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Title: Clever—?
Author: Jack Woodford
Release date: August 17, 2026 [eBook #79383]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Frank A. Munsey Company, 1928
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79383
Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLEVER—? ***
[Illustration: “Shell out, kiddo”]
CLEVER—?
In the rôle of rescuing hero he entered Janice’s
life—and in his wake came doubt and uncertainty.
By Jack Woodford
Janice was just about through for the evening. Only one customer tarried
over his salad sandwich and tea in the small shop, just around the
corner from Lawrence Avenue.
The customer somehow disturbed Janice. That she had never seen the man
before this evening she was quite positive. There were things about him
that she instinctively disliked, for no reason that she could put into
words.
He was so smooth-looking, so altogether immaculate and theatrical.
Glancing at him again, out of the corner of her eye, she judged him to
be about thirty-five.
There was a bluish, clean look about his smoothly shaven firm chin. His
teeth were even and white, and his black eyes matched the slick black
sheen of his hair, which was brushed smoothly back from his forehead. He
had long, dark lashes, and a way of looking lazily out from under them
that was disconcerting.
Possibly he was an actor, Janice thought. Certainly he dressed much as
did the younger among the occasional vaudeville actors who drifted in
now and then from the theater over on Wilson Avenue.
When he had ordered, Janice had been struck with the deep, musically
vibrating tone of his voice. Soft and liquid it was, a rich barytone,
with just the tinge of some foreign accent. Altogether, she told
herself, he was too “pretty.” Prettiness, in a man, did not appeal to
her.
Just as she was deciding that she disliked the man heartily, because
of his bold, appraising glances, another man, short, swarthy, and
rough-looking, entered the shop.
“Too late to get a cup of tea and a sandwich?” the newcomer asked.
“Certainly not,” returned Janice courteously, mindful that the woman who
owned the shop needed every cent. “Won’t you be seated?”
The newcomer glanced out of the window, then suddenly swung around and,
facing her, with his back to the window, pointed a stubby black
automatic her way.
“Shell out, kiddo,” he said. Janice’s heart nearly leaped out of her
mouth. It was Saturday night. The neighborhood banks had closed at noon.
There was a comparatively large amount of money in the cash register.
“_Move!_” the man snapped throatily, “or I’ll let the light through you,
sure as—” She quickly went to the register and punched the “No Sale”
key; the drawer slid open. Tremblingly she handed all of the bills to
him. He snatched them, tucked them into a pocket, and said:
“Come out into the kitchen, baby. I’m going out the back way—I happen to
know that the cook’s gone home, so don’t try to string me. You’re a
sweet mamma, any way a guy looks at you, an’ I’m going to let you kiss
me good-by—if you hurry.”
Janice backed away from him, but he jammed the gun into his coat pocket
and, still covering her with it through his pocket, urged her along
toward the kitchen door.
Before the door she halted, but the intruder gave her one final push and
she bumped against the swinging door and stumbled through into the
kitchen. A momentary blackness rushed to her head. Her knees suddenly
doubled beneath her, and she slipped to the floor.
At this juncture she heard the sound of a scuffle. Almost helpless with
fright, but not unconscious, she lay supine upon the floor. Presently
the back door opened and then immediately closed.
Gathering strength to rise, Janice struggled to her feet and turned on
the light. As she did so the back door opened again.
She was about to scream when, to her amazement, not the stocky man, but
the customer whose looks she had disliked, came back through the door.
“Here,” he said, holding out his hand, “is your dough. I got it out of
his pocket. Here, also, is his gun. You ought to keep one around the
place.”
Mechanically, Janice took the weapon and the wad of bills.
“But how—” she began. “What on earth—”
“I crawled behind the tables to the kitchen door while you were handing
him the money, figuring I’d go out the back way and come around front to
nail him when he came out.
“He was so interested in you he must have forgotten all about me. When I
heard him say he was going out the back door I decided to wait for him
out there.
“He’ll never succeed. A young man who doesn’t keep his mind on his
business any more than _he_ does ought to take a correspondence course
in bookkeeping and settle down to a life of thrift, rather than one of
bold, bad enterprise!
“Still, I ought not to criticize. Had I been about to rob you, when I
saw you I’d forget all about my plans too.”
