Evening Star Newspaper, May 12, 1929, Page 96

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, MODERN MARAUDER By E. Phillips Oppenheim Set Upon by Three Robbers in a Lonely Street, Maj. Forester Made a Real Fight. T was cark, the street was narrow, and the houses on each side of many stories, so that, away from the street lamp as I was when fear Grst assailed me, nothing was clear- 1y distinguishable. I saw too clearly for my liking, however, the figure of the man on the opposite pavement, Wi had slipped past me unnoticed and was | Rbout to cross the road in front of me | i\ the palpable object of intercepting | my progress. I saw *no, another shad- | owy figure near at hand, w:o had ap- parently been walking in the middle of | the street and who was obviously pre- | B4 paring to accost me, and from behind I heard the soft pad of rubber-shod feet. in that moment I cursed the weakness that had led me to display myself at the | Cesino bar, after my rather conspicu- ous good fortune. Then the man who had turned from the middle of the street | addressed me, the other one loitered in | my way and the breath of the third s was already upon my 1 “Monsieur will be so | the cigarette, if you plea: i It was an evil face and a mocking | voice. Already I fancied I could feel the fingers of that unseen figure behind stealing toward my throat. It was 3 o'clock in the morning and the street was deserted. One tidnks quickly in such moments, and I decided that action was my only hope. I stop- ped to ask no useless questions. I drove my fist into the face of the man who had addressed me and I kicked vigor- ously behind at the shins of my unseen but ~menacing garroter. . . . For a moment this unexpected attack seemed likely to have a triumphant issue. The | man whom I had struck reeled round.| Jost his balance, fell into the gutter and | turned over on his side. My opponent in the rear gave a yell of pain, which af-| forded me time ring away from his | threatened embrace and stand with my | back to the shuttered window of a shnp.i 1 stood there with clenched fists, a little | excited at my first success and full of | hope that, if these desperadees were of | the ordinary type, they would take to neck. kind? Fire for flight in the face of such resistance. My why hopes, however, were short-lived. The man in the guiter spat at me and be-| tween his first futile attempts to stag- ger to his feet shouted encouragement 10 his comrades. The man whom I had Kicked threw himself upon me, dodging | my blows, so that I almost overbalanced myself. At the same instant I saw the gleam of steel in the hand of the third man, who was drawing toward me war- |« ily, but inevitably. He crept forward, | stooping a little. so that I scarcely knew | how to deal with him. I am, fortunate- Iy, long in the arm, and I was able, for the moment, to ward him off and catch hold of the fingers that held the knife. Then the two closed in upon me. There were one or two short blows. I realized that, as I had to occupy myself chiefly with the man whose hand was gripping that cruel-looking knife, I could hold out only for a few seconds against the vi- cious attack of my other adversary. An- other blow left me still on my feet. fight- | ing automatically, but only half-con- | scious. A LIGHT flashed suddenly across the street, but I was engaged in my | Jast desperate effort to keep that wrist from turning and the point of the knife away from my body, and I was unable to look around to see if succor was at hand. I was not long left in suspense, however, before I heard the screeching of a brake and was conscious of rapidly approaching footsteps and a voice hoarse with passion. I heard what seemed to be the open palm of a man's hand come crashing against the cheek of my right hand assailant and realized the sudden weakening of every muscle in the body of the man with whom I was contending. Events that followed unfolded themselves in a misty se- quence, for I was dizzy and faint. The knife disappeared, iis owner crawled away, broke suddenly into a run and headed for the end of the street, my other adversary on his heels. The man who had been raising himself from the gutter staggered after his comrades and looking after the retreating figures as though uncertain whether to pursue them or not stood my rescuer. My recollections of that moment have | always been cloudy, but I believe that | I tried to speak and could do nothing but smile feebly. I carried away with me, however, a curiously distinct im- pression of the man who had come to my aid. He was certainly of no more than medium height. He was not par- ticularly broad, but in his tense, upright figure he gave one the idea of great strength. He was wearing the evening clothes of the Continent—a short din- mer jacket and black tie. He had evidently been driving a coupe drawn up in the sireet. His complexion was pale and even at that moment I remember noticing the unusual combi- nation in a man