Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

sO THIS=AS was iccally considered to be one of the country’s magnates. He had a small yacht with a sailing master, deck-hand and Jap- anese steward, and whenever he stopped in the city was not satisfied with a mere room at the best hotel, but took a suite of two. He also belonged to at least three clubs, could play golf, had nine pairs of shoes and a valet, and ate food cooked by a Swiss chef. From time to time he spent a few weeks in the old home of which he was sole sur- vivor. He wasn’t at all uppish, the Slapper was told, and called folks “ Ed,” and “ Ella,” liked to chat of old school days, and could always be counted on to con- tribute to any village project. Then, with- out warning he would steam away in his yacht for Bar Harbor, or take train for Portland, without saying good-by or any- thing; and like as not next thing they’d hear he was in Rome, or Tokyo, or some- where. The Slapper often saw him strolling up and down the one street of Wedlock, wear- ing tweed knickers, smoking an old brier, switching at burdocks and hardhack with his stout walking stick as if it were a mid- iron, pausing to gossip with some shapeless woman across her fence, or with a man shucking clams, or else herding a crowd of youngsters into the notion store for ginger ale. In this respect he was the Slapper’s only rival. But the boys looked upon Ma- jor Hendrie with his fifty years as an old man, ripe for the grave; while they accept- ed the Slapper as one of themselves. The days slipped by, lethargically, and the Slapper envied the hop-heads he had known who, by snuffing a little snow or rolling a pill could create their own private heavens and hells, peopled with villains and houris, enormous and brilliant fruits and flowers everywhere, monsters and prodigies. At this time, had he possessed any dope, he would have tried it to shorten the drag- ging hours. But he slept ten hours a night, his appetite did not diminish, and he began to put on weight. Not fat, but good hard flesh. His face browned. Back home they would scarcely have known him for the pasty faced, good looking shadow that flit- ted from Porky Phelan’s gymnasium to WEDLOCK! 831 Jocko’s pool room, a fetcher and carrier for the sable powers of the underworld. There were nights when his dramatic sense functioned in dreams and gave him a sort of vicarious relief. From the city came high grade boxworkers, bent upon cracking the Wedlock bank. The Slapper, foiling them, won the devotion of the vil- lage, and headlines in the metropolitan press. He married the only daughter of Major Hendrie, who promptly died and left him heir to untold millions. There were discrepancies in these dreams. To begin with, Wedlock had no bank. The nearest was in Muillerville, twenty miles south. Also, Major Hendrie had no daugh- ter. And had such a band of crooks de- scended upon Wedlock, the chances were that it would embrace some member known to the Slapper, some one whom he could not in honor turn up. So, even in his visions there was a sense of futility. But the time was fast approaching when the Slapper was to learn that drama, of a sort, is inescapable in any place where men and women live together. No matter how dull or prosy the spot, how bovine its deni- zens, the elemental passions will thrust ugly heads above the sleek current of life and involve one even as he yawns and wonders that the westering sun seems to have got stuck, somehow, and is unable to call it a day! IV. AN audience is a basic necessity to the normal male, like food and drink, shelter, or love. Naturally enough the Slapper turned to Letty Dean, the hired girl, for sympathetic appreciation of his lurid past. The girl suffered no loss of caste through her menial employ. She was regarded as one of the family; ate with them, sat in the family pew on Sundays. Mrs. Tucker worked as hard as she did. There were plenty of pretty girls in Wedlock. Some of them were more lovely than Letty; but none excelled her in freshness of coloring, wealth and luster of hair, and few equaled her in ability. She would have attracted the Slap- per’s fancy anywhere; and situated as he now was, it was inevitable that he should be moved by her wholesome presence. In COMmiclooe (©