Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 167: what you’re looking at

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

THE ORCHID. just completed in a hog-wallow in ‘‘Flound- ers” was the longest time he had stayed in one place since he had stowed away at Vancouver at the age of twelve. George was neither vicious nor besotted. He had no use for women. He didn’t hate them; he was just not interested. The noc- turnal habit meant no more than that he had become accustomed to landing at dark and getting his fill of port from then on, knowing that his stay was short. Billy was safe with George, far safer than he would have been alone in a much more conventional neighborhood. George in port had rarely ventured be- yond sight of the dock, Billy was still a small-town boy; and London confused them. Their voyage from Victoria was one of adventure, comprising many anxious in- quiries, wrong exchanges, an argument with a guard who demanded an extra penny each when they left at Aldgate East, and an un- certain progress along Commercial Road. But eventually they came to Limehouse —Limos to the native—to the West India Dock Road, and to the doss-house of Keng Ah, whose number George had given as their emergency address. IV. GEoRGE’s ideal of a rest was, as may be surmised, somewhat unconventional, but it may be doubted if any procedure more grateful to trench-stale warriors was ever evolved. The two would proceed to a pub. or an eating-house, be it Green Man or Hoang Ho Restaurant, and remain there for hours, sipping a few corporeal drinks with their lips and long drafts of the en- joyment of others with their eyes. , All the world came and played for their pleasure— or, better, all the underworlds—Manila, Macao and Madras, Mombasa and Monte- video, mingling in the Causeway and Pen- nyfields with the more permanent denizens thereof. The mood was not always upon Billy when the night began, but the haze of strange smokes and the potency of the local gin soon softened the tone which at first offended eye and ear and nostrils, as time ripens the painting from the master’s hand. o17 Billy was wrapped in a warm, drowsy content behind a wicker table in the tea- room of Cheng Loo when Jewel swung into his orbit like a new-born flaming sun. It was as though a spotlight picked her out and allowed the rest of the room to dim to a drab, searcely-sensed background. She just appeared from nowhere, like a fairy in a pantomime, and then there was no one else there. and she laughed that slow, wide, rippling laugh; and then she swayed over unhesitat- ingly and sat herself down upon his knee. Billy spoke never a word to her: he just looked. And she leaned down and looked, long and deep into his eyes. She went white—white to her lips—and abruptly she was away, and swaying magnificently to the stairway. Billy sat and stared after her, with white, set face and pinched nos- trils, and a look in his eye which brought a savage curse to George’s lips. And the remainder of the night was an Odyssey, as Billy vainly sought for Jewel, door by door, dive and den, through all Pennyfields and its environs, up and down the Causeway, and even as far as Poplar Arches, and George plied him desperately with drinks, until at dawn himself was bare- ly able to navigate them home to Keng Ah’s. George swore to Billy that he didn’t know who she was, but he lied. She was Keng Ah’s woman. V. Bitty awoke in a fever and conflict of soul. He was up and down the scale like the needle of a seismograph recording an earth-tremor. He would murmur “I won- der who she is?” in the hot hope and faith of youth; and then in despair: “ Why do you suppose she went away, George? What did I do?” Once or twice there came a horrid doubt: “Had it been real?” And George was forced to answer, grimly, that it had. Haltingly he would essay a hint at the truth, speaking in generalities. It was as though Billy didn’t hear. There are things you can’t tell a man. Billy couldn’t be kept in, and he wouldn’t be still. He no sooner got a look around in a new place than he wanted to go out; She looked straight at Billy, GOMIGIOO <S (C@) nn