of deep blue eyes and black hair. His expression was one of furigus anger. ‘@re you hurt?” he asked suddenly. ¥ found words and because I was in gead training, in good health and mod- egately young, I felt the strength com- ing back to my limbs with unexpected swiftness. “Thanks to you, no,” I answered. “You were unwise,” he said, “if the gumors of your winnings have any foun- | @ation, to trust yourself in this quar- ger. What do you do here, may I ask?” “I am staying near here, at the Hotel @es Postes,” I told him. He laid his hand gently upon my "pm and led me across the street. _ “Step inside,” he invited, opening the or_of his car. will drive you to = Hotel des Postes, | Within five minutes he drew up oppo- | te the tall, gloomy building where I | Jad my apartment. “You'll come in?” I begged. “If you will excuse me, no,” my com- | hmnl“ replied, remaining seated at the vheel. “But I must insist. You must tell me | whom I have to thank for this wonder- ful assistance.” “It is a matter of no consequence,” he said quietly. “Let it be a lesson to you, especially since you seem to have he habit of winning in such a place as the Casino, to choose a habitation in a different quarter. Permit me to restore your pocketbook, which I picked up on he pavement.” He pressd the case into my hand and ‘before I could stop him the coupe was gliding down the street. concierge, who was studying my disor- dered appearance curiously. “Do you know who that gentleman wes?” 1 asked. ‘The man shook his head. “I did not notice him,” he confided. r has met with some mis- * kK k ho | shoulder. | form of argument I have usually found | the rest.” I turned to the | ,much &s a bottle of wine, but on the |third day after my return, while wan- dering round the casino, I saw him in |the distance, with a packet of mille notes in his hand, calling “Banco” at | the high table. I crossed the room im- petuously and touched him on the He turned quickly round. “At last!” I exclaimed breathlessly. “You are not mis | one else, sir? “I certainly ly. “You saved me the other night from a horrible pummeling and the loss of a good deal of money, if not worse. I was not in a condition just then to insist, o | T should never have let you depart with- | | out_your telling me your name.” name is at your service, sir,” he There could y" mistake—the the same darl I looked at him stead be no possibility of a: me clean-cut feature: blue eyes. “Will you tell me,” I asked, “why you choose to deny the fact that it was you who rendered me that great service the other night?” “Sir,” he said, “if I have rendered you any service, then you are in my debt, and, if you are in my debt, I request that that you abandon that subject. My name is at your service,” he continued, passing me a card. “Yours, I think I already know—Maj. Forester, I believe. I am the Count de Preuil. Let it go at that.” I wandered restlessly about until an acquaintance took me by the arm. We chatted for a few minutes and ended | up at the bar. He pointed to the table where I had been scated a short time | previously. | “You know de Preuil well?” he asked. | “I met him for the first time this eve- | ning,” I answered, bearing in mind my | preserver's injunction. “He is a man of peculiar personality said my friend. “One can imagine him the type of modern marauder. I have heard habitues of the place warn new- comers against him, but I don't know “Nor can I imagine any reason for such a warning,” I declared. ok THE next time I saw my mysterious benefactor he was seated in my salon when I returned from the casino at about 2 o'clock in the morning. “This,” he announced rather coldly, s not a call in which the social ameni- ties have any place. It is, as a matter “Our matter of business being con- cluded.” T suggested, as I saw him move | toward his hat, “might I propose that you accept a whisky and soda?” | " He suddenly smiled, and there was | something about the smile that made ! me long to pass my arm through his | anything in the world that I could do for him. But the smile passed and he was sud- denly hard as steel. |~ “I will drink with you with pleasure,” | he conceded. “Perhaps it is as well that the night is not yet finished for me He drank a whisky and soda slowly and sat down the glass. Then he bade me good night. Save that he refused to see my outstretched hand, his was the ordinary farewell of one acquaintance taking leave of another. I heard him | descend the stairs, and presently heard the concierge let him out. From my window, I watched him walk to the end of the street and disappear. I watched him with a curious, inexplicable fore- boding. I had the feeling that he was | on his way to trouble. >k [TOR over a month I saw nothing of de Preuil. It is a curious fact that I thought of him always as my preserv- er, as the man who had sent those three murderous rogues flying by the very sound of his voice, who had saved my pocketbook—perhaps my life. There seemed to me always