Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 167: what you’re looking at

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

WILLIE OFF THE PICKLE BOAT. “Not if I know Edith,” she said. “It’s only a whim,” I told her. “That may be,” my sister said, ‘“ but Edith has a whim of iron!” I got up and went outside. VIL. For two or three days after that I was pretty desperate. Not that I cared a damn what a hare-brained girl like Edith Kenny did with her life. But it was humiliating to think that I had given her serious con- sideration at one time. So, naturally, I was ready for anything when I got the note from Dodo Flynn. You see, while we had plenty of doings among cur own crowd, a man has to get about a little and see something of life outside his own circle. That was how I came to meet Dodo. The Murphy outfit had built a_ big dancing pavilion on the shore about two miles below the end of our land. They put it well away from the docks so they could charge a quarter for ferrying people up there, and it turned out to be a pretty lively place. Good floor, good music, and a little boot- leg on the side. You know. It is not surprising that our bunch drifted over there now and again, and of course we never mentioned it to our fami- lies. I think they suspected something, how- ever, because once my father said to me: “If you must have a drink, you’d better take along a flask of decent stuff from home. I wouldn’t trifle with Mur- phy’s rot-gut!” However, down at Murphy’s we had run across several rather nice kids. Not really our sort, you know, but full of fun and good dancers. Perfectly straight, you understand, and all that. Just a bunch of jolly girls out for a lark. And we had a lot of good times with them. Of them all, I preferred Dodo Flynn. She was a‘cute little trick and we used to pair off a lot. Well, as I said, I was primed for trouble when I received Dodo’s note. It came about ATT a week after the affair at Edith’s, and I had got down to earth again, more or less. Dodo wrote: Dearest Marvin. I hope you won’t mind my writing to you. But I must see you to-morrow night about something important. Can you meet me at the sugar house ct seven thirty, sharp? [ll tell you all about it then. Don’t let a single soul know that you are coming. It would spoil everything! Love from Dopo Basy, Well, I thought, that’s funny. I wonder what she wants? Spoil everything! Spoil what, { wonder? Oh, well, I thought, I'll go. The more I see of women, the less I understand them. Queer creatures! VIL. THE sugar house, a iog shack built some years before and now in disuse, was about a mile this side of Murphy’s Pavilion, and reached by a footpath through the woods. Dodo and [I had strolled up there several times when we had been dancing, and so had most of the others in the crowd. -I started in plenty of time and came into the little cleared space around the house fully ten minutes betore the time Dodo had set. I saw nothing of her, and was about to sit down on a log when I heard a noise inside the shack. The next minute Willie off the Pickle Boat had stepped out! I was so surprised that I stared at him like a dumb-bell, I guess. He did not seem astonished, however. He came forward grinning, and said three words: “ Put ’em up!” In spite of my surprise, that made my blood boil. Did this—this—bounder think I would fight him? Over a girl, too! I straightened up and said: “Do you think I would soil my hands with scum like you?” Now, if the fellow had been decent, he would at least have explained what the row was supposed to be about. But, no! Al he said was: ‘ No, I don’t think you will! Not much!” With no other warning his fist flew out. COMIC IOONKS Gok