Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

230 The tension was eased by the arrival of their waiter with cordial glasses and a black jug of shlivovitza. When he went away, Rhoda bent forward and began to talk rapidly in a low, agitated voice. It seem that he was in great trouble. His good luck had all gone bad on him. He was at his wits’ ends. Stranded in a place like Nish! It was simply unbeliev- able. He became incoherent. He mumbled. His eyes filled. And Michael Farley, with his thoughts on the white tragic hands of the incredible girl, sipped his prune whisky and hardly listened. People had a way of con- fiding in Farley. Even now, when he was not listening, he appeared to be intelligently interested and sympathetic. The Great Rhoda sighed mournfully. “Mr. Farley, let me assure you that those Orientals could teach me nothing. All I gained was a trifling variation of my old trunk trick and a phylactery that they could not explain themselves. It was a great disappointment. After looking for- ward all those years— I was crushed.” Farley gazed wistfully into the pale after- noon sky at a pair of tragic eyes shining from an alabaster cloud tinged with rose. *« All my life I had dreamed of studying under those wise men of India. They had no new tricks in their bag at all! I had them standing on tiptoe—all over India! They tried to hypnotize me. Hypnotize the Great R-r-rhoda! Imagine!” The young man wagged his head with polite amazement. He-was hearing only a word now and then of what the Great Rhoda said. He was wondering if he would see that red-haired girl again. Nish had been invested with a graciousness like that of springtime. ‘So I came here, playing the important towns along the way. I did fairly well in Constantinople, but there was no apprecia- tion in Salonica, so I made up my mind to ‘risk everything on Belgrade. Well, those Greek tax collectors got busy and taxed me into poverty. You see before you, Mr. Farley, a stripped man!” Michael Farley was now alert. Not until the Great Rhoda had mentioned taxes, how- ever, had he realized where this mournful recital was leading. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “T am destitute, Mr. Farley. You will pardon such candor from an utter stranger; but when a fellow countryman in distress—”’ He stared hungrily at Farley, but that young man had lost all his sympathetic symptoms. He was growing angry. “T would not have dreamed—” Rhoda ceased and with an outflung, de- jected gesture of his left hand covered the glass of sklivovitza. Farley attended him suspiciously. He would not have been sur- prised to see the cordial glass transformed, perhaps, into a white mouse. But the magi- cian lifted the glass to his lips and drained ofi the liquor at a sustained swallow. He replaced the glass and raised his hand to his forehead, the heel of his palm resting on his nose, and let it linger there. It was then that Farley observed the ring on the magician’s little finger. It was a shell cat’s eye mounted on a smooth band of ivory. For an illusive moment the stone became a third eye in the center of the Great Rhoda’s forehead. It was ovular in shape and perhaps three- quarters of an inch in length. Its fawn- brown color on one side shaded into the vert antique of its convex pupil. On the under side the green fused into a white crescent. There was no line of demarcation visible between the stone and its setting. Its changes of color, as Rhoda’s hand trem- bled, made of it a living thing. Affected by any one but a man of his stamp the ring would have seemed osten- tatious and cheap. He assimilated its showy - ugliness, made it a part of his mysterious and unhappy personality. He lowered his hand impetuously and Farley’s fascinated eyes traveled down with the ring as it flashed to the table. “‘T suppose you are wondering why I do not pawn this ring if I am stripped.”’ “TI might buy it,” the young man sug- gested. Rhoda inclined forward with a mocking n. “‘ How much?” he whispered. “ Oh—fifty pounds?” On the Rue de la Paix, Farley knew, it would bring a hundred at least. Rhoda sank back, “I am not offended, Mr, Farley. I have refused five hundred. COMmMiCooolks (C@