She blushed and was about to rebuke him, but thought better of it, in
view of what he had just done. After a pause and a bold smile he
returned to his subject:
“When you two came out into the kitchen, I waited until he let go of the
gun in his pocket, in order to kiss you, and then jumped him. Outside he
got away while I was getting his gun and your money from him.”
“Oh!” breathed Janice. “How can I ever thank you? You endangered your
very life!”
“Where would one find a worthier cause?” he asked, with a graceful
shrugging movement of his shoulders and arms. “You’re white as a sheet,”
he went on. “Sit down at one of the tables.” She obeyed him
mechanically.
“Now _I’ll_ play waiter,” he told her. Going to the service counter he
secured a napkin, draped it over his arm, drew a glass of water from the
cooler, and returned to put the glass down before her with a flourish.
“_Do_ try our excellent water!” he advised, standing at her elbow.
Despite the fact that her heart was still hammering, Janice laughed
aloud and drank the water.
“Isn’t it about time you were closing now?” he asked a moment later.
“It’s pretty late, and nobody except holdup men are likely to come in
this time of the evening.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I was just going to close up and go home when you
came in—and stayed so long—thank goodness you did—there’s no telling—”
“I suppose you never suspected, or dreamed, twenty minutes ago,” he went
on with a twinkle in his bright eyes, “that you were going home escorted
by no less a person than the customer whom you eyed so frostily when he
presumed to stare at you—he not being able to remove his eyes from the
contemplation of such an exquisitely pretty girl.”
“Now, _please_,” objected Janice, “don’t talk like that. You’ve been so
wonderful—don’t spoil it.”
He became comically solemn, drawing down the corners of his mouth and
knitting his fingers across his stomach as he stood across from where
she sat at the table, in ludicrous imitation of the comic supplement
conventional ministerial type.
“I promise to be good,” he told her, “if you’ll let me see you safely
home.”
“It’s only a short way—and it will be ever so kind of you. I’d be afraid
to go alone _now_—after what nearly happened; especially as I have to
carry nearly two hundred dollars that’s here.”
She glanced down at the wad of bills now reposing on the table before
her, with the revolver beside them.
Rising, she put on her coat and hat, shoved the bills into her purse,
gingerly carried the revolver over and put it behind the counter, and
turned off the lights within the store. In the street, after she had
locked the door, he took her arm possessively.
II.
“It’s not far,” she told him; “just up Kenmore, two blocks, and then a
block east on Argyle—but perhaps we ought to see a police officer and
report the—”
He laughed aloud.
“It’s easy to see that you haven’t been in Chicago long. The common or
garden variety of holdup wouldn’t interest a policeman; they’re too busy
with fancy robberies—there’s always plenty to go around, and one for
each cop to work on every evening, if he’s ambitious. Never call a cop
in Chicago unless you’re prepared to pay him well to do his duty.
“And, besides, I’ve no grudge against that stickup. I could present him
with a box of cigars in gratitude for what he’s done for me; if it
hadn’t been for him you would have been lost to me entirely.
“Why, you were eying me poisonously before he came in—and now—it’s a
great, and eternally queer, life!
“Isn’t there some way we could go to your home that’s lots farther than
the way you usually go?”
Janice did not quite like his glibness. She had never known any man who
talked so easily and freely in the presence of a lady. He seemed so
appallingly without diffidence; and yet, there _was_ something jolly
about it, too.
“W-e-e-l,” she hesitated, not at all sure that she ought to say it, but
tempted because of the loveliness of the night, after the long, hard,
confining day in the lunchroom, “perhaps we might walk down to Clarendon
Avenue, by the lake, and go around to Argyle that way; it’s much
farther.”
“I wish we could go by way of Gary, Indiana,” he told her smoothly.
“Still, Clarendon-by-the-Lake is something.”
It was queer, Janice thought, that he should be so utterly unconcerned
over what had nearly happened. Down home they would have talked about
the attempted holdup for years, would have dated subsequent events by
placing them at such and such a time after the holdup.
The men folks would have considered that she should be in a state of
nervous collapse for days after such an occurrence. Still, his attitude
did not displease her. City people were totally different; and, after
all, worse things happened every hour in Chicago.
When, a few minutes later, they reached the lake and Clarendon Beach, it
was so deliciously cool there that Janice yielded to his persuasion and
let him lead her out upon the stone porch of the large Municipal Bathing
Pavilion, to sit down upon one of the benches and watch the bathers at
play beneath the huge electric spotlights, mounted upon gaunt steel
supports.
