Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

MARRIED AND BROKE. tired to look for the circles under Alicia’s eyes. “Marcy put me off again,” he reported. “ Sent out word he couldn’t possibly see me to-day. If I could just get a word with him—make him realize that Colonel Con- naught sent me—’ “ Luck’s bound to turn,” Alicia insisted. “ And, Brad, we’ve still got each other—” “No word from our bags, either,” Brad went on, after a valiant attempt to appre- ciate his wife’s philosophy. ‘Gosh, I guess you'll have to go back to that darned home again for the night. Hello! Why, Alicia, why—” Alicia suddenly had gone limp against his shoulder. Her face was deathly pale; her eyes closed. She was fainting; had fainted. Brad ran to the public drinking fount, soaked his handkerchief and began to bathe her face. Alicia’s eyes opened. She tried to smile. ‘“ Just a little—dizzy—and—and hungry, Brad—”’ “Look here,” Brad accused her angrily, “you lied to me about breakfast—” “Tt doesn’t matter, dear—” “They never fed you any breakfast! You let me-spend our last nickel on my- self.”’ “ But I wasn’t a bit hungry. I’m not now, really. Sometimes I get that way, honest.” “You sit right here,” Brad said sternly. “ Right here until I come back.” He rose, white and grim. Alicia waited two hours, two long, ter- rified hours for him. Brad came back with some of the old swagger in his step. “We eat, first,” he announced. He led Alicia to the nearest restaurant, ordered for her, saw that she ate and ate a little himself. Alicia saw him break a five- dollar bill to pay for this feast. “ How did you do it?” she gasped. “Got a job. Now for a hotel for you. No more of those charity institutions! They tell me the Martha Washington is best for women who are alone—”’ “Alone? Oh, Brad, again.” “ Again,” Brad answered grimly. “I got a job with a truckman. Helping him with deliveries. And I talked him out of my pay in advance.” 635 “But why can’t we be together? Oh, Brad—” ‘“ Because,” Brad answered grimly, “I work all night. Of all the jobs I might have landed, that’s the one I had to get. Can you beat it! But honest, hon, it’s only until to-morrow. Be brave, Alicia. To-morrow—”’ IV. BrAp looked tired but cheerful and deter- mined when he met Alicia next morning. “‘T hope there’s enough change of that five left for us to get breakfast, Alicia? I’m starved.” 7 ““ Oh, there is, Brad!” . “Things aren’t so bad, really. I can work again to-night. The boss truckman said so. But I don’t have to. IJ'll land Marcy to-day. Honest, Alicia, I think we’ve been married long enough to settle in a little furnished room of our own, don’t you?” Alicia answered, regardless of publicity, by rubbing her cheek against Brad’s shoulder. ‘We start a home life together to-day or T’ll know the reason why,” Brad vowed sternly. After breakfast Brad felt so cheerful he could make a small joke. ‘“ Look, Alicia, they’ve hung Fifth Avenue with flags. They heard we were in town.” | “Silly! I read the papers. ‘That’s to welcome Lincoln Carver, the famous aviator. See, there’s the grand stand where the mayor’s committee will review the parade.” - The gray-haired woman, Jerome Marcy’s secretary, entered the great man’s sanctum, her manner a little anxious. ‘ That young man Harper is out there again, Mr. Marcy.” “No,” said Marcy. ‘“ Not to-day.’* He was snappish about it. Jerome Marcy was still in his early forties and not the kind of a man thoroughly used to wearing a frock coat, gray trousers, spats and a high silk hat. This morning he wore all of these things, and it made him feel self conscious and hence unusually snappish. ‘“‘T wish you’d see him,” sighed the secre- COMIC OOO KS (E@)