The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

136 ways upset her anyway, and this time it jangled fearfully. ‘‘T mean I’m going to get into the Four Hundred, all right,’ continued Prince, “only it ‘ll be the Four Hundred of Sing Sing.” . They all started guiltily, and he glowed with his thought as he dwelt on it lovingly. ‘“‘ You see, Hoffman House Charlie usual- ly works under a handicap. As a rule he hasn’t much chance for notice from the newspapers, and there’s no use talking, you can’t get very high in any society unless the papers give you some attention. Now, when Charlie gets arrested it’s a petty larceny charge or some swindling frame-up, as a rule, and the papers print that much about it’”’—he indicated about half an inch, be- tween his thumb and forefinger—“ on the back page, and the judge gives him a year or two.” Prince shrugged his shoulders, deprecatingly. ‘‘ No class!” he muttered. Fane strove to laugh but only a hollow sound came from her chest. “You have quite a sense of humor, haven’t you?” she remarked, with an at- tempt to be conciliatingly pleasant, for she felt that she was struggling with a sinister force of which she alone knew the power. However, though previously laughing, he was now quite sober. “Never heard of it,” he replied. ‘‘ Do you think the newspapers ain’t going to put it on the front pages to-morrow morning in big headlines how Petroleum Prince of Oklahoma worked the swell Harlingood family into a bunch of hired help and him being nothing but Hoffman House Charlie all the time. A cheap con man! And them supposed to be in Bar Harbor, too? Whew! “The judge’ll give about ten years for that and when Charlie gets to Sing Sing he’ll be in the Four Hundred there, all right, and able to hold his head as high as any embezzler or forger or bank-wrecker in the place—as high as any of the swellest crooks. Why, he’ll be on the executive committee of the Welfare League inside of two weeks!” This interested Welling as a peculiar ex- pression of an unique phase in the psycholo- gy of a criminal. “Your logic seems a bit twisted, Con- THE ARGOSY. nors,” he commented, but with an air which seemed to admit that it had much force in it. ‘““Not a bit of it, young fellow,” re- sponded the manacled one, with good na- ture, as from one professional to another. “You get me all right. You know what ambition is; you know it’s true that ‘ once a crook always a crook.’ ‘You know I can’t get up in my calling any more ’n you can in yours without ma- king a splash, doing something that gets in the papers big. That’s the way nowadays, the only way. You’re a man and you know the ropes; not a girl ’—and he cast a deft sidelong glance toward Una, who sat fasci- nated and tense—‘ with a lot of sentiment- al rot about cons. Come on. Let’s you and me mosey.” He paused; while the Harlingoods re- covered from his harangue by breaking into imprecations. “You terrible man!” said Fane. ** Rotter!” came from Arthur. ‘‘ Scoundrel!” hissed the father. ‘“ How perverted,” muttered Mrs. Harlin- good. CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE HANDS OF THE LAW. OWEVER, if the family which had lived for three generations honorably on the avenue thought this was an end of it, even for the moment, they were much mis- taken. Prince was not the one to endure their hard words without reply. ‘““ Don’t call names,” he adjured them, while Jack stood irresolute beside him, won- dering why the wagon did not arrive and relieve him of his distressing problem. “ If I am a crook I’m not living in fear in the back of my house when I’m supposed to be in the country. If I am hiding from the po- lice I can still hold my head high among my own kind. I ain’t welched on the clan that bore me.” ‘The iniquity!” cried Mrs. Harlingood. ‘‘ Have you no moral nature?”’ He turned on her severely. ‘No preaching, Riggs!’’ he admonished, not without a twinkle in his eye, and Una, oO cComicboo S CO