Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

Pf SUNDOWN CAFE. er went on, “ satisfied with a toad, s’help me! When—if you wanted a real sailor— Look at this arm of mine.” He held up a gigantic bronzed forearm which sent a thrill through Cora as if she had actually felt its strength on her chin. It brought her back to her other train of thought. ‘“‘T was prettier before Herzog got a hold of me,” she said in a tone of tragic injury. “IT got a score to settle with him! If I could get him under my thumb! The trou- ble is he’s so slippery. Always calls in the authorities if there’s anything wrong.” Al Boscoe jumped suddenly from his seat and hurried to the bar, which he started wiping with an extraordinary ferocity. He had seen Herzog’s little twisted body framed in the arched doorway. Herzog glared at his bartender with pale, venomous eyes. He had been cudgeling his brain now for hours trying to find a way to rid himself of this horrible animal whom he had been forced to hire. But there was no possible wey. He visualized spending the rest of his years as an inn- keeper with this monster behind the bar constantly wiping the mahogany and baring his gums in that hideous mocking grin. Herzog had come to one very definite con- clusion: he could not discharge the fellow —he didn’t dare. He would have to et rid of him some other way. Worst of all, the new barkeep took a very disconcerting view of the whole matter him- self: “It’s lucky for you, Herzog,” he said, “that you-all took me on as your stoo’rd when you did. There’s goin’ to be trouble in this sea grill, let me tell you that.” Herzog groaned as he came to the bar, motioned for the olla and whisky glass. Trouble? He knew it all too well. “Your old woman—good old mate that she is—tells me how you had a riot here some time ago and the first officer of the Orinoco was knifed.” Herzog paled, gulped his drink, and looked up at the barkeep as if the other’s ensuing remarks were to be body blows. “ Now I know you think I ain’t worth keepin’ here, Herzog, but you’re mistaken. What could you do in a riot, I’d like to know. Get cut yourself. That’s about all. 811 Then gibber and pray and tremble and call the sheriff. Ain’t I right?” Herzog didn’t object. “You wouldn’t sock nobody on the but- ton, would you now? You’d poison them perhaps. That’s your game. But take me now: if I had been here when the Orinoco crew pulled off their revolution within these here walls I’d of had the whole gang stretched cold on the deck and all as you’d have needed would be a coupla wheelbar- rows to stow them aboard their scaly old ship. But you shiver and tremble about, whistle for a hurricane—and it’s comin’, too, a hurricane of the worst trouble you ever dreamed of.” “Trouble! What trouble?” Herzog snapped, finally lifting his head out of the collarless shirt like a mud turtle. “Yes, sir, when I says trouble, I mean pure hell’s fire, that’s what! Look here, I understand that that there body of the mate as was knifed was supposed to be took out to sea, shrouded in sail cloth, buried where his soul could rest down there in the bottom ooze with Davy Jones.” Herzog began to break out into a cold sweat—a reaction that could not be hidden. The barkeep saw him wiping his wet chin. Cora, listening to this conflict from her table in the balmy patio, knew intuitively that her husband was being very effectively bested. His nerve was going. “Look here!” Herzog cried weakly. “* What’s she been tellin’ you about Mate Grimpen’s body, I’d like to know. There wasn’t nothin’ to it-——just a barroom brawl. The Mex that knifed him was gored by a bull that same morning. The authorities came. There was nothin’ more to it. Dozens of witnesses. Grimpen was mur- dered, yes; but his murderer was finished, too. Grimpen, the mate, gets planted in potter’s field and that ended it.” “Ended it you say! [Ended it!” Al Boscoe broke into an uproarious guffaw, then he collected himself, opened his blood- shot eyes on the little turtle opposite to him, and went on in a husky tremulo: “I tell you you poor little bug, it ain’t ended; it’s just started. That body of Mate Grim- pen ain’t going to rest quiet in the earth. No, sir! Don’t you know anything about CORE ool (©