Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

WHERE SHE BELONGS. somehow he had hoped that it was a feature : . of his own alarmist sheet. He: stalked on; -and the main door of Harkton, Inc., had not closed behind him when he was confronted by that peculiarly idiotic girl, so valued as_ This creature, always impossible, stood “squarely. secretary by Bell, the credit man. in his path and clasped her hands raptly. “Oh, Mr. ‘Harkton, ” she cried, “ I want : to congratulate you—I do indeed! dear? Isn’t it perfectly darling?” “Isn’t what perfectly darling?” the pen of the firm asked sourly.- = “Why, what Mrs. Harkton has fone. of course! It’s perfectly wonderful! It’s per- fectly unbelievable! reading that anybody can take a pound of Isn’t it this drug that Mrs. Harkton invented and —and I’ve forgotten now what -can be done with it, but it’s perfectly amazing. And I — want to congratulate you and, if youd be own ific rity with which Miss Mills rose, the de- so awfully good as to allow me to do that, I do wish, “Mr, Harkton, that you'd take my congratulations to—” A right! Yes! Sure! ‘Thanks! Ee Sam uel barked, as he pushed on. slowed down and prepared to blast. this one. And she was only sHulue at him peculiarly and nodding. - ~ “ Good morning, Mr. Harkton, ”” said she, and walked on. ‘Samuel, lips parted, was conscious of ¢ a sudden warm glow. She—say! There was a kid with an understanding soul. He stopped short. She might be cheap i in some ways and a little too lurid in the matter of dress, but she had a brain and a heart of pure cold: she had failed to gush forth even one small congratulation! Aye, she had failed so much as to mention Nellie’s per- formance; and while he would have had some difficulty in explaining just why this should have pleased him, it had done that very thing. And Samuel wheeled about abruptly and beckoned to the remarkable girl, and she returned to his side. “Mbout the—ah—excitement,” he smiled. “Is prety Sony in the office talk- ig about ite” “ Almost. everybody,” said Miss satane. 3 “Well, 1 don’t want any more demon- Why, Dve just been toward him—and ceased to. smile. -was indeed something military about the = stiffness with which ‘Samuel awaited the And here came the Siac kid, ee tionably with another eruption. Samuel 535 strations,” said Samuel. first place—subversive ob discipline and so on. You understand: Miss Savage merely nodded, as caek ly, with understanding as complete as if he had merely directed the stamping of a dozen letters. “Very” well, _ Mr. Harkton, » she said quietly. - -“YIl attend to that. = Without a word, without a comment, she simply passed on—obviously to attend to it. ‘Some seconds Samuel, gazing after her, stood quite thunderstruck; he had not known that there was a woman—or for that “matter, a person—in his employ like that. His heart warmed as he considered her. re- ceding form: there, by thunder, with the exception of himself. was the only real executive in the. whole works! He was still smiling when he entered his fice. He Sbserved: the start, the alac- lighted brilliance of ‘her eye as she came ‘There approach ‘of his- secretary. == = —“ You know what Im going to say?” she dimpled. “ At feast, I “suspect,” » - Samuel said evenly. Then—from the very bottom of my heart, I congratulate you on having a wife like that, Mr. Harkton!” said Miss Mills, and in her eye there was a. mischievous twinkle. “Thank you,” Samuel ‘cad stiffly, and looked straight over her head. The mischievous: twinkle vanished. It nay be that, just here, Miss Mills sensed the dire presumption of ‘which she had been guilty, for she cooled visibly, becoming all in an instant her remote, precise office self. “Why, it isn’t possible that you—” did escape her. Samuel elevated his brows ominously. “ What is not possible, Miss Mills?” “Nothing, Mr. Harkton. Pardon me, please,’ ” said his aide, and seppel her eyes again. = You were about to say—” : “T wanted to ask whether you wished © All rot in the (EO) =Eomicbooks