Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

THE DEVIL'S RIDDLE. said to tell you to keep a stiff upper lip and not to do like she done.” Ma got up and went over and sat on the bed. ‘ That chair’s too small.” ‘“* Poor girl!’’ Esther said. “ Which, if you are goin’ to move—” “Yes, Ma, I—” “ An’ seein’ as you’ve paid me—”’ “Don’t -worry about that Ma, you needn’t bother—” “Which I’m not bothered, seein’ I have spent it, and ain’t got it to give back. What with carryin’ so many people on tick—but . I’ve got a swell place over on Forty-Fifth Street, without board—a swell hotel, with - nothin’: but the big ones in the profession stoppin’ there, an’ artists an’ cartoonists an’ writers gettin’ big money. Which my Lillie thought we better not put my name to it; but just let her rum it, which she does, and nobody knows I has nothin’ to do with it. So I thought you could just as well take one of. them rooms till you got the worth of your forty dollars—an’ I was tellin’ my Lillie to-day you’d be splendid company for her—” “Oh, Ma Frank!”’ the girl cried, flinging her arms around the old woman. “I know God made you! You couldn’i have just happened!” ‘“‘ My goodness gracious, deary! Course God made me! Whatever put such a notion into your head as maybe. so God didn’t | make me? My goodness gracious!” Ma patted Esther’s hand and held her close. After a moment Esther gently disen- gaged herself. “You ain’t goin’ to-night?” asked Ma. “ Yes, I think I will.” “Why don’t you wait till mornin’—it’s so late?” _ “Qnly ten-thirty and it isn’t far. tell me the name of the hotel.” “The Dunston, which is one_swell place, an’—”’ Ma continued in a long, rambling, . inconsequential talk, panetuated by reiter- ated directions. Esther rose from her seat.on the bed. _ “Well, I’m. all ready, Ma,” she said soberly, rising and wiping her eyes. “ You’ve been awfully good to me.”’ “No sich thing. Don’t you talk—” Esther laid” her head on Ma Frank’s Just A71 voluminous bosom and put both arms around the fat waist. “Pll never say again there is no God!” she murmured. ¢ Z Lillie Frank Dunston, a dark, solemn- faced young woman, showed Esther up to a very smali but very modern and well- kept reom, looking out upon the street. “ This is really a fourteen-dollar room, but mother said I was to let you have it for ten,” she explained. : That night Esther Bowley had her first lesson in the loneliness df the great city. At Ma Frank’s everybody had met at table and talked informally. Now, although the hotel was full of people, she knew not a soul. A silence reigned. Only the clacking of the elevator or the hurried footsteps of a bell-boy down the hall gave evidence of life. The very atmosphere was different from anything she had before known. There was a rap on Esther’s door, and before she could say a word Ma entered, panting furiously. After a voluble greeting, and, despite Esther’s protests, ordering a dinner to be sent up directly, she retailed her news. Burt had called, and Ma had told him that Esther had gone with a show up in Canada—had left on the midnight train. “ An’ that other man he called up with his devil’s books. I tells him the same, what with flingin’ folks together he ain’t much good for no young girl to know; if he do wear pretty clothes which I like. An’ that swell Mr. Evers, then hé calls up an’ says will you come to his studio to pose at | two o’clock, an’ I come to tell you it’s all right if you go, sweety, which, when I was in burlesque, I had a sweet figger, an’ [ used to pose myself when I wasn’t on the road, an’ it’s a respectable business which anything most is respectable for a respect- able girl as knows how to behave herself. It bein’ the girl an’ not the job.” Having delivered herself of her sympathy and advice, Ma took her leave. And Esther knew that whatever the world had robbed her of, it had given her a woman friend worth having. The old lady had been gone but a few minutes when Philip was announced. - Paul connie VOO S (C(O) inn