Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

ALWAYS A GENTLEMAN. “ you'll always be welcome right back here to home if things might just happen to go wrong up there in Chicago.”’ IIT. A NEw world, rich and opulent, teeming with splendid activity, was opened up to Chester Gibbs within the ornate hotel at which he had registered in Chicago. Upon each and every guest was an indefinable aura of prosperity, of success. Once upon a time he had read somewhere it was both ethical and profitable to present an ap- pearance of well-being when in distress. It was a pleasant philosophy, and it had lured him into quarters entirely disproportionate in cost to his purse. At the longest, he’could remain but a few days, yet in that time he was pre- pared to enjoy his surroundings to the full- est extent. The delicious resiliency of his bed, the stinging needles of his cold shower, great thick towels, soft rugs, mahogany furniture—all conspired to create the illu- sion that he was a natural part of his sur- roundings. The etchings on the walls of his room, the shaded lights, gave him a sense of infinite achievement—and the total effect of it all was personified in the rotund figure of Mr. Francis X. Tally, who occupied a suite across the corridor from Chester’s room on a court. Chester had observed the distinguished man at a distance in the lobby and at close range in the ‘elevator; had marveled at the razor-scraped pinkness of his jowls and the elusive elegance in the fit of his garments. The time would come, he was confident, when Chester Gibbs, too, would be bland and smiling, correct, a man among men— and a gentleman. Always a gentleman. So great was his veneration that he went numb: with astonishment on the evening of his second day when some one opened his ~ door without knocking and a Francis X. Tally, blanched, wilted, craven, tottered into the room. ‘“Voung man, I need help, and I need it damn quick,” he said in ghastly tones. ‘My wife’s just come in from home and she’ll be up on the elevator any minute.” Mr. Talley endeavored to clear the dew 043 from his forehead with a silk handkerchief. ‘“ And I got a hell-roaring party going on across the hall. There’s a couple of friends of mine in there with a case of Scotch and five or six cabaret girls—all lit.” He advanced and clung to the shoddy lapels of Chester Gibbs. ‘You got to save me, boy! Thank God —my brain still works. Lay down on the bed and pretend you're sick. I'll bring her in and tell her I’m ’tending to you—that I was called in—and Mrs. Tally, she'll sit right down and begin to nurse you while I clean that gang out. I'll pay you well—” Chester extended a hand, which Tally pressed fervently. ‘‘ You can’t pay me a cent—”’ ‘Heaven bless you!” The frantic one lumbered hastily to the door. ‘ Groan!” he threw over his shoulder. ‘‘ Groan and double up in agony!”’ The patient, by midnight, was well out of danger. From the moment she had been ushered into the room the alert, maternal eye of Mrs. Francis X. Tally, the best nonprofessional nurse in Queensberg, Illi- nois, had not been diverted from the hypo- critical sufferings of Chester Gibbs. Taking advantage of her concentrated at- tention, Tally had escaped from Chester’s room long enough to hustle his riotous guests protestingly from his apartment. Summon- ing a maid he had the place cleaned and aired, restored to the Puritanical sanctity befitting the husband of a plain, honest wife. Chastened and humble, he returned to the sick bed; sat sympathetically through the long hours of Mrs. Tally’s relentless ministrations. ‘There now,” she said kindly at last, ““T guess you can get to sleep. Your cramps had me puzzled all right, but I knew those peppermint bitters would knock ’em if you took enough. -Land sakes!” She turned to her hovering husband. ‘ This poor child swallowed almost a pint before I could stop him.” It was true. Dosed and drugged into bodily inertia, Chester lay under the sheets, ° wan and drowsy. From time to time he gathered enough energy to moan feebly— loyally. COmiclbooks.com