something not al- | together real in that early morning visit to my rooms when he had attempted the role of highwayman. I was even half-inclined to persuade myself that he had been masquerading, that he haa been amusing himself with some grim jest at my expense. «I certainly bore him no malice, and when weeks passed without my seeing anything of him, I found myseif disturbed. Then, one day, standing outside a small shop in a not too fashionable quarter, I saw the coupe he had driven the night we met for the first time. For a solid three-quarters of an hour I of fact, a business visit.” DOG. OUR DEVOTION TO EACH OTH. ME, IF ONLY FOR A FEW HOU! gf‘l;ORE HE LEAVES THE COU! “Business visit?” I repeated, some- what dazed. He rose, crossed the room and de- liberately locked the door. Afterward | he moved his chair slightly, so as to place himself between me and the bell, and resumed his seat. “I surprise you?” he asked. “I have surprised many people in my time.” “You have earned the right to sur- prise me, if you wish to” I replied, mixing myself a whisky and soda. “At the same time, some sort of an ¢<pla- nation would be acceptable.” “You shall have it,” he agreed. have come here to rob you, and I in- tend to carry out my purpose.” I tasted my whisky and soda, lit a cigarette, and crossed over to the chair facing his. “You take the matter very calmly,” he observed. “Possibly you think that, if it comes to a struggle, you might suc- ceed in balking me. You are a head taller than I am, and I can imagine that you are not a man easily robbed, and yet, Mr. Forester, there is one little argument here that destroys odds, or perhaps I should say creates them—a unanswerable.” He displayed a small, but very vicious- looking revolver. “I admit the force of your argu- ment,” I said. “I will confess that I haven't a weapon of any sort in the place. Under those circumstances, the odds are somewhat like 20 to 1 in your favor, and you can consider me an un- resisting victim. But of what, may I ask, are you proposing to rob me?” “You have won something like a mil- lion in the last few weeks. Tonight you must have won at least 40 milles. I propose to leave you a trifie and take I smiled, and, for the first time, my visitor looked a little uneasy. “You have chosen the worst night possible, M. le Comte, for your visit,” I told him. “This afternoon I paid every penny I had—which I admit was something over half a million francs— into the bank, and directed them to | place it to my credit in England. Of the 40 milles I won today, I lent Va- niados, who called on his way. back from Monte Carlo without any idea of playing, 20 milles, and I also paid an I O U for 10 milles. I took some friends to supper at Maxim’s,” I went on, drawing out my pocketbook, “and the bill there made some slight hole in the remaining 10 milles. I seem to have here 8,300 francs—unworthy of your notice, I am afraid.” “As you say—unworthy of my no- tice,” the Camte de Preuil concurred | quietly. x4 “THAT IS MY SPECIAL WATCH- IT IS HE WHO HAS A THEORY THAT BECAUSE OF ER ARMAND WILL RETURN TO paced that little strip of pavement. At last I had my reward. The shop door opened and a woman crossed the pave- ment swiftly and stepped into the coupe. I hurried up, and laid my hand upon the window ledge. She was already seated at the wheel when she turned and looked at me with a lttle start of surprise, in which was mingled some fear. She was quite young, apparently impression, even in that first hurried glimpse, of a certain elegance, a charm quite independent of the good looks sh: undoubtedly possessed. “What is it monsieur desires?” she asked, a little haughtily. “A word with madame,” I begged, standing still at the window, my hatin ' BY WILL ROGERS. | “VELL all I know is just what I kinder went out of my way while I was up' in the City of Culture week before last and I decided to improve myself liter- arily. So I says I got to do some real highbrow reading. I never was much on this Book reading, for it takes em so long to describe the color of the eyes of all the Characters. Then I like my sunsets from eyesight and not from adjectives. Congress Yas got more fic- tion in it in a day tagn Writers can think of in a year. But being up n Bosion why your mind naturally turns % “Higher things.” The week I was there they had “just barred the “American Trag- edy” from being sold over the Bar. And the Committe was then reading Pil- grims Progress, to sce if there wasent some underlying meaning in it. So_I said well up here what ®aok can I get that I wont be breaking 2y City ordinance, and at the same tie will improve my mind, and I started looking through the adds and I saw a Girl sitting straddle of an old Gin case with her toes wrapped around the lower spokes of a steering wheel and her hands assisting her toes to guide ithe ship. Her hair was blewing in the i breeze, and she had on one of those hats you wear with a slicker. But E sat looking intently upon