Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

A PERFECT SCREAM. things that needed saying, and said them in proper shape, too. And now we'd sort of calmed off and were prepared to make the best of a bad business. You might say that ‘Aleck and I were holding a sort of gentl¥ sorrowful post-mortem, or something like that. ‘“T’ll tell you what it comes down to, ‘Aleck,’ said I. ‘‘ Barring that in some way ‘Aloysius faile@ to hear that Ethel May Darling was going to join out with us, and which wasn’t so strange on account of you and I and George keeping it pretty well to ourselves on account of not wanting to give the public a chance to learn what was com- ing off, and you know actors will talk— barring that, it comes right down to this: if Ethel May had reached us in time to meet the rest of the company, including ‘Aloysius, before the performance, it never would have happened—not on the stage of the Adelphi, anyway.”’ “That’s right,” said Aleck. “ And I’ve been thinking.” We were sitting in the hotel lobby, and just then George Higgins happened to be passing near us. ‘“‘ Oh, George,”’ Aleck hailed him, ‘‘ Come here a minute.” George came. | “George,” said Aleck, “ I’ve asked you several times to-day if you sent that tele- gram like I asked you, and every time -you’ve said you did. Now I ask you once 625 more: when did you send that telegram? Miss Darling says she didn’t get it until after two o’clock this afternoon. Come through!” “Well,” said George, “I guess maybe I might just as well tell the truth for once. On my way out of the theater last night I met that fellow Casey, the one I took the forty-three dollars away from. He said he’d borrowed twenty more and wanted his revenge. He said he knew a handy place near the theater where. we could roll the bones, and I knew it would only take me a few minutes to take that twenty away from him, and so I went with him. ‘Well, ll say he kind of surprised me -~—and I surprised him. It was two o’clock this morning when I finally nicked him for the last of that twenty, and by that time I’d forgotten all about the telegram. I iwent back to the hotel, hit the hay—and slept over. An hour or so after breakfast I remembered the telegram and sent it. Must ’a’ been along toward eleven then, I ‘guess. But what’s the difference? She got here, didn’t she?” ‘“‘T seem to remember that she did,” said ‘Aleck. So, when I gaid that it wasn’t George’s fault if there was a jinx on his efforts on behalf of Aleck and me, no doubt I should have added some of those things that they add to peace treaties and the like—reserva- tions, A WINTER SONG Y /7INTER, and splinter of leaf-barren bough; Never a thrush with its lyrical vow; Down in the garden-close everything sere; Oh, for the rose and the prime of the year‘ Eery and dreary the night and the noon; Gone all the glamour that girdled the moon; Gone all the glows from the mead and the mere; Oh, for the rose and the prime of the year! Whirling and swirling of ominous cloud; Waves in a welter and earth in a shroud; Yet through the snows, love, the dawn will break clear? Oh, for the rose and the prime of the year! . 10 Arcosy Clinton Scollard. EO DOO S (C(O)