Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

$22 The audience listened in silence, for the disturbers in the box were keeping quiet. Then there came an outburst of chuckles from the various parts of the house, for Bowlegs Bowers, it could be seen, had stretched the red garter, slung-shot fashion, over two fingers of his left hand, and he was standing up pulling it back and forth with a crooked finger of his other hand. Then he was seen to reach into his car- tridge belt and draw forth a forty-five shell, which he carefully adjusted in his impro- vised but efficient weapon. “With every rose there is a thorn, With every plea-sure, pain-n.” As Lily lingeringly and almost lovingly drew out the Jast words of the ballad, she slowly pirouetted around until her back, as she turned, was to the Bowers box. Just then Bowlegs let fly the shell that was in his sling, and Lily leaped into the air with all the power but none of the grace of a Pavlowa. The song ended abruptly, and she turned, her tace distorted with rage, on the au- dience which was now rocking with convul- sions of laughter. She stood there speech- less, trembling with anger. And then her overwrought nerves failed her, and she did the unexpected thing. She broke down and cried, and walked off the stage, an abject and defeated figure. Betty, standing close to her, was swept with indignation, and hardly knowing what she did, she stepped up to the flickering gas footlights. “ You low-lived, miserable cowards!” she said in a voice that was low but vibrant. “You call yourselves men, and yet you pick on a helpless woman until you drive her hysterical. Here we are, trying to make a living, trying to entertain you, trying to do the best we can, which is all that any- body can do. ‘““Why don’t you give us a chance? Be- cause,” she added, “ you’re a lot of igno- rant, heartless rubes, that’s why!” She stood there with flashing eyes, before a the- ater full of men who seemed, at that mo- ment, to be rather ashamed of themselves and who were moving restlessly in their seats, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Then Betty, too, felt her courage seep- ing swiftly away, and her eyes filled with tears, and her lips commenced to tremble. She was about to turn away and run back into the wings, when she heard some one land on the stage close to her side. She turned and saw that it was the young man who had been looking at her from the box. Apparently he had leaped to the stage from where he had been sitting. She saw that he was dressed in blue, and that his hair and eyes were so black that they seemed to have blue glints in them. His spurs and the exposed parts of his guns were of the same color. ‘“ Boys,”’ she heard him say in a soft, drawling voice, ‘I reckon it’s just as the little gal says. It ain’t right, the thing we have been doin’ to-night. Thar ain’t one of us here who would spur a hoss until it went loco, an’ yet that’s just what we been doin’ to-night. ‘‘ Not to hosses, either, but to people who are doin’ what they can to make a livin’. It was,” he added, “a right ornery thing to do, and as for me, I’m mighty sorry I had anything to do with it. An’ if you- all will think it over for just a minute, I reckon you'll agree with me. An’,” he con- tinued, as he seemed to become more tense, ‘if there’s any one here who don’t, I’m here to reckon with him now.” There was a chorus of cheers and ap- proving yells from the audience. “Yo’re right, Blue!” came shouts from every side. ‘“‘ Yo’re right!” ‘An’ I’d suggest,” continued the young man, “that we sorta make up for what we've done by makin’ a little voluntary con- tribution to our good friends here. You waddies have all got strong arms, an’ you all got money in yore pockets, Let’s see you toss a little of it in this here direc- tion.” Hands throughout the audience went into well-lined pockets, and a shower of gold and silver commenced to rain down on the stage. At the height of the demonstration, how- ever, there was a sound of disturbance off- stage, and Lily, her face distorted with pas- sion, came tramping out from the wings. She was dragging with her old Burke, who Gomichbooks (E)