the H -Nothing of any consequence,” I re- * ok ok * > town—larger than many pecple realiz It poss 5 almost as many hotels as London, enormous casinos and many restaurants &nd night haunts. Neverthles i many elect, moment, are few and universally ac- 2pted, and it was a matter of the great- | perfectly certain that there are few | to me that although I searched assiduously, I failed to see enything of my preserver. I divided my time each night between the two ca- sinos. I dined at one of the famous yestaurants and took my coffee at an- pther. I frequented the better-known bars; I trod the broad ways of the fash- st surprise fonable world as I had never trod them - before. All in vain. I moved over to Cannes for a couple of da and ¥ hzd there without result. 1 made many expeditions to Monte Carlo, met with no success whatever. tablished by the whim of the | 1 I re- turned to my old quarters at Nice, with my debt of gratitude unpaid even by so Loy FrOUNd. Suddenly he rose to his eet. | paces of me. His revolver had disap- peared, but I could see the shape of it ket. Look at me, Mr. Forester,” he or- | dered I obeyed. There was something ter- I am poc! | ribly magnetic about his eyes. men in the world who could have told him a lie. “‘Have you spoken the truth?” he asked. “Is that all the money you have in this room?” I met his gaze. “That,” I assured him, “is penny I have at my disposal. I am greatly in your debt, M. le Comte. If you are in need of money, and will give me a few days, I will lend you any rea- sonable sum.’ “Thank you' he declined coldly. “I do not borrow; I take. I regret the every He came and stood within a few | there was no strap under her chin, so I dont know what held it till the pho- | tographer could get the Picture. The add all said it was a true story jof ‘a Girl that went to Sea” when she | was eleven months old, and wes finally two | eripped in his hand inside his coat}Shanghied ashore at the age of seven- (teen. The adds has some samples of Ithe cussing in it, and I wanted to see ihow Sea cussing compared with New York stage cussing during the past sea- son, which really reached its heighth in high grade profanity. I guess there was more good straight #way cussing | this year than ever before. But most ]fl ét. had been confined to scenes on and. Well I go literary and say never mind all this Fictlon, 1 want some facts, snd ell the things I had read about this book said here is tha real McCoy. Here is a Gal that was Born in the Crows Nest, Weaned on a Porpoise, Cut her teeth on an Anchor, and could spit in a Sharks eye. Her Whale hide, but her Heart was Gold. |She could swim the Charnell with a inopportuneness of my visit. that my luck is failing me.” It is clear bunch of Cats on her back, and_never dampen a Kitlyg, The Northern Lights | and beg him to sit’ down and tell me | about 30 years of age, and she gave the | read in the papers, and I protection was “This, I believe, is the coupe | my hand. | of Monsieur le Comta de Preuil.” | “What do you want with Monsieur le Comte?” she demanded. | ~*“An opportunity I have sought for a | long time,” I replied. “to repay, in some measure, a debt I owe him.” “Are you, by chance,” she inquired, “the Englishman on whose behalf he interfered in the Rue de Grasse one night?” “I am he,” I acknowledged. She sat for a moment, | thought. “I return now to my apartment,” she announced. “If monsieur will accom- pany me—" In her charmingly furnished sitting | room she motioned me to a seat | . “Monsicur le Comte de Preuil, began, “is in fear of hi you who are the cau “But, madame!” I protested. “It is you who are the cause,” she re- peated. “It is known to the chief of the police that he was the head of a small band of robbers who have made Nice their headquarters for some years,” It seems incredible,” T murmured. ‘He was their head.” she went on, | “but they grumbled often at his meth- ods. No one possesses a stricter sense of honor than Armand. He will not permit violence, except in_ self-defense. “There came a night,” she continued, “when he found three of his men en- gaged in the attempt to rob a single Englishman.” , “Myself!"-I exclaimed. “Precisely> He rescued you. They never forgave him. There came another | night, a little over a month ago, when | Armand attempted, single-handed, a | great coup. Monsieur reads the papers?” “The French papers, alas, never.” She was amazed. “All Nice has talked of nothing else. Gasseros was a strong, burly man who {boasted that he had a few million francs always in the house and was never afraid to let any one know it. Armand was desperate for money. He found his deep ) in she | way to the house of Gasseros. There was a terrible struggle. The details filled columns of the papers for days. | Armand secured the money, but Gas- seros fought like a maniac. He got one | arm loose and shot Armand through the | shoulder. He was the first, mind you, | to use firearms. There were sounds in | the house. It