Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

Pa tt ee eee A are aire al i 1) 1 ‘4 i ys) pall it ({ it» | | | Ui By GARRET SMITH “¥ WISH I dared warn the boy that a guy’s fixin’ to murder him.” This from old Barney, night man at the Primo Garage, to his friend Tim. Young Mr. Penfield Wimbleton, to whom Barney referred, had just settled his lanky, sport-suited length under his steer- ing wheel. Spurring Lucifer, his big racer, into a roaring rage worthy of its namesake, whose pert metal image perched at the end of the rakish hood, he slipped in the clutch and with a masterful anticlimax rolled the big car out of the garage as gently as a baby carriage. In another moment he had softly rounded the corner into Park Avenue. “Can ye beat it?” Barney demanded. “ It’s the divil what women do to a driver! Makin’ speeders outa gray haired bankers an’ turnin’ young road eatin’ divils like this boy into regular old maids, handlin’ a wheel like it was a cup o’ tea!” “ Meanin’ who, and who aims to murder him?” asked Tim, who had dropped in to gossip for an hour. “Young Wimbleton there is the feller in danger, him that used to shoot that hell wagon o’ his outa here on two wheels an’ make the cop on the corner jump outa the way to keep from bein’ run over.” “ Oh, that’s Wimbleton!” Tim recalled. “Yeh, I remember the boy. Won the Long Island road race two years ago. Been ‘in the papers half a dozen times for speedin’ accidents, ain’t he?” “Easy that. Last time Judge Thomas promised to send him to jail if he got caught again.” : “But what’s the murder story?” “There’s a young society drunkard named Frank Long, runs in Mr. Wimble- ton’s set, I take it, but ain’t his kind. Long’s pal is young George Varnum, a whole lot of a little rat. Ye may have seen ‘em round. Both keep their cars here. “Well, only this afternoon Long brought his car in an’ I notice him fussin’ around Wimbleton’s machine. After he left I find one hind hub unscrewed and the wheel I can’t say noth- about ready to drop off. 314