Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

By ROLAND KREBS ae over Mrs. Charlotte Gibbs was that motherly air. She appeared to be dressed in it. One looked at her once and knew instantly that she had an immense heart that was still not done with growing. There was her gray, nearly white, hair that lent such a soft tone to her features. Her eyes, too, were gray and soft. They pleaded with the world always to be good. The gentle, pliable mouth was ready ever to relax into a warm smile. This motherly old soul dressed smartly, but not garishly, in things that gave her a trimness and somehow seemed to com- mand respect from saleswomen, trolley con- ductors and messenger boys. In a word, Mrs. Charlotte Gibbs always had the de- meanor of an important delegate just about to go before the State Convention of Parent- Teacher Associations and propose a resolu- tion under which the wife and daughters of a burglar would find no social barriers down to them. Yet. with all this virtue fairly dripping from her, Mrs. Charlotte Gibbs was the kind of person who, after being acquainted with one only a short time led one to remark: ‘‘ Appearances are often deceiving.” You see, she had one really big fault. She just would steal. In fact, McShea, of the Bertillon depart- ment, used to say that the dawn stealing over the hilltops and the rivers stealing down toward the sea really shirked when compared with the stealing Mrs. Gibbs per- formed with one hand. In her forty years of activity Mrs. Gibbs, fondly called ‘‘ The Duchess ” by her pals and her foes, the dicks, had tried nearly every racket that honest people fight shy of. When she looked a desk sergeant in the mustache it was problematical whether he would book her for scratching, poke snatch- ing, the badger game, shoving the queer or gluing herself to some one’s bundle without asking his permission. For the error of her way she had served 947 COMmMicloo® (©