was evident that the re- port of the revolver had aroused the domestics. Armand knew that to es- | cape he must resort to his own weapon. | He fired, meaning to wound his captor in the leg. Gasseros sprang at him and | received the bullet in the heart. “Horrible!” I murmured. “Even then,’ she proceeded, “Armand | got away. The police offered a reward, and those three men from whom mon- Awful Blow to life, and it is | sleur protected you put their heads t gether and determined to have their venge. They informed against Armand. e {5 taken then?” ot yet,” she went on, dropping her voice a little. “Alas, he never will be taken alive, monsieur. It is not death that he fears, but confinement. He lies hidden. I have not seen him since the night of the affaif. I dare not go to him. I dare not correspond. An indi- rect word somewhere by the telephone is all that remains. I am watched, day and night, as this house is watched, and as the days go on fear grows within me.” “Listen, madame,” I begged, “I am the Comte de Preuil's friend. Can I help?” SHE looked at me in silence for sev- eral moments. I suppose she was satisfied with what she saw. “Armand is hiding in a small hotel at Monte Carlo—the Hotel de la Princi- palite,” she confided. “It is kept by one of his old servants whose fidelity can be relied upon. So far he has avoid- ed suspicion, but that cannot last. He can be saved in one way.” “And that?” _ “If he can be got across the frontier into Italy,” she went on_eagerly. “A well known person there has promised that if he can reach Genoa he shall be sent to South America.” I pondered for several moments. “Madame,” I announced, “the enter- prise commends itself to me. If I fail, I fail, but in a few days I will disclose my pian to you. If it is humanly pos- sible, I will get de Preuil to Italy. About yourself2” She shook head sadly. “Ah, monsieur,” she said, “they look to me some day to lead them to their quarry, or else that he will pay me a visit here. They lie and watch like foxes. He must go alone, but afterward —who knows what may come after- ward! I love Armand dearly, but he must start life again.” “At this time tomorrow,” I told her, T shall have certain plans maturing. I shall write to the Hotel de la Princi- palite for a room. Meanwhile, give me a line to the proprietor that he may know I am to be trusted.” I think that I have had more adven- tures than fall to the lot of most men. There have been at least four occasions upon which I have stood face to face with_death, with the odds fairly level, yet I could search my memory in vain for any 20 minutes of my life in which I suffered, feared and hoped in such agony of spirit as during those 20 min- utes outside the custom house on the hill beyond Mentone. We had driven from Beau Soleil with scarcely an in- terchanged word, my companion's hand upon the wheel, steady and precise, his face set in that rigid expression com- mon to the well disciplined chauffeur. He brought the car to a stop at the first place of call, where my credentials were cursorily examined. No undue in- terest was shown in us and we started off again. On the hill came our first real period of probation. We had to walt for nearly 10 minutes to take our turn, during which time a French gen- darme strolled up and down past the car and I, at least, found it hard to persuade myself that he did not, now and then, throw a curious glance to- ward myself and my chauffeur. The * ok ok ok Rogers, in Boston, Finds Mind Turning Naturally to Book Censorship—Sea and Land Profanity Compared—An Literary Taste. W TMBERs! ME Dowy ! B0 A N, MAINS] Sl Ueoght Syndicate, 1ae N 7.0 JOAN GOES TO SEA. {Equator was an extension of the Dixie Highway. A storm at sca was music to her ears, and & Typhoon was a Buggy vide, A Shipwreck wasent even & was nothing but a lightning Bug. The | punctured tire. She.combed her hair with a live Sharks tooth and wore a couple of Octapuses for Garters, She was just a female She Serpent that had vaulted up on deck and was 1y 1929—PART (¢ THEN THE TWO CLOSED IN ON ME. THERE WERE ONE OR TWO SHORT BLOWS. I REAL- 1ZED THAT, AS T HAD TO OC- CUPY MYSELF CHIEFLY WITH THE MAN WHOSE HAND WAS GRIPPING THAT CRUEL-LOOK- ING KNIFE, I COULD HOLD OUT ONLY FOR A FEW SECONDS AGAINST THE ATTACK OF MY OTHER ADVERSARY, time came, however, when his confrere was free. I presented our passports. | My own passport he studied for some moments; the passport of Luigi Nessi, my chauffeur, he glanced at only cas- ually and returned them both without | comment. We touched our hats and moved on another blessed 50 yards to- ward safety. There seemed something less menacing about the Italian uni- form, yet it was here that our worst moment arrived. Our luggage gave little trouble; it was carefully selected and harmless. My companion’s pass- port, however, remained in the hands of the examining gendarme for fully a minute. He glanced twice at the pho- tograph and read the text as though every