Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

= ae help him j in a achannes asa good — __-wife should. She would wish to live in her own set, and as the Slapper himself had ze _ lived. Not at the Polack’s, of course; but -in-a flat where ’most ae but arson = went. Suppose he were to ask Letty to marry him? There was no father to inquire as = ‘not ask: if she accepted him—and he knew _- _ instinctively that she was not the sort of =< = girl to kiss a fellow she didn’t like well - enough to marry—she would believe that he was all that he was not. And what an 2 awakening for her, when she should leave _ this big, clean, well-ordered house, the de- _ eency and calm that environed her, to smell _ of his precinct, his street! She would be a foreigner; the friends he = introduce would speak a tongue largely meaningless to her; the delicates-- = sen would mock her with exotic pungencies; — _ the cruel din Jay remor siege to her ears. And could she ever learn to feel her- self in a home? To gossip with slatterns - in kimonos, drifting in from the other apartments? Shout across grimy washlines _, to neighbors over the way? Be satisfied = se TOONS ane movies. 5.2m dance = Kot i any ae of his Sanpination ~ eould the Slapper envision such a thing. sweating over a potato field, or doing any-- __ thing that the village would. be willing to = pay important money for. That was the _ poison of the big burg; you either starved, @F you got easy money. Nobody really worked, nobody that he knew. They graft- = ed. They took it off of somebody that did = wk. They risked their liberties often, —— their socks sometimes; but they never per- -— spired. “Money came to have an unnatural <= meaning to them. It didn’t represent la- - bor; a twenty-case note was not the con- = rete. evidence of something produced, but = - of something pulled off. A trick turned. A - deal. Carelessly pocketed, easily spent, - Bg where that came from! —_ ¥t was at this time of mental and emo- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. to his “prospects,” his past. Letty would — = and hear and feel the intimate nastiness— Ae equally, he could not behold ‘sceaele taking root in Wedlock, learning to fish, or =e ional uncertainty that Major Hendrie over- _ SSS mee SS z ——— z = == = com icboo took hie one day, acces along the north shore, and invited him to look at his great barracks of a house. “1 don’t know why I stay on so long, he said. ‘‘ Might as well be planted in the graveyard! About once in so often I come home to spend a few days; and sick along. for weeks.” — They turned in through the ‘sone-pil- 3 lared gateway, the grass high on either. hand. “ Neighbors ie why I don’t have it shaved and set out to formal gardens,” he told the Slapper. ‘‘ But the wild things _ look better to me. I see enough manicured yards. Needs a scythe, though. I'll get ‘Will Harmon to cut it for the hay.” 7 Hendrie hired a woman of the village to act as housekeeper during his visits; and his Japanese steward came ashore and looked after him. He opened the front ~door for Ses now, bowed and. sucked m Ted =f not ‘out, ‘here was oemcley eaeink to satisfy any Wedlocker. Stiff legged furniture, stuffed hard as a punch- ing bag, upholstered in crimson plush, Dark red curtains looped -back with gilt. -cords.- Steel engravings of notable but dull. ‘looking episodes in American history. Great mirrors set in walnut frames; and drooping from the high ceiling a kerosene lamp with a shade as big as a parasol, and a sliding chain to haul it up or down. They went over the house. The library had built-in cases and glass doors, behind which lurked regiments of sullen looking books, leather bound. Above stairs, there were great square chambers with black walnut beds so enormous that the Slapper wondered how they had got them inside. Stands and dressing bureaus were of wal- nut, with chilly marble tops. Brussels car- — pets with huge nosegays of flowers, once brilliant but now mercifully toned down. A bathroom with a block-tin tub set in a wooden frame, and the only set bowl in town with alleged hot water-tap. Here and — there, lowering or simpering from dark cor- ‘hers, enlarged “portralts: of unauthentic look-— ing children, and questionable characters of -maturer years. Vast wardrobes Tevealing, | when opened moth-eaten garments ==