Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

by Raymond Lester Rae tae te Reet wale Cay,” the Nan Russell soviet, ete. PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD ULIE SOMERS, a twelve-dollar-a-week stenographer, without family ties, had been bowled over by the dismal prespect the future held for her. Miss Blonde im her office had subconsciously mftuenced Julie’s decision to seize opportunity. At Fourteenth Street the girl tame face to fate with opportunity, yclept Artie Falwell, a smart and dapper young man in externals, but inwardly a kiss-and-run-away roué in his lighter moments, a crook all the time. In one leok be apptaised Julie and invited her to go to the Mogolia for a bit of supper. To the girl the place spelled fairyland, im reality it was a hotel run by rogues for rogues. Cocktails, dinner, jazz, and Artie’s artful imsinuatiens followed. Julie was a willing butter- fly on the wheel. When a woman’s fur towched her arm in passing, the girl suddenly declared she must go home. Artie first filched her money frem her hand-bag and then willingly acceded. As soon as the girl reached her reem she groped under the bed and called: “Kitty, kitty.” Her pet was gone, and when she opened her bag she discevered her money had disappeared as well. Artie returned to the Mogolia.and was net disappointed of his expectation. His friend Sid, a human harpy, shortly appeared on the scene and agreed to look over Artie’s latest bit of fluff. Then a woman called Leila, who Mad watched Artie’s initiation of Julie into the Meg game, decided to save Julie. She appealed first to any latent decency in Artie. Then she tried to bribe him, knowing his kind are only reached through money. Finally, she told him if he brought Julie to any harm he would answer to her. Then she returned to the guise of a Mog woman. For upward of an hour Artie sat planning. wo Also, the clothes and the example of ¢ CHAPTER VIII. LOANED A TWO-DOLLAR BILL. HE night, solacing friend of the calm- minded and disturbing foe of the backslider and crawfish tilter at self-respect, found Julie a prey to misery. At intervals, she sank into fretful, night- mare-weighted sleep only to wake again and again nervously unbalanced and incapable of holding herself to any hopeful views. A changing train of thoughts leaped at her, jostled, jammed, flamed, sputtered and smoldered. A milling mob of futilities mocked at her. Her mental condition was pitiable and inevitable. The only difference between Julie and a legion of other twisters of their own minds, lay in the fact that the birds of evil omen had descended upon her sooner than in general. Trouble and misfortune arising from false steps are often long delayed in their coming, but they ar- This story began in the Argesy-Allstory Weekly for August 21. 606 rive. Regret peeked at her and fluttered away. Indefinable fear swooped and tore at her quivering courage. Despair hopped around and cawed derisively. The rustle of unclean things surrounded her—nibbling, clawing. . The experience may be termed a phan- tasy, a wraith-inferno of her mind. Yet— it was real. Unseizable, but oppressing and of crushing weight, and the walls of her room were no barriers to the gnomes of thought that flocked to her from others. Chemically expressed, though atoms are ac- tive molecular agents seeking expression. Benign and malign they flow to the minds that will nurse them to multiplication and give them birth in deeds. In the dark hours when the million minds of the worthy- striving are dormant and inert, the sleepless, undefenceless and weak-willed are a prey to the thought waves of the wicked. The pulse of good mental vibrations is at a low Conn CO ) GDOOKS