word of it were of interest. Fi- nally, as though we were not being sufficiently tortured, a tall figure passed the car and the French gendarme join- ed his Italian confrere. What they said to one another was inaudible, but, with- out any word to us, they turned around and disappeared inside the Itallan pass- port office. Erit NOT a word passed between my com- 4N panion and myself. His left hand was resting calmly upon the wheel, but his right hand, I noticed with a little shiver, had crept into his coat pocket. They came out together—the French gendarme and his Italian confrere— and, for no reason that I could gather, their interest in us seemed to have evaporated. The carabinier folded up the passport he had been carrying and prepared to wave us on. Yet even then came one final shock that plunged me once more into despair. With his hand resting upon the side of the car the carbinier leaned over and addressed the pseudo Luigi Nessi in fluent Italian. The words streamed from his lips and I found myself in a turmoil of appre- hension. Most Frenchmen, especially southerners, speak Italian, but suppos- ing that de Preuil were an exception. Supposing! . . . Then my suspense came to an end. The Italian ceased. De Preuil replied in Italian, which he seemed to speak even more fluently than his interlocutor. The carbinier smiled and waved us on. It was half an hour before either of us spoke. Then I noticed that we were slackening speed. My companion addressed me in his ordinary tone: “Is it fancy, dear friend, or did I hear you demand of Monsleur de Pro- prietaire a bottle of his best ‘wine?” 1 produced it. We drew up by the side of the road, and I filled two tum- blers. I drained mine almost at a gulp. De Preuil drank his with the apprecia- tion of a connoisseur. “Excellent!” he declared. ‘We moved on again, bought lunch at a shop in Alasslo, having the instinct to avoid hotels, and passed into Genoa with the shades of evening. A few hours later I stood upon the quay, watching the great steamer in which de Preuil had embarked back slowly away from the dock. * kK K I MET Madame, on the evening after my return fron} Genoa, in the hall of the Negresco and led her to a table. We delayed any effort at serious conversa- tion, but, at the first opportunity. I pressed into her hand the few lines writ- ten in great haste on the steamship note- paper. She read them through twice, and slipped them into her bag. There ready to take out a stack in anything that come along from scuttling a Ship to poisening the ocean. The Book had a time table on its folder and it told just when profanity, and Sharks insides, and murders, would be run onto, at each 15 minutes as you read the Book. Well I was going along on schedule. Got a little leary right from the jump as to how a Mother could part with a eleven month old Baby Girl. But not knowing sea people much, I thought well maby they part with their young young. When she would pull an extra scary one that might arouse your doubt, | why she would drown you in Latitude | and Longitude, so fact you would over- look whether the thing could happen | or_not. | Well anyhow I got through it, and I was a saying to myself thats a preity good tale even for a Able Bodied Male Seaman to go through. I was just & complimenting myself on what a_great mental improvement it is to read Books, | and that I must read more of these| real life experiences. And the next morning .a4 paper screams a hendllncl across the page that they had just dis- covered the Boat out in Frisco tied up and rottening at the docks there, the one where she sald it sunk off Aus- tralia and she swam with the ¢ats. They found the Log of the boat, that’s sort of a history of it. Her Father had been Captain but he seems like he al- ways had a weakness for a family of Females at sea. Her Mother and sis- ters had traveled on the boat more than she had, for they was older. Seems like it used to ferry parties of Girl Scouts from Frisco to Honolulu, and Sydney. Why from what the log said it was men that would get lonesome on' there | for the companionship of other men This old “Stitches” why they find out | now that he was an old Dame, a kind of “Hostess.” She was the Texas Guinan of the Pacific. So its been an awful blow to me. Here I start in on my literary carreer &nd have my hopes shattered right on the first jump. How am I to know anything if I am not able to rely on the Publishers? How do I know that Shakespeare had a beard and wore knee Breeches? 