Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

148 fashioned cannon ball. ‘The officer gave a cry of warning and threw him- self in front of Ward as a protecting shield, at the same time reaching for the gun in his holster. In a flash Edison Ward’s hands grasped the shoulders of the police- man and hurled him to one side out of harm’s way. And at the same instant, with Ward as a clear target, the fellow threw the bomb. Edison Ward, in that breath-taking moment, was back on the fooball field, intercepting a kick at close range. In- stinctively he crouched and held his hands in position. At the same time his quick mind was working with the fact that instead of a light pigskin spheroid, he was catch- ing a metal ball presumably packed with a high explosive that needed only a slight jar to release its deadly force. As the black sphere touched his hands, he jerked them swiftly back, easing the shock, but at the same time getting a tight clutch on the missle. The next instant the bomb was resting in the well-cushioned pit of his stomach. There was a hushed moment while the crowd stood breathless, waiting. But no thunder of explosion smote the air. Then the motor cycle officer leaped forward and felled the would-be assassin with a blow from his gun butt. The patrolman relieved Ward of the bomb and gingerly carried it off, the suddenly panic-stricken crowd scat- tering before him. As the officer dragged the madman into the vestibule of the building, the fellow recovered his senses, struggled to his feet and seeing Ward following closely, made an abortive lunge at him. “We'll get you yet, damn you!” he shrieked. “You've killed privacy! You and that devil of a father of yours, with your infernal inventions that see and hear through walls.”’ “Be gentle with him, officer,” Ward admonished his guard. ‘ He’s quite mad and irresponsible, but at that I rather sympathize with him.” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. And Edison Ward passed on to the elevator. When they dissected the bomb at police headquarters, they found in the black shell enough TNT to have killed the entire crowd. If. In his private suite of offices on the top floor, Edison Ward found the same tense atmosphere that had pervaded his home. A belated stenographer had been in the crowd below and had beaten her chief up the elevator with a report of this sensational climax to the news story of the morning. Pete, the colored factotum who pre- sided in the anteroom, was visibly trembling when he swung open the door and stared at Ward pop-eyed, for once speechless. A group of excited girls, who had slipped into the ante- room to hear the news, fell silent as he passed through into a private passage leading into his own office, but not too soon for. Ward to overhear the awe- struck words—* bravest thing I ever heard of.” Edison Ward blushed with mingled embarrassment and annoyance and was conscious of a feeling of intense relief when he found himself alone in the big office occupied for so many years by his father. Again he felt strengthened by the sense of his father’s presence. He turned at once to the correspond- ence that was waiting for him, but was interrupted almost immediately by the telephone. “Morehouse speaking, Mr. Ward. May I come in for a minute?” “Yes,” the young man agreed grudg- ingly. He not only wanted to be alone, but Morehouse was one of the men he par- ticularly did not care to see that morn- ing. Morehouse had been secretary to the president of the corporation during the elder Ward’s regime and was still. acting in that capacity to the son. But Edison Ward neither liked nor COPMICLOOOKS (E@)