Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

SUNDOWN CAFE. “Insult? There weren’t no insult. Ex- cept that he objected to hard liquor—which you might say is a insult to my profession —stoo’rd. No man that thinks he can come into my bar without he drinks strong drinks gets away without a sock in the button, y’understand. Now what’s your order?” ‘ Lemonade!” the other rejoined. The witnesses to this extraordinary meet- ing of the strange skipper and the barkeep of the Sundown Café saw something then that they would never forget. They backed away, following their first intimations of trouble. The air seemed to hang fire like a cartridge which they all expected would explode any moment. Surely Al Boscoe would return this quip courteous with a good bone-crashing sock. The man standing before him was slim- mer, with hands that seemed at first sight delicate. Al Boscoe, they were convinced, could have made short work of him. But it was not a duel of hands—those delicate hands against the leaden fists of the bar- keep. It was a duel of eyes. It was the muddy, narrow-set eyes of a riverboat steward against the clear, green eyes of a deep seaman. Boscoe stepped forward, lunging, so eager to deliver a punch that he cared nothing for the balance of his weight. But he caught himself in the very act of hurling an uppercut. There was a glint in those green eyes that made him shiver. The man was bedeviled.. : He had come out of the sea like a shipwrecked sailor from another 819 world. Or, what Boscoe thought was con- siderably more likely, he had a gun in his sleeve and would hurl a string of fire as soon as he had a mind to. The peculiar thing that these witnesses saw was the picture of a hulking brute be- coming slightly jaundiced about the gills, breaking into a sweat, turning slowly about and slinking to the protection of his bar. Old Herzog watched this combat and he felt the blood freezing in his veins. Who was this man? Why should he come to the Sundown Café. Why? Herzog thought immediately of Mate Grimpen lying there in the tomb of General Oaxaca Papaquillo. . In the presence of this skipper all the superstitions of the sea began to grip Her- zog as they will grip a sailor who is about to drown. He had an overwhelming desire to run as fast as his feet—or rather his mule and dump cart—could carry him and rid himself of that body. The damnable thing could not have had a more terrifying effect on the old inebriate if it had been ac- tually hung about his neck,—as they hung the albatross about the neck of the Ancient Mariner. He followed his impulse, ran to the stable and fumbled in his black under- shirt to assure himself that he had the key. He scratched his breast. His palm flat- tened on a thumping heart. He muttered incoherent oaths; ran back to the inn; searched out the place where he had slept that afternoon; again fumbled at his breast; muttered, suppressed a snarl of fear. The key to Mate Grimpen’s temporary tomb was not there. TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK v v v TO A WOULD-BE RIVAL EALOUS of you? Does the rose envy the onion her face? Or the wise man envy the fool his place? Jealous of you? Do you think that I think that he loves you? I know by his eyes that to me he’s true. When you look in his eyes as I do and see Love shining through, then indeed will I be Jealous of you! Sara Gilday. COMIGD OOo! (©