1 can only go by the pic- tures on the front of his books. Now a look of ineffable gratitude in her s as she turned toward me. concluded & discussion with the waiter on the subject of caviare, “tell me every- thing.” “The whole affair really worked out very simply,” I explained. “My Italian chauffeur, Lugi Nessi, happened to be still in the Queen Victoria Hospital with a broken leg, after the accident I had on the Corniche road a month ago. I borrowed his passport, bought another car, engaged a room at the Hotel de la Principalite, on the same floor as de Preuil’s, went in to see him when I knew the coast was clear, took him some chauffeur’s clothes, and made him up as well as my experience in amateur the- atricals enabled me to. Fortunately he was the, same height and complexion as Luigi, and I was able to turn him out near énough to_the photograph to es- cape questions. We left the hotel early on Wednesday morning. From then on there was never a hitch. * * * And with b “The telegram from Paris, for which I had arranged, duly arrived,” she con- fided. “The police got hold of it as I thought they would, and there were two men_watching my’ apartment from 7 in the evening until 7 the next morning. When they found that Armand did not come they appear to have made up their minds that he must be still in Paris. The papers this morning an- nounced that he was there, and already under surveillance. “Look,” she went on, “you see the man who is taking a table opposite—the man alone? nd now,” she insisted, after I had | MAXON -20- “That is my special watch-dog. It is | he who has a theory that, because of . | our devotion to each other, Armand will | yeturn to me, if only for a few hours, ibr!orc‘he leaves the country. In you he | beholds a complication. To see us to- | gether, intimately like this, may weaken his bellef in my fidelity, Monsieur For- ester,” she concluded, with a sudden bewildering smile. “It is sometimes a troublesome qual- ity,” I ventured. She leaned a little toward me. “Then, do you think—for safety's sake —that you could look at me, now and | then, as though you admired my frock, or my eyes?” More than ever I was consclous of the witchery of her brown eyes, the magic of her subtly lowered voice, in which seemed to linger the illusion of a caress. Her fingers touched mine as though by accident, and I had no need to feign the role at which she hinted. “For safety’s sake, madame,” I prom- ised, not altogether steadily, “the re- mainder of the evening will see me your | devoted cavalier.” She sighed and laughed almost in the same instant. She was, indeed, a woman of mercurial moods. = “You are generous with your time, monsieur,” she whispered. “There is that little matter of fidel- ity,” I reminded her, as the caviare was set before us. “A quality that has yet to be de- Fnsd." she rejoined, helping herself to emon. (Copyright 1929.) BY STEPHEN LEACOCK. HAT'S the matter with my mine? It won't go up. There it sticks, like a 1og; there it has stuck for three weeks, for nearly a month, | right there at 14 cents, where it fell to a month ago. What's the matter with it? Who's doing all this? Some one is holding it down. You take a mine like that, with prospects like it has, and you couldn’t keep it down if there wasn't some crooked work somewhere. Look at the chance it ought to have. Take the district that it's in; that is to |say, I'm not quite sure of just where the district is where the mine is, but | T understand that it is one of the finest | mining_districts, away up North—or is |it Eust?>—anyway, it's a great district. Why won't it go up? TNl give you the facts about it. It's all plain_enough from the actual scrip that I hold for my share—gsnuine printed scrip, all right: no fraud about |it. It's the Cuckoo Mine, Second Issue, | Third Deferred Stock, Series J, No. 000002. From the figures I gather that there are about a million other fellows in the same series, so it must be all right. These other fellows wouldn't let them- selves be cheated. They must know about it, or they wouldn't be in it. And if this is Series J, there must be a whole gang more in Series A and in Series B. You say you never heard of it? Of course not.” That's the whole point of it. It's been kept absolutely quiet. Not listed on the Exchange? Well, o, bardly. You don'’t think that men who had the good luck to get on to a mine like mine would go and stick it on the Exchange. Everybody knows that the big exchanges are crooked. Only last year there was a broker arrested in Cleveland—for stealing a dog. They're all crooked. No, sir; I bought my interest in the mine, one share, on the Subsoil Ex- change—it's a local exchange for deal- ing in shares like the Cuckoo; they won't touch the big corporations at all. Meantime, what I want to know is: Why doesn’t it go up? What is holding it . I bought my share in the Cuckoo, &s I say, about six weeks ago, for 26 cents. T reckoned that it would rise to par (§1) in a week, that the shares would then ba split eight for one, rise to par again, get split again, and 5o on. I felt cer- tain that I was going to make a clean- up. P50 1 showld have. ‘There are all sorts of things in that mine, copper and bronze 'and—what is it? bismuth like that—and there may be helium To tell the truth, I don't All'T know is that there's a lot of stuff there. After I bought it, it rose right up three-eighths of a cent, then fell back half a cent, then collapsed two