“Tell me,” he began, when they had seated themselves and he had lighted
a cigarette, “how a bit of a girl like you comes to be running a
lunchroom all alone? It’s the last thing any one would expect to see you
doing. You don’t look the type at all.
“One would expect, seeing you upon the street, that if you worked at
all, it must be in a little specialty shop, or the lingerie section of
some ritzy store on Sheridan Road; or, possibly, in a beauty salon—”
It had been a long time since Janice had enjoyed a chance to confide in
any one—and there was a lovely moon. The jolly voices of the night
bathers drifted up to them. It was wonderful to be _sitting down_ in a
cool breeze, after a day upon one’s feet in a hot room.
“Well,” began Janice, a little surprised at herself for so willingly
becoming confidential, “you see, the lady who ran the lunchroom when I
applied for a position there as waitress can’t stand more than an hour
or so on her feet.
“She seldom comes to the store any more; in fact, she’s never coming
back to stay. She’s getting ready to go to California to live with her
son, who has a good position out there.
“I’m going to buy the lunchroom and run it. There’s a comfortable profit
in the little shop, and it will grow—is growing. With enough capital the
store next to it could be leased, too, and the partition knocked out,
and a fine business made of the lunchroom.
“Of course, that’s out of the question for the present; but, anyway, the
woman will sell me the store, fixtures, good will, and lease for fifteen
hundred.”
“And you’ve saved up fifteen hundred dollars?”
“Well, no, I haven’t fifteen hundred dollars; I haven’t fifty dollars to
my name. But some one is coming to town very shortly who has fifteen
hundred dollars to buy the store with for me—for us, that is—”
“Oh! A sweetheart, eh?”
“My _fiancé_. We are to be married as soon as he arrives.”
“That’s a terrible blow!” he sighed.
“Now, don’t be silly!”
“_Not_ being silly—I’m downright heartbroken.”
She turned a glance of reproof upon him, but his eyes sparkled so
merrily back at her that she withheld any further objections.
“Somewhere,” she said very softly, “maybe even among the bright voices
we hear down there upon the beach right now, there is another girl for
you.
“You are very nice, and very brave. You deserve to be made
extraordinarily happy. I hope you will find a lovely girl.”
“I have!” His implication was unmistakable, and he was serious now.
Janice rose from the bench.
“Don’t tell me you want to go _already!_” he exploded, rising hurriedly.
“Really, I must. It’s getting late, and I’ve got to be at the lunch room
early in the morning.” Making a wry face, he gave in and they started
off.
“Tell me something about this luckiest man alive, your _fiancé_,” he
begged, as they turned down Clarendon Avenue, walking north toward
Argyle.
Janice felt that she should not be so loquacious to an utter stranger;
but he had proved himself such a wonderful friend, at the risk of his
very life, and she was alone in the city, and more than a little
lonesome.
“Well, you see, we lived on adjoining farms, his father’s and mine, in
Nedry, Iowa, a little town you probably never heard of. My father
married again, after my own mother died, and his new wife didn’t take
any particular fancy to me.
“And yet, I had to stay on at the farm, working like a machine; the
lunch room work seems like play compared to it.
“Robert, my _fiancé_, came to me one day and insisted that I accept some
money he had saved up and go to the city to find a position where I
wouldn’t have to work so hard.
“I was of age then. He asked me to marry him, and I told him that I
would, whenever he wished.
“We’ve always loved each other, ever since we were kids. I had no
hesitancy in taking the money and coming on, especially when he told me
that he would arrange to follow, so soon as he conveniently could, and
that we would be married when he got here.”
“How old were you then?” put in her new friend.
“Eighteen,” replied Janice. “Why?”
“Oh—nothing. Go on. I’m very much interested in what you’re telling me.”
“I came on to Chicago. Found a position in a mail order office, which I
detested. Lived out here on the north side, in a furnished room. And
then, one day, I saw the ‘Waitress Wanted’ sign in that little
restaurant.
“The place looked so very neat and cozy. I wanted to work with real
things, like food and dishes; I was so tired of handling crisp bits of
paper, poking slips of things into files and taking them out again,
without knowing, or caring, what it was all about.
“I applied and got the job. Then the owner was taken sick. I wrote Bob
all the details. He said that he was lonesome and tired of farm life.
