Argosy All-Story Weekly — "Sea Marauders" — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

: 7 THE SCANDAL ON KITIKAT KEY, “Time has nothing to do with the. condition this engine is in,’ she scolded him. “ If I owned an engine as power- ful and as valuable as this, I’d take care of it. Get busy on that other block, Gerry.” : “You have a spot of black grease on the very end of your nose,” Gerald informed her. “Je men fou!” said Susan. * What?” gasped Gerald. “1 said, ‘Je men fou, ” overalls repeated. “What does that mean?” * It’s French for ‘I should worry.’ ” “French!” Gerald cried. “‘ Do you speak French, too?” “T speak French, Spanish, Italian —and some English,” Susan answered. “While you were living a wild life, carousing, drinking, gambling and amusing yourself with chorus girls, I was trying to do something with my mind.” “T never knew anybody like you,” said Gerald, taking up a spark plug and beginning to scrape the carbon from it. “ Lester Colton is certainly one lucky fellow. You’re so smart you frighten me.” “ You've adjusted those firing points too close,” Susan pointed out. “ You'll get a weak explosion and the engine’ll carbon up quicker than ever. Look here, Gerald, when did you take up the slack in this timing chain?” “T forget,” said Gerald. “Vou should keep a log,” said Susan. Gerald decided at this point that he disliked Susan a little more than any girl had ever been disliked by any man since time began. She was altogether too smart. She was altogether too en- ergetic. She knew everything, and she was too eager to put it into practice. How silly of him to imagine, as he had been doing on and off since last night’s storm, that he could ever fall in love with this girl! Presently Susan tossed aside her spanner, briskly wiped her hands on a the girl in 511 clump of waste, and announced that it was time to knock off. Gerald climbed wearily out of the engine pit and joined her at the gasoline tank where she was rinsing her hands in a trickle of gasoline. Her hands, he saw, were greasy and black. Gerald was now congratulating him- self that Susan Finch’s visit was not to be a permanent one. He would be a candidate for a sanatorium if she stayed on Kitikat much longer than a week. “What are the plans for this eve- ning?” he asked in a tired voice. “ Do we take a ten-mile walk, have setting- up exercises, or have a few hours of ancient Greek?” “The evening,” Susan answered, “is for relaxation. What would you suggest? You are an authority on re laxation, and you ought to have some bright ideas.” “Tm so tired,” was Gerry’s reply, “that I haven’t enough steam to cook up an idea. There aren’t enough of us to play charades. You don’t drink, so that’s out. We lack two people to play bridge, and two-handed poker is pretty dull. The nearest cabaret is fifty miles away, sO we can’t swing a bender. In a word, Susan, I haven’t a single idea. T am putty in your hands.” “We might sit on the veranda in the moonlight and talk,” Susan sug- gested. “What about?” Gerald inquired. “Heavens! Is it so difficult for you to manufacture conversation ?” 3 “T am hoarse from talking,” said Gerald, “and my brain feels like an egg that has been fried three hours.” “The art of conversation,” Susan commented, ‘is being lost in the jazz and excitement of this age. I would suggest that we select a topic for dis- cussion and spend the evening discuss- ing it.” “What do you mean by a topic?” Gerald asked suspiciously. ‘“ Why does a chicken cross the road?” “I was thinking,” Susan _ replied, oy "3 a ebooks: eS ome %2 eg: ee “es hens.