Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

When he at last reached the customers’ mm of Borden & Borden's office he was met. almost before he set foot inside the doorway, by Joe, who greeted him with a howl of delight. _ ~~ Where’d you pick up that tip?” he _ Wanted to know. “ And why didn’t you tell _ me it was a sure thing?” i ~ Sure!”’ Sam faltered, looking wildly at the blackboard. “ Your stop order saved you!” Joe ex- plained. ‘She touched seventy-six, went up like a rocket and dropped like a buck- shot! If you get hold of anything else like that and you don’t tell me—but why didn’t you buy more?”’ Sam walked heavily to a chair and sat down. “I will,” he muttered, *‘ next time.” He went down to the street again and, against orders, telephoned Constance. “Well?” she asked, as she recognized his voice. “ Your month—”’ “I want to see you!” he exclaimed. “I want to—” ““ Mother’s coming!” she gasped excited- ly. “ Meet me to-morrow at Vicars’s! I have to go to Aunt Martha’s—” A clap of thunder ended the sentence, and Sam knew that Constance had been in- terrupted. He hung the receiver back on the hook and left the booth, secretly con- signing Aunt Martha to a life sentence in Siberia. To-morrow—why to-morrow was twenty - four hours away. The world might come to an end before to-morrow, and besides, she hadn’t said what time to-morrow. He start- ed back into the telephone booth, but thought better of it, and issued out into ‘Broad Street instead, where he stood on the pavement and gloomily watched the crowd ntil he turned at last toward the subway and made his way uptown to Vicars’s. ined in solitary state and tried to im- hat Constance was sitting across the n hi n. It was a dreary day, and s over he hated himself and the ay awake for hours, specu- of finding another pos- every possible solu- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, t nad gone away. of the cards he always thought of the old lady in the bonnet, but as this was total! out of all reason he forced it out of hic mind and began all over at the beginning He beat the alarm clock by half an hour the following moming, and was downstairs fifteen minutes before the postman put in an appearance. Sam told himself that he Was Crazy to expect a card; a sane man would have breakfasted comfortably and comfortably started out to look for a job and then the postman, who didn’t know Sam from a black cat, stuck the card in the box and Sam snatched it out again. : It told him, in the same scrawled pen- ciled words, to buy Union Motors and to sell again after an eleven-point gain. He telephoned the order from the drug store and went down town to Borden & Borden’s office, where Joe buttonholed him and pumped him dry, which was easily done, because Sam truthfully said that he didn’t know anything about it. Joe was frankly skeptical about Union Motors. He said he didn’t think Sam had a chance of making anything. This piece of news depressed Sam so much that he for- got to call Constance on the telephone until nearly two o’clock, when he found that she had left the house. Also he failed to locate her at Vicars’s, so he went back to the cus- tomers’ room and watched his stock creep slowly up the eleven-point gain which the postal had predicted, add a few points, ap- parently for luck, and begin to fall off as slowly as it had gained. “You won yesterday, too, didn’t you?” Joe asked curiously, as he met Sam walking toward the door after he had sold his hold- ings in Union Motors. ‘‘ Who's putting you up to this? Come on, Sam, let me in on it.” “T told you I didn’t know,” Sam re peated. It was not an answer to inspire credulity, and Joe snorted in utter disgust. “ Hey!” he called over his shoulder. “ Will you tell me if you get any more?” “ Yes,” Sam nodded. “‘ But I won’t get any more.” He spent the evening trying to get mn touch with Constance until the butler, final- ly out of patience, told Sam that Constance comicbooks.com ae <——-——