He’d saved up enough to buy the lunch room. He’s coming on to Chicago,
right away.”
“And you’re content to keep right on working in the restaurant, after
you’re married?”
“I’ll simply love it. It will be wonderful—knowing that it’s my own, or
at least half mine—and that the business I’m helping to build will
belong to Bob and me.”
“Do you really love him?” her companion suddenly asked, after a short
silence.
“Why, of course,” replied Janice, without a moment’s hesitation. They
were before the building which contained her room. She started up the
steps and turned to say good night.
“Good night, little princess,” he said sadly. “You haven’t seen the last
of me yet, though—and I’d like to give you something to think over, if
you don’t mind.
“I haven’t the slightest doubt but what this Arcadian hero of yours is a
worthy chap. You two were thrown together by circumstances over which
neither one of you had any control. You grew up together; you became,
probably, like brother and sister to each other.
“He has loaned you money, rescued you from intolerable circumstances. He
is now going to have your dreams come true by making it possible for you
to own the little lunch room you’ve taken such an odd fancy to—all very
nice and _logical_; but thoughts of _convenience_ and expedience do not
predicate love, my dear girl; are you _sure_ that what you feel for the
‘Bob’ person is _love_?”
Without waiting for a reply he turned, lifted his cap, and strode off.
III.
For several moments Janice stood very still upon the spot where he had
left her, watching his tall, slim form stride off down the street. Then
she went on up into the building to her tiny, hot room, at the end of
the hall, on the third floor. She undressed thoughtfully.
“_‘Is it love?’_” The question kept stabbing at her consciousness. It
was as though some one had taken hold of her and roughly shaken her. “Is
it love?” The question repeated itself over and over again in her mind.
She glanced at the pale, wistful-eyed girl in the mirror. The girl
stared back questioningly, with wide, round, startled eyes.
The question pursued her even under the covers, though she pulled them
over her head, hot as the room was.
The following evening Janice, as she had half expected that she would,
saw the young man enter the shop again, at about the same time that the
attempted holdup had occurred the night before.
“Good evening!” he called out confidently, as though he were a friend of
years standing.
“Good evening,” she greeted.
“You say that to every one,” he charged. “Name’s Rickey; say ‘Good
evening, Rickey,’” he ordered, with polite insistence. Janice returned,
banteringly:
“Service is the policy here. We strive to please the most exacting—Good
evening, _Mr._ Rickey.”
“No, not ‘_Mr._ Rickey,’” he mimicked in a ludicrous falsetto
exaggeration of her own voice, “just _Rickey_.”
“All right, Just Rickey; what are you going to have this evening?”
“You.”
“Now you’re being silly again,” her tone became a trifle sharp.
“Please forgive me; but, really, what I came in for is to know whether
you won’t come out with me and have a bite to eat somewhere else? Not
that this isn’t the finest lunch room on the north side—only, it
occurred to me that maybe you were tired of always eating here, and
would like a change.”
He must be a mind reader, Janice decided. He was so clever and
thoughtful. She _was_ tired of eating the food that she served all day.
Still, was it fair to Bob?
She decided that it was, since she would not hesitate to tell Bob all
about it, just as freely as she would have told him all about a friendly
companionship with some girl—if there had been any chance for such—if
all of the girls in the district hadn’t been so impossibly frivolous and
man-mad. Her decision made, Janice said:
“All right; tell you what I’ll do: if you’ll make it a ‘Dutch Treat,’
I’ll go with you.”
“But I’m not Dutch,” he protested. “I’m French.”
Janice laughed.
“I’m not Dutch either, but that’s the only way I’ll go.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m engaged, and I don’t think—”
“Goodness, what hair-splitting! If it’s wrong for you to let me treat
you, it’s wrong for you to go out with me at all. And surely even your
corn-fed friend wouldn’t be so narrow as to deny you a platonic friend,
just because the friend happened to be of the same sex he is?”
Janice frowned, she hoped, severely, and he hastened to make amends:
“Please forgive me; I didn’t mean to speak lightly of your _fiancé_. I
probably did so just because I’m jealous of him. I humbly apologize.
“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll match you to see who pays for _both_
dinners.” He was so good-natured about it all that Janice found herself
forgiving him completely and championing the “head” side of a dime.
He threw the coin into the air, caught it in his hand, slapped it down
upon the back of his other hand and announced: “Tails! You lose!”
