The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 149: what you’re looking at

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

PETROLEUM PRINCE. Miss Haynes paused, utterly inert for the moment, and without deigning even to glance toward Welling, she narrowly watched Mrs. Harlingood. That worthy matron could not prevent her tired aristo- cratic face from showing the keen anguish Welling’s words occasioned and the ancient maiden saw unmistakably that the young man had spoken truth. She turned on Prince like a catamount, her eyes blazing, her ninety pounds of tense fierceness rendering eloquent that well- known assertion that “the female of the species is more deadly than the male.” “ What have you been up to, Johnny?” she cried. “Is all this true?” He hung his head listlessly in shamed protest. She seized his huge frame, more than twice as large as hers, and shook him with high nervous force. “You ought to be whipped,” she con- tinued, “and I promised your dead mother to bring you up like a gentleman! I never could do a thing with you. You're rude, and you joke and you wear those dia- monds like a ruffian.. No one would ever be- lieve you had a mite of decent blood in you. You’re no better than a desperado, a cattle- man, a miner’ I disown you; I'll never speak to you again. Why did you do it? Why? Why?” She had exhausted herself and sank sob- bing into his arms. He soothed her as he might a tired child, and in the accent of remorse and repentance he tried to explain. “It was on account of Miss Devon, Aunt Belle,” he said. ‘I saw ’em imposing on her here, and she such a helpless little tike, and she looks like my Aurory, and I got mad at ’em, and I plumb forgot. I just wanted to put ’em in their place and make ’em suffer like they’d made her suffer. “And then she got uppity, too. She’s only a girl, aunty, and girls don’t know much, so she hopped on the idea I was a con man and wanted to reform me right off the bat. Now, you know I can’t abide that sort of a mess from women. Let ’em leave criminals alone for men to look after. And I thought I’d teach her a lesson at the same time. And then the police came and you, and the whole stuff was in the soup. There! 143 There! Please don’t cry any more. I’ll never do it again.” Her sobbing ceased, and she looked up at him with deep reproach while he pro- duced a big lavender-bordered handker- chief with which she dried her eyes. “Qh, Johnny!” she moaned. “ If I take you back, will you promise never to leave me again? You never know how to take care of yourself with refined folks.” ‘“‘]-promise, Aunt Belle,” he said duti- fully. ‘“* But,” she said, drawing away from him and a further sense of the outrage coming to her, “ how am I ever going to teach you not to meddle in other people’s business? Haven’t you enough of your own?” Without pause, and giving him no op- portunity to answer, she turned again to the bewildered Mrs. Harlingood. “Oh, Mrs. Harlingood,” she pleaded, “ for the sake of his dead mother, who I ‘assure you was the sweetest, truest woman that ever lived, do forgive him. He’s noth- ing but a self-made man, Johnny isn’t, nothing but a millionaire, and he’s a ter- rible ‘trial to. me; but please be Christian and forgive him, for he’s right gentle in- side when you know him better; honestly he is.” Mrs. Harlingood again looked to Wel- ling, and saw there only cynical derision. Fortunately for her she was not compelled to decide her own answer at that moment, for the patrolman now returned and with him appeared a gray-haired, keen-faced man, in the undress uniform of the police department. ‘“Good afternoon, Inspector Donovan,” said Welling respectfully. ‘ Hello, Welling,” responded the inspec- tor. ‘ Which is Connors?” Welling ‘pointed out the crestfallen Prince, who did look, at that moment, very like a detected thief; but the inspector thought differently. He gave Prince only one keen glance. ‘““T’m very sorry,” said the inspector. ‘“You’re mistaken, Welling. I know Con- nors well. This is net your man.” The inspector now held out his hand to the late prisoner. ‘““T must apologize to you for the error oO Comicbooe S CO