Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 14, 1928 — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

DAMMING HAIRPIN CANON, day, even without the upsetting expe- rience here. You must be shaken and worn out. “Of course you are. Forgive my thoughtlessness. I'll ring for Jarley right away, and have you shown to your room. Let what I was about to say wait until morning.” ‘No, please!” Norman raised his voice in protest, as her finger reached for the bell. “1 don’t want to go to bed. I’m quite comfortable here. And I’m not nearly so all-in as you think. “T guess Big Bill was about right when he said all the matter with me was that I hadn’t had anything to eat. Now since that’s remedied,” he smiled, “Richard is very much himself again. So if you don’t mind, I wish you would go ahead and talk to me just as you intended.” : “Well, it was this,” she hesitated. “ When I learned of Da Silva’s treach- ery to-night and dismissed him, I thought of you at once. The note you sent me, you remember, was in part a statement of the situation here which you had prepared as a telegram to your firm. “T gathered from some lines you had crossed out, that you had either lost, or were in danger of losing, your position with them. So I sent Big Bill racing to town after you, with instruc- tions to bring you back here at any hazard.” : “He did it,” interjected Norman under his breath. “My idea,” she continued, without noticing the interruption, “was that you might be willing to accept the place left vacant by Da Silva. Or, rather, not exactly that,” she amended. J do not really require a secretary now. “ What I need is more an adviser— some one who is capable of watching out for my interests in connection with this irrigation project and in whom 1 can trust.” “Ves?” said Norman. Put in that way by her, the proposal sounded a very different thing from 4A y that which was bluntly voiced by Big Bill, and had so deeply wounded his pride. This seemed rather tempting, in fact. “But in view of this affair to- night ’—she placed her finger on the notebook again—‘ and all that is im- plied by it, I have changed my mind. I shall not offer you the position.” “Eh?” Norman sat up as if some- body had doused him with a bucket of cold water. “No,” said Molly firmly, “I can not ask you to take such a risk. After all, this is not a fight of yours. Los Chicos County means just one contract to you. “Why should you run the chance of assassination for that? Let us who live here and are vitally interested take the hazards.” In the face of this unselfish avowal Norman flushed under the reflection that his own thoughts had been largely tinged by self-interest. Then he braced up and, grasping the arms of his chair, turned toward her. ‘“Miss Todd,” he said earnestly, “before you withdraw that offer, I’d like to tell you just where I stand. Sit down, won't you, please, because I want to lay all my cards on the table, and it will take some little time.” He started in then to describe to her his position and prospects with Blair & Co., the crushing blow his unac- countable discharge had been to him, and his long and fruitless search for another berth, until as a last resort he had gone as a salesman with the firm in St. Louis. “You say that this Los Chicos job was just one contract to me,” he broke out a trifle bitterly. ‘‘ Well, let me tell you, it meant about everything in the world, so far as I am concerned. Honestly, now that I have lost it and been let out by the firm, I don’t know where to turn. “Crawford told me of a possible vacancy in Philadelphia, and I was going on to see about it. But it EOPMICLOOKS 193 (E@)