Half an hour later they sat down at a beautifully white table, in the
largest hotel of the neighborhood.
It was the first time in her life that Janice had ever been inside such
a hostelry. She was enchanted with the glistening white tablecloth of
heavy linen, the dainty silver vase containing flowers in the center of
the table. She noticed that they were _real_ flowers, and wondered how
the management could afford to change them every day.
The pretty dosser over the back of her chair seemed to burn her back,
and she hardly dared lean against it, for fear of harming it.
The bewildering menu, with its foreign names, and its almost incredible
“teal” and “capon” left her speechless. She knew what they got for
capons and teals down home—what they charged for them here was amazing;
they got as much for half a capon as her father received from the buyers
representing out-of-town hotels for a dozen whole ones.
She wondered how the management dared trust the heavy silver service to
their diners in a city like Chicago, not knowing that the theft of this
same silverware by some of the diners was paid for by every one who ate
a meal there.
She was thinking of her humble little “card” at the lunchroom—which she
had previously considered quite fancy—when she noticed that people at
surrounding tables were staring at her. At once she felt uncomfortable
and self-conscious. She thought of her cheap dress, which she had made
herself.
Rickey noticed her obvious discomfiture and instantly guessed its cause.
“My dear, you’re superb; don’t worry about your clothes. I wouldn’t have
brought you here if I hadn’t seen that you looked up to it.
“You’re dressed more prettily than any one else present. That little
frock you’ve got on is so simple and neat that it looks positively
Parisy.”
“Then why _are_ people looking at me?”
“‘People’? Isn’t it mainly _the men_ who are looking at you? Do you not
see that they are frankly admiring you?”
The waiter came to take their order, and Rickey thoughtfully ordered for
both, not permitting her to be embarrassed by her ignorance of the
foreign items upon the menu.
When the waiter had gone he resumed softly:
“You’re soothing upon the male optic nerve; that’s why they are looking
at you. Such clear, soft skin, natural healthy color and bright eyes and
lovely, naturally golden hair is not often seen in this high-tone
hashery. You’re like—” he searched for a minute, “like Aphrodite, after
reducing. No wonder they look at you!
“I’ll match you another dime to see whether or not I eat you.” He saw
her look of dismay at his flippant words and suggested quickly:
“Dance?”
They had finished their _hors d’oeuvres_ and the orchestra had started a
fox trot.
“Oh, no—I’m sorry,” she said. “It isn’t that I don’t want to; I simply
don’t know how.” She blushed and wondered how it would be at all
possible to tell such a sophisticated young man that where she came from
dancing was still thought to be a device of the devil.
“Impossible,” he denied. “Any one as graceful and fairylike as you are
has it born in them—and this fox-trot thing—it’s a cinch. Anyway, the
floor’s so packed no one will see, even if you do make a few mistakes at
the start. Let me show you what you can do if you half-try.”
Much against her better judgment, she rose and he escorted her out of
the loge at the side of the dancing floor, in which they had been
sitting. Out upon the polished floor space reserved for dancers, Janice
felt as though she had dived into ice water over her head.
The jazz band was beating out a melody that seemed to throb through her
like a fever. A potent evocation for some latent sense of rhythm within
her, it caused her feet to glide about the floor with surprising ease.
Rickey controlled her lithe young body with just the suggestion of a
push or pull, so that she seemed to be dancing expertly, with an almost
magical facility:
“Used to be a dancing instructor,” he explained. “Quit it because there
wasn’t one customer in a thousand as graceful and as easy to teach as
you are.”
“You _will_ persist in flattering me, won’t you?” she reproved.
“_Because I love you!_” he sang with the song that was at the moment
being played, the words happening to fit in perfectly at the time.
The dance over, they went back to the table for the rest of their
dinner.
“Tell you what let’s do,” said Rickey as they finished up with two pink
frozen sorbets; “it’s a little late, but the moon will be delightful.
Let me go around to the ‘Drive Your Own’ garage and pick up a car. We’ll
go for a drive out along the north shore.”
The rhythm of the dance was still in Janice’s head. Like a spell of
enchantment, the consciousness of excitement and strange beauty was upon
her, seeming to make her unfold to new delights of which she had never
dreamed before.
She was intoxicated with the sight of wonderfully gowned women, men in
sleek evening wear—brightness, music, flowers, laughter—like some
strange new and delightful world.
