The Argosy for May — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

A HAND-BAG TOO MANY. By ROBERT KEENE. Wherein is set forth the awful predicament of a good lady with a bad memory, in the shopping district. | BEG your pardon, madam — you dropped your bag!” Miss Hutchison turned in the nar- row, crowded aisle of the department- store. young man, hat in hand, holding out to her a plain, black-leather shopping-case. ‘Dear me!” exclaimed the little, white-haired lady, staring at the famil- ijar-appearing ~chatelaine he proffered. “Why,” raising her empty hands and clapping them hastily to her belt— “why, so I did!” The young man pressed the bag into her clasp. ‘YT picked it up from the floor behind you,” he explained briefly, turning away. “ Not at all,”’ he called over his shoulder in answer to her half-uttered speech of thanks; “‘you’re quite welcome!” Then, stepping back into the crowd around them, he wheeled down another aisle, and disappeared. ~“ Well!” Miss Hutchison — stood flusteredly looking after ‘his departing figure. Her eyes dropped to the shop- ping-case in her hands. “ Well, I’m very fortunate, I’m sure, to get back my bag! “And very stupid,” drop it.” Lifting her gaze to glance swiftly about her, she thankfully perceived that no one watched the embarrassment she felt at the exposure of her carelessness. No one—that is, save a heavily mus- sé she added, “ to tached man in a brown derby hat, stand-_ ing beside the opposite counter. He turned at the moment that she looked in his direction, his eyes sweeping her from head to foot in a slow stare, and then walked indifferently away. Biushing slightly, Miss Hutchison moved forward -with the stream of shop- pers flowing down the aisle. “1 can’t understand my carelessness in dropping that bag,” she told herself. 377 Facing her stood an alert - eyed’ “Tf it weren’t for that young man’s honesty, I might have lost it. And sup- pose I had?” She trembled at the thought. In the bag was more than two thou- sand dollars—a sum withdrawn from her bank not two hours before with which to purchase letters of credit—and the steamer tickets for herself and niece, who were to sail for a summer in Europe the next day. Suppose she lost~those tickets and all that money! The vision of the calamity that would follow caused her to catch her breath. And she had nearly done it. escaped such ill fortune breadth. However, she thought gratefully, her grasp on the bag in her hand tightening, she Aad avoided the catastrophe. Arrived at\the end of the aisle, Miss Hutchison stepped out into the rotunda. And a glance at the clock, hung in the dome, brought an ejaculation of surprise to her lips. It was noon, and she had arranged to meet Marion, her niece, not later than half after eleven. She was nearly half an hour late, she realized, as she turned hastily up another aisle. An hour before, Marion and she had parted on the second floor of the store, promising to meet again at the glove counter. Miss Hutchison, arriving there fifteen minutes ahead of time, had whiled away a few tedious moments in the selection of a pair of suédes, and de- parted. She intended returning promptly. But the minutes had slipped by uncounted in her aimless wandering about the store, and now she was late. How foolish she had been to leave the counter, in the first place. Marion, ar- riving to find her gone, might go off in search of her; thus they both would be She had by a_ hair- IKeLOOOLKS (C@)