Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

810 “It’s for you to know what nerve it is. By cripes, with you working at my side I could make that little skunk plumb crazy.” “* He’s crazy already.” “We could scare him so’s he would go and stick his head in them mud shoals. He would throw himself into the bayou with fear—betwixt you and me. We don’t have to come aboard of him. Hell, no! I ain’t lookin’ for no rope around my neck. When I fight a man I socks him in the button so’s his spine gets twisted but I don’t kill him. I never kill nobody. It’s too complicated.” ‘““T'll tell you what his weak nerve is,” Cora said, dropping her voice and leaning across the table. ‘“ You won’t believe it. I ain’t quite so sure that I believe it my- self. You don’t believe things you can’t understand generally, unless it’s ghosts. And this I’m tellin’ you ain’t ghosts—that is not what you’d call ghosts exactly—” she stumbled. It took a larger vocabularly than Cora Herzog’s to give expression to the peculiar things in her sodden mind. Presently seeing the man across the table smiling somewhat condescendingly—as if he thought she was foolish but was willing to put up with it— she went on: ‘It started that night the Orinoco anchored over there near the turn- ing basin. One of the men on board—a mate, a skinny scarecrow that talked like they do in the vaudeville ‘ yes, my lydy, y’know,’ and all that stuff. ‘Comes from London b’gosh.’ Well, he gets knifed. The Mexican which knifed him was standing right in that room.” She pointed up to a window barred with rusty filigree. ‘‘ The mate—Grimpen was his name—gets the blade in his stomach or neck. Leastways he croaks. Now I admit they ain’t no ghosts yet!” she snapped out angrily, again seeing the condescending smirk which bared her companion’s yellow nippers. ‘In fact there ain’t no ghosts at all—it’s only Herzog as thinks there are. That’s how we are going to make him crazy.” Al Boscoe shuffled his chair closer. ‘‘ This sounds good.” ‘Well the dying wish of that ship’s mate with the knife in his stomach was that he ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, be buried at sea. His skipper, who was here then—drat him for the bloody thug that he was too!—promises to bury him in the sea, but then he tells Herzog: ‘ Take this carcass and bury him as far inland as you can git. We don’t want him pollutin’ the waves of the sea.’ Goes back on the dying wish, you understand.” “But Herzog!” the other interrupted. “That’s it. I’m coming to Herzog. Herzog turns the stiff over to the authorities of course and he gits planted in potter’s field. Ever since Herzog has been kind of loony. Why, I don’t know. Whenever he smells tidewater he shivers. He don't shiver from the wind that brings the stench up here, but from the smell of the sea itself, He is scared that there body of Grimpen which orter been buried in the sea won’t lie quiet in potter’s field.” ‘“‘ Look here, lady,” Al Boscoe said con- fidentially. “I want to advise you some- thing. You're throwin’ a good happy life away tryin’ to stick it out with sim! What’s he givin’ you anyway that you let yourself be stepped on—why don’t you step on him? Squash him like you would squash a horned toad! That’s all he’s good for. A little cold-blooded, pop-eyed horned toad swells around as your husband. Thinks he’s good enough for you! Zowie,-what a joke!” ‘““A horned toad knows where it’s goin’! But Herzog—he don’t know where he’s goin’, I'll tell you!” Cora grunted. T’ll step on him all right if he thinks I’m goin’ slave my years out here any longer. I used to be good lookin’ in the old days. Ask anyone around here.”’ “You're good lookin’ now!” Al Boscoe said, leaning so close that she was thrilled with a whiff of that pungent pomade. A superb impression of unlimited strength, of flattery and sweet odors enthralled the impressionable Cora. ‘ Ask me if you ain’t beautiful! If anybody knows a beautiful woman it’s a mariner—which is me, At Boscoe!” This was stretching a point somewhat, for a riverboat scruffer is not exactly the same as a deep sea mariner. Cora Herzog was not exactly what could be called beauti- ful. “‘ And yet you're satisfied,” the flatter- COMIGD OOo! C©