Surely Bob would not object to this interlude of hectic pleasure. When
they were married they should have to work very hard; there wouldn’t be
much time for fun. Not that she’d object!
IV.
The car was secured from the garage, and in a few minutes they were
rolling along smoothly on the even surface of Sheridan Road. The air,
which, a moment before, had been dead and stifling, was now rushing in
cool waves against her face.
After a time Rickey stopped the car beside a wooded embankment close to
the lake. In Hubbard’s Woods.
“Enjoying yourself?” he inquired.
“Oh, wonderfully! But doesn’t it cost an awful lot to rent a car? You
must be a millionaire, taking me to such an expensive place for dinner,
renting a car, never worrying about or even mentioning your job.” He
laughed heartily.
“Me—a millionaire. What a notion! I’m a poor but honest working man. I
sell steel—on a straight commission basis. Since I receive no salary, my
time is my own. It costs next to nothing to rent a car.
“Don’t let it worry you. I’ve never known a girl who could be ‘taken
out’ so economically as you; I’m positively ashamed of myself, the way
I’ve treated you.”
There was a full moon riding high over the blue-black, sparkling waters
of the lake. In some near-by home a radio set was receiving an excellent
program, which they could hear filtering softly through the trees.
Janice felt that she would remember the moment always.
A moment later she _knew_ that she would, for Rickey took her into his
arms, lifting her light body off of the seat to his lap. She struggled,
but he held her tightly.
“Little angel,” he breathed, “I can’t help this. I must tell you that I
love you. Please don’t be angry with me. How can I possibly keep from
telling you—you make yourself irresistible without at all trying
to—probably, in fact, that’s the very secret of it.”
“You ought to be able to keep from saying such things to me, after I’ve
told you that I’m engaged,” Janice told him firmly.
“But could Bob possibly love you as I do?”
“Bob loves me, I’m sure.”
“You don’t _sound_ as though you were so very sure of it. Just give
yourself time and you’ll believe as I do that your engagement to Bob was
merely a matter of propinquity.”
“But I’m _promised_ to him!”
“That’s just it. You’ve mistaken his kindness for love. If Bob is the
right sort of fellow, and you explain things to him, he’ll release you—I
feel sure of that. He’s _got_ to.
“He’ll see that you’ve changed. You’re no country girl any more. You’re
bright and clever; together, dear, we could go far beyond anything
you’ve planned.
“You’re made for something better than serving meals in a lunch room—not
that you don’t considerably raise that profession by your connection
with it.”
Without giving her any indication of his intention to do so, he pressed
his lips down upon hers. She jerked from him and withdrew to the
farthest corner of the seat.
“Please let’s drive back,” she said, calmly enough, though her heart was
filled with rage, rage at herself that she could have so thrilled to his
kiss, promised, as she was, to another.
It seemed cruel that she should be in such a position. Before her a new
life might well open up, with Rickey, a life full of beauty, far removed
from the drabness that had always marked her living, marked it just as
unmistakably in the city, as back in Iowa.
Was she, she wondered, one of those unlucky ones born under some fateful
star, doomed to a commonplace, unlovely life? She bit her lip angrily,
as she noticed that the little trefoil device, containing a miniature
light, on the radiator cap of the car, was becoming blurred to her
vision.
What right, she asked herself angrily, had she to think of a life with
Bob as commonplace and unlovely? What had come over her? She looked far
out into the somnolent complacency of the lake, as the road paralleled
it for a long stretch.
Thoughts bobbed into her head unbidden: Bob, in overalls, his hair
creeping out over the edges of his ears; a corncob pipe in his mouth;
his face tanned, weather-beaten to a hard bronze; his slow manner of
speech; his equally slow way of thinking.
Rickey, in his immaculate clothing, his dark good looks, smooth, white
skin, nimble mind, easy fluency.
When he turned to her again, as they passed through Winnetka, she
listened silently as he talked and drove.
“You’re just a wee bit stubborn,” he said in a tone of voice that took
the sting out of the words; “you made up your mind and you’re determined
to _keep_ it made up.
“I honestly believe that, deep down in your heart, you recognize, now,
your mistake in having become engaged to Bob. But you’re going to go
ahead and marry him, even though you’re beginning to suspect that you do
not love him, just for the sake of keeping your mind made up.
