Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

ALIAS THE ANGLEWORM. | — AL? intended to do or say to a young man call- ing himself Norman Baldwin must here- after remain unsaid. Norman was not the North Star; but; having held up his own hands at Marshal Tom’s cesamand to support that planet in theory, Jimmy must now forever elevate them, sight unseen, and behave as if the brother of this girl and the son of his in- valid mother had never wabbled once in the orbit frem which an honorable young man should never deviate. “Bobby Burns was right,” hextold him- self. Hereafter he would stick to Walter Scott. If he had started out with “ Ivan- ' hoe’? — but, again, there were no more castles, only jails held dungeons, and the navy used up all the armor-plate. Marshal Tredway listened for at least ten minutes, to his. message. How the man he had just searched man- aged to conjure intelligible conversation in the interim with the girl who had so in- fatuated him while under such a ‘frightful three-way strain as he was enduring, was more than Jimmy understood, then or after- ward. Yet, in a blind way, he engineered some fragments. Not that so much was said, for, now and again, they both paused to listen to Marshal Tom, just inside the door, peering out from where he held the receiver and making monosyllabic replies which conveyed noth- ing of what was conveyed to the marshal, until he suddenly said: “ ri be right ox ee me, now.’ = Then the worthy officer, who had kept Jimmy in view for all but a fragment of an instant since his spectacular arrival, came out on the porch, glowering in a for- bidding way. “That,” said he in a sententious but guarded tone, “ was a call from Mr. Bug- bee. Viv, can you sneak down with Mr. Stuart and me? Pretend you gettin’ medi- cine, or something?”’ ‘‘ T’'ll see if mother is asleep. If she isn’t —Ill manage it, somehow.” As she went into the house, Tredway turned to Jimmy. His jaw set, hard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stuart, to have to ask you—” 5 ARGOSY ‘‘ But, why include Miss Vivian?” ‘““ Ain’t got no option. Dang that Tim Bugbee, anyway. He’s in the game down to the cigar-store, and the stuff he wanted to tell me on the telephone, he said he didn’t dast to tell me from there; and he didn’t dast to go out to telephone me from the hotel, because he didn’t dast to tell it to me while I was here. This here is a party-line, and somebody might be listen- ing in. But, he said I must bring you both down.” \ “He knew you were coming up here?”’ asked Jimmy, much mystined. &“c He did. PB] ‘‘ And the errand, of course?” ‘He knowed that, too.” ‘Thank you. You didn% find a weapon. I promise never to use one to resist your authority.” “That,” said Tredway, ‘ ain’t what’s worryin’ me, a bit. There’s alot of other things—”’ Vivian reappeared, wearing a hat whose curves immortalized the man from whose name is derived the word “ tantalizing.” Jimmy saw, thankfully, that the pins were already in place. Jimmy had. arrived in Coalport, wearing his disposition inside-outside, or the re- verse. It was now upside-downside, as well. Marshal Tom, when out of ear-shot of the house, asked: “Would. you mind my asking a few questions, Mr. Stuart? It may help and may hurt. I’m speaking as the marshal of Coalport.”’ . “Tl answer, until my counsel who isn’t here to tell me to do what I ought not to do, doesn’t,” said that harassed young man. Marshal Tredway didn’t ask many ques- tions. Just the name under which he had registered at the Mansion House and if he sold typewriters. Jimmy facetiously said: ‘“ Not in Coal- port.” Later on under other questions, he told of selling twenty-eight in one day to one man in Pittsburgh. ‘Would you mind telling me his name?”’ asked Marshal Tom. ‘Some’ day,” said Jimmy; “ when I’m wearing my other necktie. I don’t like to discuss business without that necktie.” ECoOnniclboooks Co mM