Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

NOW WE’RE RICH. fley’s tawdry little store and had asked for Sam and then had been slipped through some secret door or panel into the region of illicit alcoholics and final- ly had emerged with his bundle, the chances were that the first policeman would pick him up. Henry laughed bitterly. At that, you know, worse things could happen to one! Once in jail, they have to feed you free of charge! He glanced around very cautiously and then darted into Coffley’s, where an ill-favored young man lolled behind the cigar counter and read a tabloid. “Er—Same here?” Henry said “ Sam!” bawled the young man. There was a stirring and a thudding in the back room as the legs of a chair came down and in the doorway ap- peared a large, well dressed man who at one time, Henry recalled, had worn overalls and worked on the express wagon. “Oh, hello, Mr. Morrow!” he shout- ed genially. “ How they running for you, sir? What ’ll it be this evening, Mr. Morrow?” “ Well—ah Scotch?” “Best you can buy, sir. No, it ain’t prewar; I don’t say that, Mr. Morrow. But this is the real stuff; it’s ’—he hes- itated an instant, studying Henry— “right off the boat, sir. Wall I send you up a case, Mr. Morrow? ’Lo, Jack!’ he cried, and waved a hand at the passing policeman who had just sent a cold chill down Henry’s spine. “ Not—not a case,” Henry said in a low, husky voice. “Just a couple of bottles. Make it—ah—three. You're sure this is all right?” “Tf I had children I’d let *em drink it!’ Sam said heartily, as he started for the back room; and there was further thumping and a clink of glass and a swishing of paper; and after that Sam handed Henry Morrow a neat package and said beamingly: “ Twenty-one bucks!” “How much?” Henry choked. have you some good 249 “Well, Mr. Morrow, that’s giving you the stuff! That’s making you a present of it, sir!’’ Sam said reproach- fully. “If it wasn’t I'd known you so long when you were living down at the old place, that ’d stand you eight fifty a bottle. Oh, that’s absolutely on the level, Mr. Morrow. It costs money to get that in nowadays!” It did. It did, indeed, Henry agreed as he trudged homeward too numbed even to think of possible policemen along the route. The twenty-five dol- lars on which he had meant to worry along for the rest of the week had dwindled to four! Well, it was in line with everything else, wasn’t it? Not much use blinking at the way things were going, eh? His family was sliding downhill so swiftly that nothing short of a miracle could stop the shde! And after all the hum- drum, comfortable years, too, with the kids growing up and Laura singing around the house and making the dol- lars stretch and Henry muddling along from year to year, never very well sat- isfied, but never greatly discontented— and most emphatically never worrying about his home! Now Laura had come home half drunk on one occasion and she was diverting what should have been lunch money into liquor for her friends; and Willie and Marge had gone positively crazy! Why, that boy last night— honestly, actually!—had looked to Henry Morrow as if he was losing his mind. He had had a feverish light in his eye and a red spot on either cheek and he had enlivened the household at two thirty this morning with a song that seemed mainly “ Whoop-de-do!” with variations, until a pertinent word from Henry ended the recital. As for little Marge—Henry turned chilly, just as he always did these days when he thought of Marge. That kid wasn't going to get out of any high school this spring! That pretty little young one, who laughed in his face COPMICLOOKS (C@