Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 134: what you’re looking at

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

412 I’d thought to be empty. “I, for one, cannot comprehend that sensation.” Gustave snorted, and I realized that his old balance was returning. “ Fright, personal fright, and divergence from truth I cannot sense,” Laurence con- tinued ponderously. No one applauded this, Nan having gone to town to buy a few new things for a trousseau. I could understand divergence from truth. i had let Linda Beasley and her boy bear suspicion—more, conviction— when I knew that they weren’t guilty. The boy had moaned from a tree-top all that night, but to shield Bully—to shield Billy I had acted a lie in my silence. I am ashamed of it, and I suppose the sensation is healthy. I wonder if there are many of us who are so tall they cannot stoop? “Strange ending,” said Jane, “ and yet ’—her eyes traveled to Gustave—‘ no other was possible for me.” “Nor for me,’ said Billy. ‘“ Beginning,” I corrected. Gustave and Jane went off toward the hillside path. ‘the little beggar! ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘“ Boating?” asked Billy. I shook my head. I couldn’t bear the creek, for at that time what it had made was far too close. But now—since I am shielded, happily entrenched behind love, the grocer’s orders, sock darnings, and a real three-story house, I can look back on the whole affair and even see its humors. And yet, when I do, I always think of a © windy, wet, blowing day in March—that day when our summer plan was made; and after that I seem to see a bomb slipping into almost still-water, so gently putting out that it hardly made a ripple. And then—: I hear my friend, the boy whom I met at Le Monte-Dore, hear him say: ‘‘ Look at A bit calm, isn’t she? But she’ll make some jolly hell when she ‘up and busts,’ to quote you Yankees— some jolly hell; you know!” But our particular bomb, which. was started by Nan and furthered by Jane, Midgette, Dick, Gustave, Billy, Laurence, and myself, went a little better; it manu- factured both extremes—the nicest coming last! (The end.) TOPPING off the train at Emmetts- . H burg, I rested my heavy sampie- case on the bench outside the wait- ing-room, and ran my hand over my face. F thought maybe I needed a shave. I did. So, before I called on the trade, I hustled down Main Street and stopped at of man Doolittle’s barber-shop. When I got there, Pharaoh Evans, Doo- little’s assistant, so eross-eved you couldn’t tell whether he was looking at you or not, was just starting off to lunch. Gomichbook (E@)