Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

LISTEN, - better and smiled fatuously. George’s maul- ing brought him to with a start. “Huh?” he repeated. ‘‘ Business? Oh, damn business!” George stared at him in a stunned sort of - way. George’s mouth hung open. He shook his head slowly from side to side. Leonard sprang to his feet, pacing up and down the room, his long arms waving dis- _ jointedly. ‘“Damn business!” he repeated brazen- ly. ‘* Damn everything! Beatrice—that’s all I’m interested in.” He walked on. ‘““ Everything I see reminds me of Bea- trice!”” he declared. “ Everything I hear! Why, George, listen—I can sit here all alone and recall every word she ever said to me. I can sit here all evening and hear her talk, as if she was in the room beside George groaned. “JT can hear her. sigh,” Leonard pro- claimed brazenly. ‘I can hear her laugh. I can hear every soft breath she draws. ~ George, I can hear the very beating of her heart.” ‘“My God!” George said solemnly. Leonard waved his long arms like a windmill. ‘‘What’s business, what’s money grub- bing, compared to happiness like mine?” he declaimed. ‘“‘ What’s fame? What’s any- thing compared to the sigh of a beautiful woman? Compared to the music of her laugh? Compared to the music of her lips murmuring your own name?” ‘Leonard, are you—are you in love with this girl?” George’s manner and voice were tragic. “Am I?” Leonard shouted. “‘ Listen! T’ll tell everybody I’m in love with her! You bet I’m in love with her! Now, what are you going to do about it, eh? I guess -it’s nothing to be ashamed of, is it, George? No! I’m in love with her! Well! Well, what are you looking like that for? Can’t you say something?”’ George Watt listened, aghast. George was a confirmed bachelor. Women, in his opinion, were a relic of man’s evolution from the tadpole, an en- -cumbrance which the human race would rid itself of in its further progress—a fifth TT7 wheel dragging against the onward journey of the chariot of civilization. Women were like barnacles, drifting about with every tide until chance brought them against some man. Then they would stick like grim death. And _ everybody knows what a barnacle does to sound timber. Well, the barnacles weren’t going to get his friend Leonard! George laid his hand on Leonard’s shoul- der. ‘That stuff is all the bunk,” he said. “ What’s the bunk?” “This love business. such thing.” ‘The devil there isn’t! Listen—” “No. It’s nothing but a delusion. A mental disturbance. A disease.” ‘““See here, do I understand you to call Beatrice a disease?”’ “Certainly she’s a disease!” Leonard struggled, but George held him sternly. ‘“Look what’s happened to you. Youre sallow, listless, off your feed. You neglect your business. You fly into fits of murder- ous passion. Then you mope. And you keep hearing things that ain’t. If that isn’t a disease, what is? It’s just like sunstroke, only easier to cure—” ‘“T don’t want to be cured—” “Why, Len, Ill fix you up in a min- ute!” Leonard glared. ‘ George,” he said thickly, ‘‘ listen! You make one more crack like that, and I’ll forget we’ve been friends for twenty years and paste you right on the nose. I mean it!” George saw he must use more tact. The patient must be humored. He changed his attitude, though his purpose remained grim- ly inflexible. “ Tt’s all right, old man,” he said, throw- ing his arm over Leonard’s shoulder. “There, just sit down and take it easy. Relax. Take a few deep, long breaths—” “Well, you lay off that stuff about dis- ease, then,” Leonard grumbled. “ Just because you’re all dried up and ready to blow away—” ‘“‘ Sure,’ George agreed soothingly. “ You look at everything through a mi- croscope. All you can see is germs and There isn’t any - chemicals—”’ oO CORNICGLOOKS sO