“Janice, dear, you _must_ reconsider. Your happiness depends upon it;
his happiness depends upon it, and so does mine. You two couldn’t get
along well together. _Your_ mind is capable of infinite expansion.”
Janice was silent. Something deep within her was agreeing with him; and
yet, something else—was it just loyalty, she wondered?—was very
violently disagreeing with him.
It was as though a tiny, almost incoherent voice that did not use words
at all for its medium of expression which was whispering to her. It was
as though the heart itself were meekly striving, in its own language,
for recognition, against the dictates of the mind. He cut in upon her
thoughts with:
“Afraid of your own best judgment—that’s what you are. But forgive me; I
won’t pester you any more to-night. Think it over, though. I haven’t
given up; I just don’t want to spoil your ride. I won’t say anything
more about it.”
“Thanks, awfully,” she said with relief: “you’re really so considerate.
And it’s a mighty good thing you are, because your ability as a salesman
is—” She didn’t finish it and he, understandingly, after a minute, said:
“How could one be other than gracious with _you_?”
V.
At home, after their ride, Janice sat down alone in her room for the
purpose of thinking things out straight. Was she doing wrong? she asked
herself. Was she letting herself be superficially attracted by a surface
glitter?
Because she happened to love to read, had she let herself be fascinated
merely because she had at last met a man who looked and talked like a
character in a book, as opposed to the dull, plodding, slow-witted men
she had known at home?
And, on the other hand, had she any right to turn from Bob’s devotion to
her, and his demonstrated sincere regard for her, even though her heart
turned from him to another—as she was afraid that it was about to do?
Hadn’t Bob a very definite right to _his_ happiness? Wasn’t it more
important to consider Bob’s happiness than her own?
She decided that she had no right to break Bob’s heart.
But the decision, though she knew that she would stick to it, brought
her no peace of mind. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Why was it, she wondered, that love was always so complicated—even in
real life, just as in books? Was it a test of some sort that every one
had to go through some time, in order to prove themselves really
deserving of the priceless gift of true love?
At any rate one thing was clear to her: She would tell Bob the truth,
but if he would not release her from their engagement—until she was more
certain of her own mind—she would marry him as she had promised. On this
final decision she lay down to sleep.
When, the following afternoon, she got Mrs. Halsey to come to the lunch
room to watch things for an hour or so, while she went to the station to
meet Bob, she was still rather undecided as to what, exactly, her course
of action would be.
She was near to panic with the realization that the crucial hour had
come. All of the rest of her life might be altered within the hour.
Rickey, thoughtful as ever, had sent around a taxi to take her to the
station. He had instructed the driver to tell her that the trip down was
paid for in advance. He had even sent a note by the driver, telling her
that he had engaged a room for Bob. The key to the room was inclosed
with the note.
At the station, while she waited for the train, Janice made up her mind
to one thing: she must tell Bob all. But, later, when she saw him, her
determination to do this almost fled.
She hardly recognized him. When he swooped down upon her, neat traveling
bag in hand, he looked just like any well-dressed city man, so far as
his clothing and outward appearance were concerned; but his shoulders
were broader, his face healthily tanned.
Before every one he swept her diminutive form into his arms and kissed
her. All in a moment, understanding came to her, as she stood strained
against his big, protecting body.
It _was_ Bob that she loved. What subtle influence could ever for a
moment have caused her to think otherwise?
“Oh, Bob!” she breathed. “You mustn’t! You mustn’t, before all of these
people!”
But he was too happy to notice her strange, tense manner. He swept her
along with him toward the exit, chatting volubly. She had never heard
him talk so much.
It was as though his release from the farm had opened some prison door
within him, behind which he had previously confined a different sort of
Bob, waiting and longing for emancipation. She remembered that something
of the sort had taken place with her, too, when she had first come to
the city.
“Everything’s lovely,” he told her. “Dad found a first-rate hired man to
take my place. I sold out all of my own personal things—stock I’d raised
myself—everything. Got the fifteen hundred, and more, right with me, in
cash.
“Didn’t know anybody up here except you. Wasn’t taking any chances on
having trouble getting a check cashed.
“We’ll be regular folks, Janice, dear; isn’t it wonderful, after all
those dull days down on the farm? I never minded them so much when you
were there—but after you’d gone! Lordy! It was as though heaven and
earth had passed away and left a great hole with no edge around it.”
