Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

424 Miss Baldwin’s ’nd insisted that I bring Viv and Mr. Stuart down to that poker game? ‘You like to got me all jammed up and all shot up, too. Jase, he afterward told me that this young Stuart fellow took him out to the links, to see him play golf. And when you mentioned ‘ golf-player’ and “ telegram ’—you made Jase think, when he first looked up and seen Stuart, that I had brought Mr. Stuart down there to ’rest my own nephew!” Inspector Bugbee bridled. ‘Why, Tom, I was doing some detective work, myself, before you come in here last ' night and asked me a lot of questions. I told you what Mike Burns told me. After- ward, I told you how I seen Stuart go off’n the roof. Then that old organ-grindin’ shadder you set on him told you he had a gun up his sleeve. Then, thinking he might be a burglar, you started out after him— is that right?” ‘* So far, yes.” ‘After you’d gone, I went down to the poker game. And there set Jase, and he had such a lot of this yere ‘ golden fleece’ that I begin to smell a rat. I remembered how Stuart was pointing to Jase’s name and talking about golden fleece ’nd playing golf with toothpicks. And I says to myself, and then I also took time to tell Mike, on the side, that I suspected he wasn’t no burglar, but he was a detective. ‘¢ And Mike said I might be right, but he hoped I was wrong; because /e’d heard that Norm Baldwin was mixed up in some jam down in a bank in Pittsburgh. Then, I telephoned you. For I wanted you to have Viv come down with you, and let Mike tell her what he’d just told me, in front of you. And, I wanted to see if it couldn’t be squared, ’nd the detective run out of town. “You never can fergit them kilter hands, even when you're trying to help somebody,” said Marshal Tredway, morosely. ‘‘ You send me hell-hootin’ after a feller that had a gun up his sleeve, all the time, but / couldn’t find it. Supposin’ he’d had it there when I looked, and J took it away from him and then brought him down, as you said? Where'd I be, right now?” . Mr. Bugbee rubbed his chin. “ ’Twan’t no kilter hand, for I had good cards, all the if he crossed his trail. ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE, way. And how’d I know Jase was in Dutch again? Didn’t you tell me he was workin’ for a New York firm and Mike Burns knew "em? Say, how come you to‘overlook that gun, anyway?” “Lucky for me you told me one thing true,” said Marshal Tredway. ‘“ You said Stuart was a smart fellow. He was and is and he’s a good fellow, too, ’nd a darn good shot on top of it—or I wouldn’t be here. Why, he seen me comin’ down to the house. It seems he already had a couple of these long-legged brass fasteners he uses in his business, stuck through the chair-bottom Seein’ me coming with my own gun out, he slipped his, which was on two big, broad, thick, rubber bands, underneath the chair- bottom, spread out the fastener legs, and then let me make a monkey of myself.” ‘“ How'd he get it back on him, agin?” -Marshal Tom snorted. ‘ Why, Mr. Bug- bee, he done that little trick after I’d watched him like a hawk to see that he didn’t do anything like that, because you telephone. As a town marshal, I call you a good detective— for my back wasn’t turned a minit, except then.” “Thank you, Tom. I’m only a livery- man and a pore one. That’s why I play poker with you to get oat money.” ‘You're the best liveryman that ever harnessed up the bee in your name fo the bug in the other half of it, hitched them both to a lot of wild ideas, and then drove a town marshal half crazy by invitin’ him to ride with you, for just one evening. You was kilterin’ all the time. But, Stuart’s a white boy—all the way—and modest.” ‘“‘ All but the neckties,” amended Mr. Bugbee. “ But, I like to hear you talk about kilterin’, when you don’t know his right name, yit.” “Neither do you!” challenged the mar- shal. “ And I'll lay a bet, right now, you don’t.” ‘““T know his right alias. It’s the ‘ big smoke.’” Mr. Bugbee seemed to enjoy baiting his friend. “No ’tain’t. He’s Alias the Angleworm. I know he wrote a letter, yesterday, in which he told his boss he was an angle- worm and was out to bite a certain rooster, Sounded plumb - ol CELOOO = O) Co S (C(O) mM