Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

me, ‘and Ll knock you so far you'll be a week crawling back. I know you're thick, but I guess you can get that, eh, Sam?” Sam goes crazy with what he’s got in And no rough stuff! Pull any on = = “You fire me! You want fight, eh? —_¥ou talk too much—you try! I lick you = _ Tight now—” - -. He starts for Pete with his head dropped like a battling bull. Pete puts one hand im his coat pocket, but he don’t move a step. —-——s “ Sam!”’ he yells sudden. — ‘Phis strong guy sort of hesitates and -_leoks up, him being in the habit of doing his best work when he gets a guy on the run. Somehow Pete don’t leok like he knew the steps. ss * Sam,” says Pete, “we ain’t fighting to-day. I don’t aim to bother with no chunk of cheese. But I pack a gun for mad -___ dogs, and the first move you make I'll show __way.” He was talking real nice, but it ‘wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Come on, now, _ Sam, and get punctured. There’s a nice, -- quiet grave in this burg just waiting for you. ___ "Fhey don’t charge no more when they make _ them big. What are you waiting for, Sam? Come on, and get killed, nice and friend- -___ ly, and Pl have you planted under a wil- = low tree. You’ve got enough pay coming— and you won’t need it you being dead that way.” a “Sam stares like one of these hypnotized --_-ginks at Pete’s finger, which makes a nasty, ‘wiggling kind of a bulge in the side pocket of his eoat. The big gimmick gulps once or _ twice, but don’t show no special anxious- ness to step up and be killed. Then he - gets a bright idea—for him. ee quit!” he says, not so loud as he yelled before. _ __“{ thought so,” says Pete. “ Get into = that tent, and don’t show your flat map - outside it the rest of the day.” “J guit now—I. quit you} quit. the - sghow—1I don’t stay no more—” yapps Sam, -__ trying to make himself clear. Pete never ____ batted an eye. -__“ Thanks,” he says. ‘And if you’re not 5 : off the lot in fifteen minutes, and out of ARGOSY- ALLSTORY WEEKLY. you how a nutmeg grater got so it looks that town by to-night, to-morrow morning you'll look worse yet than you do to-day.” Pete was a great man. He’d kept Sam’s * number when the rest of us had throwed it away. But Sam wasn’t fmished. With his nerve and no sense he’d tried to swim the Atlantic thinking it ended at Coney and he’d get a lift going across. _ Here he goes now, after Pete has messed up his feelings, beating it to the women’s dressing tent. In the show-shop, that’s a hanging offense. Mina was in there. That’s all he needed to know. He busted in like a wild man. ‘Two or three of the janes that was dolling up to get out on the job said afterwards he wasted no looks at them. Just the same they started yelling like they’d found a herd of porch climbers under the bed. Mina was sitting down by her box putting on her face for the day.. Sam rushes up and ~ erabs her under the arm. _“ You come by me—” he says. Mina just gives one— yell, and Jooks around for a weapon to bean him with. “Get out of here, you big stiff!” ie hollers. ‘“‘ You turn me loose! You'll get the can for this!” “Tm quit,” he says stubborn. “I leave the show—you got to pack up and come.” —“ I see myself!” says Mina. “ Ain’t you got any decency, busting in here?” Sam’s got one idea, and he can’t get away from it none- “You come with me! Me, I don’t ; go alone! You come now quiet, or—” Whango! Mina lifted up the trunk tray and busts it over his bean. Sam shakes his head, brushes the splinters off from his = shoulders, and jounces the frame down on the eround. He makes a pass at Mina and lifts her off her feet. She wasn’t no feather, at that. She claws like a cat, yelling twice as loud_as before. She’d of spoiled his face, if- there was anything could—kicks hard enough to bust in the side of a barn, Sam starts with her like he aimed te any her the rest of the week. “ Bunt!” she howls before even they’ re outside. “Bunt!” What do you know heut that? Her that’s been hounding him, the poor tripe, till he’ s thin as a a hair, yelling for him to save 1 comicbooks. COl