The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

134 racket,’ Pete remarked, after the some- what lengthy pause he allowed to fol- low the reporter’s last words—*“ where did you say they was now?” ‘ Half-way back East by this time,” Lewis replied. The other slowly shook his head. “Tt’s a hot one,” said he. “ By George, it’s the hottest I ever heard!” “Don’t you believe me?” Lewis asked with some anxiety. “Believe you?” and Pete stared at him in honest wonder. “ Why, say, d’ye suppose I think for one minute that you could have made that yarn up out of your head? I know it. must have happened. Don’t you worry none about me not believin’ it. We made a mistake, all right, when we grabbed you away from them cops—lI see that now.” Lewis half rose to embrace the man for his words, but corrected the wild impulse in time. This was almost too good to be true. Actually, the fellow believed him—he had listened to his story, credited it, and now expressed the conviction that he and his partner had made a mistake in making him a prisoner—well, here was an end to his troubles at last! The reporter stood up. “T imagine I can go now?” he re- marked. | Pete, hitching back in his chair, with difficulty crossed one bulky leg over its fellow in an attitude vaguely suggest- ive of aman at his ease. He shook his head at Lewis pleasantly enough. “No,” said he. ‘I wouldn’t be ina hurry just yet a while, if I was you. Sit down.” “But I want to go!” the reporter protested, his brows drawing together in a perplexed frown. ‘“ You've got nothing to get out of me, as you your- self have already admitted—’” ‘Sit down,” the fat man repeated. “You've got lots of time. Yourre going to wait till Brady gets back, you know.” Lewis’s spirits sank. Brady—flatly, he was afraid of that dour customer. Perhaps he wouldn’t be so easily con- THE ARGOSY. vinced of the truth of the story he had just related to his partner. Indeed, the chances were two to one against it. And what if that absent ruffian, return- ing, should talk Pete over to his side, persuading the latter that he had been listening to a pack of lies— “Look here, I’m in more or less of a hurry!” the reporter went on. “ This is nonsense—the idea of my waiting here for your friend, when there’s no telling just when he’ll be back, and— and why the deuce do I need to hang around for him, anyway? Unlock that door, and let me go on about my busi- ness. When the man comes back, tell him you let me go, and why—that you'd both made a mistake in bringing me here in the first place. That ought to satisfy him.” Pete nodded toward the bed. “You might as well take a load off your feet,” he remarked indifferently. “You'll wait here till my pal comes back, and that’s all there is to it. Squatty-voo,” and he smilingly beck- oned Lewis toward his former perch on the edge of the tumbled mattress. With liberty in his very grasp—was he going to be kept here, to satisfy the whim of this fat lummox? Lewis in- wardly raged. “See here!’ He appealed frankly to his captor. ‘“ Don’t you understand how I feel about this? Your friend Brady—well, to put it mildly, he’s got about the same kindly disposition as a rattlesnake and a snapping turtle, com- bined. If it hadn’t been for your in- terference ever since I met you two, that man would have been on the mat with me, chewing my ear. You saw what a sore-head he was.” Pete deprecatingly shook his head. “Just his way,’ he explained lenient- ly. “ Brady’s a good feller, once you get acquainted with him underneath the rough finish that hard knocks has put on to him. He wouldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ to you. Why, I know them as thinks my pal’s a reg’lar parlor pet—’”’ -™ Animal-tamers, and so on,” Lewis curtly nodded. ‘“ They’d be the only oO COMmMiclhoo S CO