Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

NAKED The face was smooth and alabaster white—except where a crimson flush which seemed to have concentrated at the half- hidden ears began to surge back over the perfect .oval of the cheeks. The mouth, though tightly pressed, was full-lipped. The cleft in the firm chin was a dimple. And—the hair that strayed from under the trim pith helmet was blond, and curly, and long! A rebellious wisp of it strayed full across the blazing eyes! Smith gasped at the astounding picture, making ineffectual efforts to moisten his dry lips. The girl stamped her, shapely high- laced boot, and stormed at him. “Oh, you! Don’t stand there looking like a fish!” “ Garsh!” Smith murmured. “ S’welp me! This ’ere’s a descent from the sub- limey to the gorblimey.”’ Reversion to the idiom of the cantonment and the barrack always showed that Smith was abnormally shaken from his usual bal- ance. It was a shameful reminder of his unregenerate youth, and it happened sel- dom, very seldom indeed. Only a cata- clysm of the miost dire nature could so move him. With his halting rumble of speech the girl seefned to realize for the first time that this was a man, a huge and miraculous portent out of the empty jungle, but none _ the less a man—and a stranger! The flush that had been battling with the set white- ness of her face surged over in a hot wave, and she half turned from his gaze, looking piteously about to cry. Smith recovered his poise. He snatched off his belated hat. “I beg your pardon, miss,” he apolo- gized formally. “I thought that— that—” He boggled over his words and drifted into ineffectual rumblings. Then suddenly the girl straightened and turned a surprisingly calm and collected face to ‘You shouldn’t have thought so em- phatically,”’ she told him, with calm‘sever- ity in her voice. ‘“ I suppose you want to see my father.” ‘Why, er—yes,”’ stammered Smith. “He’s in his tent,” said the girl. “If he isn’t working on an analysis, he’ll see you.” MEN OF NAGA. 5 She led the way to the large tent, and Smith followed, still blinking his eyes and murmuring: ‘ Garshamighty!” and “ *Tain’t true!” His mind struggled with a haze of half-remembered stories about nymphs and Grecian goddesses who symbo- lized the spirit of the woods. In his strenuous life nothing so. perfectly appealing had ever appeared before. He had met women during his periodical so- journings in the cities; but women, ladies, had seemed to him to be fragile creatures of artistic artificiality, nothing at all like the sculptures he had gazed at with such scornful disbelief in the museums. He wondered whether goddesses reincarnating would modernize to appropriate costume. The girl clanged on a tin plate which hung at the tent flap. ‘“ Father,” she called. ‘‘ Here’s a visitor to see you.” A pregnant pause followed her announce- ment. Then a snarl came from within, muf- fled and not very coherent; but Smith thought that the terse formula was familiar. The girl stepped away quickly with shocked eyes. “Oh!” she said. ‘Father is busy. You'll have to wait a while, Will you please Sit down?” The invitation was the unconscious habit of polite convention. There was nowhere to sit, of course, except on the ground. Smith stood, therefore, awkwardly trying to think what he should say to this astonishingly self-possessed goddess. His dilemma was relieved by a rustle of canvas. He spun on his heel in time to see a tall young’ man with a sensitive, stu- dious face step out. The young man, too, was dressed exactly like the catalogue of some sporting goods house. He came for- ward with a white hand outstretched in apologetic cordiality. ‘‘ Professor Harrison is very much occu- pied just at this moment,’ he explained. “ Elias P. Harrison, of Chicago, you know. He begs that you will have patience for a little while.” This euphemistic paraphrase of the snarl which Smith had heard passed’ over his head. He was wondering who in thunder Professor Elias P. Harrison of Chicago / _* COMmicbooa S CO@