The evening world. Newspaper, December 3, 1921, Page 16

4 THE {©ENING WORLD'S FICTION SECTION, Fifty-seven thousand dollars thrown away. By the irony of fate! Dean strode through the streets peering into saloons and down alleys, scanning the crowds, searching vainly for the vanished safe-cracker, From time to time he Would pause long enough to telephone Sing Sing, or Police Headquarters. : HORNTON, waiting beside the telephone, did not take off his clothes that night, but smoked cigar after cigar and consumed large quantities of black coffee. Some time after midnight he threw himself upon the divan and fell into fitful slumber. It was after 9 next morning when he awoke with stiff amd aching muscles, his eyes smarting and his head full of tightly 1921. Se henna pe Squinty odor! Then he observed that the door of the den—usually left open —was shut, Puzzled, he turned quietly opened the door. reeked with the smell the knob and The room of Squinty. Squinty or his ghost was kneeling be- fore the safe, the door of which was swung wide. He turned a coal-dust covered face to Dean's and gave him a pathetic, twisted, anxious smile. With a bound Thornton was upon him, his hands about his neck, “My certificate!” he gasped. “Where is my certificate ?” “Easy, guv'ner! Easy there!” pre- tested the half-choked ‘Squinty, squirming. “I put alt tie papers back”— Thornton’s hands flew to the pigeon * squinty indignantly. “I jest opened it—matter of habit, I guess. Honest, I didn't know I was doin’ it! An’ as 800m as I come to I put back the stuff. ‘Twarn't nuthin’, got ‘em in yer hand. Gee, but coal is han!" . Thornton dropped him and leaped for the telephone, ringing wildly, for Hawksley, It seemed hours before he Peard the bankera voice. “Helle, old man!" it said mockingly, “Pity you haven't got that certificate of yours. Pujo sold a moment ago at 995," : “But I have got it! bellowed Thornton. “Sell me a hundred at the market!—I') held the wire yntil you repert the sale!" . “AN right!” Hawksley reported SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, A few papers. You Thornton steadied -himaelf on the divan. “That's exactly it! You came in here out of ‘the rain into the heat, ate your first solid meal in a& week, drank a -quart of King William, cracked my safe, and then just natu- rally went to sleep in my cellar for nearly thread wholé days. O, I don't mind! Gome as often as you like! “You're all Tkht, Squinty old boy—you little crooked fairy!" The return of Squinty to Sing Sing savored somewhat of a royal progress, although there was no delegation of prominent citizens to greet him, no band, no public demonstration. He reached the prison just before supper time that same afternoon by motor, | arrayed im a suit of the latest cut, a fashionable overcoat with a genuine / WITH A BOUND THORNTON WAS UPON HIM, HIS HANDS ABOUT HIS NECK. “MY CERTIFICATES,” HE GASPED, “WHERE ARE MY CERTIFICATES?” : ‘ atrung wires. When he arrived at his office there were no communications for him and no answer to his adver- tisements. Pujo opened with a bang at 655, Ten minutes more and it had crossed @00, pirouetting gaily upward until it suddenly shot like a rocket to 726. The sight made Thornton _ sick. Beventy-two thousand dollars! After luncheon, as he was about to ascend the stairs to his rooms, his at- tention was attracted by a faint, sub- tle but familiar odor, suggestive of whiskey and stale tebacco—the hole, snatched forth the envelope and tore it open. The certificate was there! One hundred shares of price- less Pujo! Unnerved and shakjng, he could hardly vdice the question that trem- bled on his lips. {You—-Why— Where've you been?’ ies “In the cellar!’ returned Squinty, blithely, “It was the hootch! You gave it to me first—an you lef the -bottlie on the mantel. When I woke up I was im the cellar.” “Why did you rob my safe?” i | didn't guv'ner!"” protested presently. “You caught nearly the high mark, I sold your hundred for 975. Just in time. Markets turned weak all of a sudden, Ninety-seven thousand dollars for what cost you sixteen liundred! Pretty good, old hoyse. Now mind you get that certifi- cate down here right away. Bye-bye!” “Cellar!” he choked. “You've been in the cellar! All the time—two days and a half—sixty hours! O, Lerd!” “Wot's that, guv’ner?” inquired Squinty “Wot’s that yezz say? I been im that there cellar two dgys and a half?” By WILLIAM ALMON WOLFF mink collar, and a new derby hat. The “twin-six"” that brought him car- ried also Mr. Dean Thornton and a new moving-picture machine, the gift of the latter to The Mutual Welfare League, the members of which lost no privileges by reason of Squinty’s ab- sence. In fact the word sped quickly through the corridors that his aunt had left him a million and that the warden had extended his parole, THE END. Copyright. All rights reserved. Printed by arrangement with Metwopotiten Newspaper Service, New Yors. NEXT SATURDAY’S COMPLETE STORY THE FIRST REEL He Was Famous, but Girl Shy—Fell in Love and Didn’t Know It—But the Most Delicious Twist in Thfs Unusual Romance Comes When Peggy's Aunt, Whose World Was Bounded by New York Society, Tried to Reverse ‘ Cinderella” ORDER YOUR EVENING WORLD IN ADVANCE