and one- half cents in one morning, fell clear to 14 cents next week, and since then has stuck right there. Why doesn't it go up? It's only too clear that some in- fluence is at work. Till I went into this business of speculation I didn’t realize how far it ramifies and what a lot of things in the world it connects with, In fact, it really opens your mind to outlooks on the world that ou'd never think of. For instance, two days after I bought my share the Bank of England raised its discount rate by 1 per cent. That, of course, gave my share a devil of a knock. What business they had to interfere with my mine I don’t see. But they punched it down a whole point, just to suit their own ends. The day after that the German they were unable. to come to any agree- ment and saw no means of liquifying German credit. Bang! That gave my | piune another souse; down she went wasent that funny that I should have jmy ideals shattered right on the first 1 book I read? So me back to the Con- gressional Record. I am going to look | mighty_thoroughly into Coolidge’s life before I start reading it. (Copyslght, 1920 - two points. What right the Germans | credit. or benzine or bromide or something | v’I‘HE 4-H Club movement, which has reparations committee announced that | These Mine Quotations Surely Must Be Wrong in the night! I hunted through the paper in vain at first to see what was hitting it now, and presently, sure enough, I found it. ‘There was an announcement that the ex-Amir of Afghanistan, Habbibulah Khan, was raising an army to attack the other ex-Amir, and that it was likely that King Fizzle of Arabia might be drawn in, In which case Great Britain would ma{(!e a demonstration in the Persian Gulf. Of course, my mine couldn’t stand for a rumor like that. Down she went. Little did I think when I went in for this business that I'd be dependent on what they do in Afghanistan. But let Habbibulah Khan look out. Why won't that mine go up? Just one little gleam of light broke for a couple of days. News came that over two million Chinese were dying of famine and that if it got worse it would mean an open door for imports and enormous profits in metal. Up went my mine, slap bang, three-quarters of | a cent. Oh, yes, I know all about the sympathetic side of it—these Chinese | dying of hunger. That’s all right. But | when you get into this business of | speculation you've no time for that. | You're thinking of bigger things. And anyway they say the Chinese don't | mind dying. And there are lots of them. But the luck didn't hold: the fam- | ine seemed to di> down, and they say | now. that unless a plague breaks out in the wake of it, the situation is all | over. T don't know how you start & | plague. Meanwhile, down went my mine. Then richt after that the Prime Minister of England made a speech to | the effect that England was all right | and didn’t need to depend on any- body. Down went my mine. Then the Prince of Norway married the Princess of Sweden. Down went my mine. Then a bank broke and failed for $5.000.000 in Denver. Colo. Down went my mine. Then the ice went out of the Soo Ste. Marie and opened navigation to Lake Superior. Down went my mine. In short, lately I hardly dare look | at_the front page of the newspaper. | I know that there will be at least half | a dozen things that will give my share a crack. And now. latest and worst of all, is what_the Federal Reserve Banks and | the Government of the United States and the gcvernment of England are going to do next about speculative My mine won't stand having any lid put down on it. Let them do it if they want to, but if they do it I | know that my deferred share in Series | J is just worthless. And with me there will be ruined all the other million fel- i lows in the same series. If they lift up their rate of interest any higher, if call money in New York and the bank rate in London go up any further than they have already, I'm ruined. And what makes me most | mad about it is that I don't know why. I don’t want their money; I'm not borrowing any money. I only want my mine to go up. What on earth has all this talk of closing down on rediscounts and re- stricting loans to do with my mine? I'm not redjscounting anything; I'm not asking for anything. I just want that mine to go up, that's all. Can’t they leave it alone? (Copyright, 1929.) i Clube Ghovs grown with leaps and bounds since its inception a few years ago, took an- | other great step forward during 1928, according to the tabulation of county egents’ reports, made a: the Depart- have inside my mine I don't see, but evidently there is some crooked work going on. The day after that, as soon as I looked at the quotations for my share, I saw that it had dropped another cent ment of Agriculture. An increzse of 47,000 members over 1927 is indicated in’the total figure of 666.000. The esti- mated total of those who will complete their work during the coming year is -also about 47,000 over last year’s fgure.