Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

ALIAS THE -ANGLEWORM. to sell her a typewriter. Instead, he dic- tates a fool letter, all about roosters and angleworms, and asks his boss if he ever was an angleworm and if he ever pe a rooster. “‘ Then he tells Viv to direct the envelope to the letter to Mr. J. N. L. Worth, Miners’ Bank Building, Pittsburgh. He pays her, and they go out, after he says she’s -got some nice books in the case in the corner.” Marshal Tom grinned dourly. ‘“ And the party that was taking it all in was right be- hind that there same case,” said he tri- umphantly, “ and he never dreamed it!” ' “Gosh!” tremoloed Mr. Bugbee. ‘ Tom, I don’t know; it looks like you got me hooked. But we’ll—we'll see!” “You bet we’ll see,” said Marshal Tom grimly. “I ain’t been down to the game in the cigar-store to-night, Tim, because I been too busy telephoning on long distance down to Pittsburgh. I got the man that’s superintendent of that Miners’ Bank Build- in on the wire and talked to him. ~He ain’t got a typewriter firm in the building by the name of Worth, or any other typewriter firm. Now, I done all this after trailing him back to the hotel from Viv’s office, after he left it with her. Viv seemed to take a lot of stock in him—she laughed and tossed her head when she went away. “And he stood there, looking around; and then he picked up that case that he hadn’t opened all afternoon—not even in her office—and come straight back here. And he ain’t mailed that letter, either. I knowed that if he went out after supper, you’d know it, because he’d have to come right by your desk to do it.” “When you come. in to-night, Tom,” equivocated .Mr. Bugbee, “he was in his room, just as I told you, because I’d just come down from there the minute you got in. If he went out the door of this hotel since you come in, he must ’a’ done it when I was down fixin’ ‘that furnace.”’ “He didn’t go out the door,” said Mar- shal Tom, “ and he didn’t even come down to the office. Now, what do you know about him?” Mr. Bugbee held nothing batk, even to the handwriting lecture, and he even men- tioned the words, ‘‘ golden fleece,’’ when 409 pointing to Jason Tredway’s signature on the register, some nine weeks before. “I wonder if Jase might know him?” said Mr. Bugbee. ‘ Jase was down to Pittsburgh for a while, wasn’t he?”’ ‘“ Started for there,” said Marshal Tom, “but met up with some big New York people in Erie, who gave him a good posi- tion. He’s travelin’ out of New York now most of the time. Mike Burns knows the firm he’s with. Jase dropped into town to- night for a short visit. I hardly knowed him. He’s growed a mustache; but then, I was so busy with this here smart Aleck and phoning to Pittsburgh to see much of Jase. He’s going away to-morrow.” “Well,” said Mr. Bugbee nervously, “who wins this pot?” “Tl call it a stand-off.” From that syllable Mr. Bugbee played his cards like an adept at the great Ameri- can indoor pastime. He had his failings; but when it came to poker, Mr. Bugbee was an adept without a shadow of dishonesty. Marshal Tom knew it, and so did every other poker-player in Coalport. And Mar- shal Tom was also an honest, conscientious, albeit unlettered man, and a hard-working official, famed for keeping Coalport spotless in ethical matters, no matter how much carbon polluted the atmosphere. By virtue of integrity, his knowledge of human nature and his untiring efforts to anticipate crime, as well as to ferret it out, Marshal Tom was the police force of Coal- port, and would be until he retired volun- tarily. So when Mr. Bugbee, instead of picking up his twenty dollars as Tom repocketed his, instead shoved it over toward him with a quiet ‘‘ You win—this,” the proponent of this show-down was fairly petrified at the sheer unexpectedness of it. CHAPTER X. “ SHADDERED.”’ SUH abject surrender was a most sus- picious circumstance, for if there was — any room for debate, Mr. Bugbee was there like a Daniel Webster who had never read any law but Hoyle. COM cloooks. com