Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

J UNGLE LOVE. pigments. We pray when hard pushed, and when by sheer clumsiness we hit a thumb- nail instead of a tack we say: “ My God!” CHAPTER XII. BEHIND THE SIGN. ‘FULIE was sincere enough in her call for J help and protection. The trouble was she was on the wrong wire, and though her tongue shaped the formula for rescue, her soul was dumb; swamped in the pretty shell of the physical Julie. To a matron with the predilection a hen has for gathering chicks under her protec- tive wings; to a bold and muscular rescuer of fair maids in distress, Julie would have seemed a subject to be gathered in instanter, coddled and comforted to renewed and false belief that she could play with fire and be immune from getting burned. She would have gone forth from that room a weeping heroine of a nasty adventure. She would have been glorified as an innocent, much- deceived little saint. _ Whereas, the truth of the matter was she had deliberately sought to dabble in dis- respectable excitement, and frequent the company of moral pirates. Had the process of her degenerate adventure been suave as a creeping, summer tide; had her initiation been long drawn out and bedizened with suitable acceSsories in the form of jewels, fine food, strong drink and rich raiment, she ‘would have been self-drugged to animal blindness of the unclean. If her awakening had been put off until the day of prema- ture decay; until the hour of death itself, it is none the less certain she would have paid in one intolerable moment for her debasement. Sooner. or later, the women who smile for chance gold never fail to glimpse themselves in vivid loathsomeness. As for the jolly good fellow who pays the piper and provides the money for the har- pies who enlist recruits under the scarlet banner of les femmes perdu, he should be ‘“‘ mugged ” and tabulated in the rogues’ gallery at police headquarters. A whole lot of specious nonsense about wild oats for the go-to-the-devil calf, the watch-your-step, middle-aged roué and 617 the senile old debauchee would then just naturally evaporate. watchfulness given to other rascals, such as dips, thugs and comparatively square deal- ing gunmen, the thief of virtue and the ex- ploiter of women would expire. A host of disgraceful domestic trials would never hap- pen; and a multitude of food-for-carrion- crow grafters would be exterminated as agents of a cloaked game of moral butchery. _We shoot mad dogs. - If Julie had been grabbed by releasing circumstances at the moment when she was crying for help, she probably would have been pawed about, exploited, boosted and—dropped. If she had been taken in later as an accomplished unfortunate, she would have been more or less patronizingly lectured, and perhaps given a fresh start and—perhaps not. If she persisted in re- fusing to cling to the unstable buoy of social toleration, and had not sufficient money or craftiness to mask her profession, she would have been dumped into a refor- matory and very possibly completely squelched as a hopeful human being. Messrs. Artie, Sid & Co., thanks be to their social perquisites and liberties as male - animals, would get along quite nicely with their freedom. Charming in her youthfulness, tempting in her lure to beasts, ignorant of the happi- ness and security in the observance of a few self-guarding, simple rules of good conduct, and besides all else, blind to her potentiali- ty in the rdle of a loved wife and mother. So—was Julie—so have been others; locked in. Some few, who cannot be classified ex- cept as females of apish intelligence and low instincts, have deliberately locked the door on themselves and thrown the key away. We pity the poor idiot and the imbecile; but we do not allow them freedom to in- jure themselves and others. One rotten apple will contaminate a barrelful of choice fruit. Julie’s spasm of weeping passed. The last sob was checked in her throat. den idea had popped into her head. The door was locked, but what about the windows? ) lean out and cry for help? Somehow or other she could attract attention and sum- COMMIG Under conditions of. A sud-. Could she not. open one, | NOOLK CO