Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

THE WILD BULL OF MONTANA. puted long distance heavyweight champion ~ < windjammer of this or any other age. This baby broadcasts from any angle, I mean to say, with all the ease and celerity of a greased pig negotiating a slippery slide. Talking comes as natural to him as fall- ing does to Niagara, and try and stop either one of them! In fact, while a few conserva- tives will no doubt accuse me of drawing the long bow, it is the positive truth that Hor- ace begun talking at the fairly early age. of three minutes, his first words being ** Ladies and gentlemen!” and if he’s ever stopped since then, yot' needn’t pay me a dime! » Consequently, no doubt you can easily picture the enchanting prospect any time it looks like dear old Horace is once more going to be among those present in our quivering midst. The wife, you under- -stand, always insisting on Horace stopping with us whenever he visits the big town; and these visits, in my entirely unprejudiced ‘opinion, being much too long and likewise ‘all too numerous. Which, if it was left to me, Horace would drop in on us exactly once in a blue moon, and stay the full length of time it would take an unusually rapid talker to say “ Knife!” ‘“‘D’ye mean to say,” I says to the wife, “that you’re gonna try and take advantage of your position on that committee to ring in a personal relative, like Horace, as a speaker in the campaign?” “‘T don’t mean to say nothing of the sort,” says the missus with asperity. “TI already done it.” “ How do you mean, you already done it?” I demands. “T put the matter up to the other mem- ~ bers,” replies the wife, “ and they were all for it. It’s hard to find good speakers any- ways. So then I called up Horace in Al- bany, and he’ll be here to-morrow. You know the job he was on was only temporary, anyways.” “Sure,” says I. ‘No matter what kind of a job that baby gets, it wouldn’t only be temporary.” “Qh, is that so?”’ she comes back, sweet- » ly. “ Well, I notice he’s always been able to make plenty money enough to support — himself.” . <= 315 ** For the six months per year, or maybe less,” I puts in, “ that I haven’t personally myself staked him to a room and board.” Well, of course there was more of it, but as it probably wouldn’t serve no’ particular purpose, I’ll spare you the details. Though I might add that the best any competent judge would of given the wife was a draw. II. WELL, in spite of a promising looking train wreck in the papers that morning, Horace shows up as advertised. And then,. as they say in the subtitles, came a time during which I suffered in silence. Or, that’s to say, while I personally lapsed into an almost total calm—try and treat your- _ self to a few choice remarks with Horace hitting on all six—my little job of suffering was neatly done to the skilled accompani- ment of Mr. Hooper on his throat. Coming down on the train, Horace had made what you call an intensive study of the various party platforms, and so forth, with the results that inside of a surpris- ingly shore time—the surprise being on account that a time which seemed so long could be so short—I was positively fuller of campaign issues, and allied topics, than Houdini is of tricks. In fact, I already got plenty politics, don’t think I haven’t! Which is not saying that I wasn’t right in line to get plenty more. For, as time goes on, or during maybe the next three weeks, and Mr. Hooper warms to his job—however, owing to the fact that there’s others to entertain you, I~ will conclude this part of the evening’s per- formance by simply saying that, all in all, I was personally no fit subject to be at large; a menace to public safety, what I mean, and especially to one Horace J. Hooper! At that, though, I might say that there was one time, anyways, which, if Mr. Hooper ever again gets as near to the well- known Pearly Gates as he was right then, it will only be a miracle that saves him from crashing in. And for that matter, the . missus wasn’t so far behind him. Meaning the time when, right in the face of the fiercest kind of opposition, the frau . ; Sau 222 Sule 2m