame. For while he remembered the Har- old Trench that had been, he was gazing upon the face of Welsh—the symbol of a dark hour of the past that was to bring him ruin and degradation. And he gazed at Welsh over the shoulder of Wade. His soul THE CONFIDENCE MAN. 6il revolted at the words he heard. The sim- plicity and directness which ruled the minds of these people; sentimentality which tinted their vision in all things which turned out well caused them to read inte his actions a virtue which was not there. If they could know a shade of the real Corvan, he re- flected, it would shatter all their faith. The third Mrs, Humphrey was no orator. She knew none of the tricks which can make speech glow with pyrotechnic fire. But there was in her vast sincerity a fire of more genuine quality that burned more brightly and caught fire quickly, as fanned flame will, upon the ready fuel about. it. She mentioned the storm and the wreck; the fire spread to Grimshaw as the enfee- bled derelict sat with his mind upon a pic- ture. The picture of that moment when the land had been blotted out in black- ness. Grimshaw slowly pulled himself erect. ‘“ Ef I kin interrupt—” he mumbled. The woman stopped short; stood gazing upon him; and all the company gazed upon him, too. Grimshaw seemed blind to them, how- ever. His burning eyes were fixed now upon Wade, now upon Corvan. Sometimes they stole to the door furtively to lave with their fire Welsh and Noylan. spoke to Wade. Grimshaw was speaking of his past, and he spoke defiantly. He summed it up in short, bitter sentences, not hiding that vile- ness of which his whole descending life had proved man capable. The village people shuddered and paled before his words; but he was blind to them. He was speaking to his kind. “And there’s others to-day, thousands, who are headed in the same direction!” he cried into Wade’s graven face. ‘‘ There’s others who don’t know and wouldn’t believe that I’ve done the gentleman swindler, too, in my time..... You can see where it’s brought me! A wharf rat! A wreck! A spy—” “ Beetle Brower, entering the room, re- ceived the phrase full in the chest. He cringed. Corvan noticed this as he noticed every movement in the room. In his heart he, too, was cringing. He had cringed at the But chiefly he oO eonmichools.cons wh : bs } * ra] wie A NF tea 5 > a dete ders ce FES os : j & bhi ee Te a Pee | enh PUTAS Y A cafht\s Shai eh ee oe ew Re oS J ric ais) he hoe RT UPS UO p User Meth AMR Reh Ts A SA ee