Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

SUSPENSE. I explained, shy. “Oh, he’s real nice, Andy, and I think it was sweet of him to bother like this, don’t you?” ‘Yeh, sweet as an unripe lemon,” he crowled. “ Why didn’t you let me tend to ‘em, huh? Ain’t I your future husband?” “T know, Andy,” I soothed; “ but you see he—he wanted to. He’d do anything in the world for me.” “He would, would he?” snarled my boy friend, jealous as a Mexican hairless is of a St. Bernard. “ Then tell him to pick you the cauliflower off Dempsey’s left ear or bring you a bunch of forget-me-nots from the fist of Luis Angel. Yah!” ‘“ Don't be so mean, Andy.” “Mean?” he exploded. “ Say, it don’t make no difference to me if your old sweetie wants to play porter. Id merely like to hand him the tip that whoever horns in on my little parties usually ends up the goat. That’s all—I only want him te comprenay that Andrew R. Gibbons is about as safe to play with as the third rail, the third de- gree, or the third party—see?” “ Three don’t seem to be a lucky number with you,” I sbserved, amused. ‘“When it comes to me and my gil,” he announced, grim, “‘ two’s company and three’s a funeral. That’s all I got to tell this here Mr. Pinned-her-fast—”’ “ Prendergast,” I corrected. He jumped on me. “Tf you’re so crazy over the name, why didn’t you take it?” he demanded. I was enjoying myself. They ain’t noth- ing so tickles a woman as savage male jeal- ousy. I was just doping out a cutting come- back when a raindrop plopped on my neck. CHAPTER VII. IT RAINETH AND SHINES AGAIN. “a NDREW GIBBONS,” I wailed, “is A that rain?” He spread a palm, careless. “I don’t know,” he remarked, cool, “ Is it?” “You know it is!” I snapped. “ You’ve knowed it all along. You—you’re just try- ing to postpene the rain like you done our wedding. Well, you can’t get away with it.” I was crying now, tears of dismal 519 despair. “ T-turn up your collar,” I 6r- dered between sobs. He done so, spilling a snowstorm of * Rice!” J choked. “ Rice again! It’s following us like a hoodoo.” We stumbled to our feet and groped through the rain curtain that wrapped itself around us in the lamplight like a robe of rainbow pearls—but cold, they was—like the bottom of the sea. “I think they’s a little summerhouse somewheres around,’ commented Andy, helping me to flee before the storm under his coat ike Paul did Virginia. __* Charming!” I hissed, catching a driblet of rain off my nose. “ There’s nothing I like better on a wet four o’clock in the morning than to park beneath an arbor and inhale the fragrance of June roses.. So ro- mantic! Lead us to your summerhouse, Andy, and let’s hope we won’t be there when winter comes.” We stumbled around in the dark and wet and finally crossed the threshold of a little rustic pagoda. We entered and huddled on the round seat, forlorn. “ Now we're out of the wet,” announced Andy, tickled with himself. “Out of it!” I snickered, watching a miniature Niagara follow the run in my stocking. “We brung it right with us. Huh! it’s like taking a high dive in the Hudson River with your best clothes on and then avoiding a mud puddle.” My water spouse tucked his coat closer around me. | “Poor little kid,’ he soothed. “‘ I know you're wet and tired and mad, dear, but right now youre with the one guy in the world that ’d give his right arm for you— and his left.” “ Honest?” I murmured, relentful, snug- gling deeper down into them arms. ‘“ Oh, Andy,” I whispered, mournful, “ we’re just like babes in the woods, ain’t we? But where’s the robins?” “The Robins?” he laughed. “ They don’t hit New York till next week, honey. But it ought to be a good game.” ‘ Better than the game of love, I hope.” ‘““ But the game of love is never played to a finish,” he put in. : Z COMME NOS (E(@) Po me 2a sh Hie fio