Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 141: what you’re looking at

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

~ - THE DEVIL'S chamber and bath, and I could move in at once. I engaged it without asking the price, for after counting the bills in the expense purse Colonel Chalmers had tendered,me, I knew the rate couldn’t hurt. My second move was to go to a fashion- able tailor near Fifth Avenue and buy a couple of expensive suits, ready made, but with the appearance of being exclusive. I also purchased new madras shirts, neckties, shoes, and a soft hat, to make my outfit complete. Wearing one of the suits out of the shop, I had the rest of the stuff sent home, and wandered back to the Albertson, where I sat down in the lobby and figured out a program of baseball games in the afternoons and shows in the evenings. I was going to so sugar the medicine that my boss had ordered so that it would be easy to take. Going upstairs to my suite, the word sounds very luxurious on the tongue, I wrote a lengthy letter to Julia. Graduating shortly, I wanted her to hop down to New York at once and get married. Would she do so, and when could she come? I’m sparing you—giving it in brief. It was a shame, I said, for her not to share the good times I had laid out. After several days, during which I had enjoyed two afternoons of fine baseball games at the Polo Grounds, and at nights, the Follies and the Scandals, I received the following letter: BoB DEAR: You'll be surprised to learn that we will receive our certificates as graduate nurses next Monday, I shall be down at once to join you, and we shall be very happy, I am sure. My nerves have been bothering me a lot, I don’t really know what is the matter with them. I do not believe that I am suited to the tiresome, uniform existence of hospital nursing. I have lost ten pounds and look as if I had been drawn through a clothes washer. Sometimes I get terrible fits of abstraction in which I float away like a person in a - dream, and have to pinch myself to come back to reality and-realize where lam. But IT am sure that I shall get better when I come on, dear, with the delightful program you have laid out in your letter. It must be won- derful to be really paid for enjoying yourself. How different from a -nurse’s life. FLOWER. oll Arriving at 5 p.m. Monday will you meet me at Grand Central Station and then we'll whirl to that Little Church Around the Corner I’ve heard so much about? Yours, JULIA. XXXXXXX Just like a woman, I thought, never let- ting me know before that she was nervous or unstrung. I almost ran to the telegraph office in the lobby and dispatched a wire saying I’d be anchored with flowers at the station next Monday at five o’clock and that I was in- closing more love than a wire could pos- sibly hold. This was Friday. Four whole days to wait. You can go to baseball games and shows without accompanying me second hand, so I will jump until my return from the Polo Grounds on Sunday afternoon. During all this time I may state that if Federal op- erators were following me they must be cute with their tricks, for I never saw any signs of being kept tab.on. If, however, they followed the program that I laid out I bet they were thanking me for an excel- Jent time of it. Well, Sunday afternoon when I unlocked the door of my suite at the Albertson and strolled in I was surprised—but I didn’t think I was seeing a wall mocking spook. In the first place it was daylight, and the tall, thin chap who sat, quite at ease, in my favorite Morris chair by the window looked very much alive. “T’ve been waiting for you,” he greeted me quietly, as if we were old friends, though I had never laid eyes on him before. ‘So I.see,” I said, taken aback by his monumental assurance. ‘‘ But you have the best of me.”’ “IT am sure of it,” he returned, “ but don’t stand there like a dummy, come in and sit down.” “I guess that I can—in my own apart- ment,” I replied, with-a laugh. Somehow I wasn’t at all afraid of the man, and didn’t take him for a burglar. es What is the meaning of this unan- nounced call?” I asked. ‘ That’s our way,” he said coolly. “ And a very fresh way it is.” Gomichbooks “com