She remained silent as they climbed into a taxi and started north. She
hoped that presently he would talk himself out. Then, maybe, she could
summon up courage to tell him what she _must_ tell him, in all fairness
to both men.
“Let’s get married right away, to-morrow,” he ended up, beaming down at
her and drawing her slim form into the strong circle of his arm. She
looked back up at him tragically, finding time, however, to note with
approval that his hair was neatly clipped and that he was really
handsome, even as judged by city standards.
“Bob,” she began, hesitantly, “I’ve got something to tell you.” And then
she told him everything, clear down to the fact of Rickey having engaged
a room for him.
He said nothing at all, during her recital, never once interrupting her.
When she had finished he remarked only:
“You say that this Rickey chap is very clever?”
“W-e-e-l, he’s—”
“And you don’t consider me, er—precisely _clever_, do you, Janie?”
“Oh, Bob! Why put it _that_ way? And, anyway, I _know_, now, that it is
you I love.”
“Let’s not say any more about it,” he suggested, “for the present.
However, this thing will have to be worked out in the right way before
we can talk marriage. I wouldn’t for the world have you marry me while
there is the slightest notion in your pretty head that it might be some
sort of _duty_.
“Is that the post office over there?” he broke off to ask, as they
traveled slowly through the traffic on Clark Street.
“Yes,” Janice told him mechanically.
“Driver, stop at the post office a minute, please,” he ordered, opening
the glass panel in the front division of the cab. “Got to get a letter
off,” he explained cryptically to Janice, as the cab stopped and he
swung out and up the post office steps.
Janice watched him mount the steps, her heart heavy. All of the spring
had gone out of his step. She had, she told herself, ruined everything.
That it was Bob she truly loved, she knew now beyond any question of a
doubt. But he would never believe that there was not some reservation in
her mind.
How happy they could have been, she told herself, and _why was it_ that
Rickey had come into her life? Providence was most unkind. She furtively
dabbed at her hot eyes as she sat alone in the taxi, thinking of poor
Bob’s dragging steps up the post office ramp.
It was a long time before he came out. When at last he did, he spoke
cheerfully of matters “down home,” bravely pretending to be happy.
But Janice knew only too well that she had made him miserable, upon what
should have been the happiest of his life’s days. She hung her head and
gazed dejectedly out of the taxi window.
VI.
It was necessary that she go immediately back to the lunch room to
relieve Mrs. Halsey, who was white of face, and almost ready to drop
when Janice arrived.
Rather glad, Janice was, of the opportunity to work and think alone.
Bob, apparently, was almost relieved at their temporary parting.
He bid a cheerful good-by to her from the taxi, when she got out before
the lunch room; then he went on to the room Rickey had engaged for him,
without once looking back, though Janice watched for him to do so.
All afternoon, while she worked, she waited for Bob to come to the lunch
room; and, at dinner time, she thought surely he would appear. But the
hours passed, and there was no sign of him.
At last, after closing up, she decided to go to his rooming house.
Probably there would be some sort of lobby, where they could talk;
perhaps Bob would take her out for a walk.
How lovely it would be to walk with him, to show him the things that had
interested her, when she had first come to the city; watch his eyes open
wide at the sights she could show him: the huge Municipal Beach, the
Lake Shore Drive, and its constant pageant of beautiful motor cars!
How delightful it would have been to rest her arm upon his big, strong
one and walk closely to him, side by side, as they often had through the
countryside at home, talking so understandingly, without ever a thought
of any one coming between them!
And she had ruined all that; her heart was near to breaking as she drew
close to the address that had been contained in the note from Rickey.
The building proved to be close to the edge of a run-down section on the
north side, where two twisted short streets joined.
A slatternly old woman shuffled up some steps that led down into a
basement doorway. The woman eyed Janice strangely when she asked that
the young man who had come in that afternoon for the room Rickey had
recommended be notified that she was downstairs.
“He’s in the hospital,” the woman said, with an abruptness that was
nothing short of brutal.
“In the _hospital_?” Janice gasped. “_In the hospital!_ Oh! I see! You
just don’t understand who it is that I’m looking for. I suppose more
than one man came in for a room this afternoon, of course.”
“No, no—I know who you mean,” interrupted the woman, “the country jake.
Sure. I know. There was a big fight in his room. He was hurt. They took
him to the Grant Brothers’ hospital.”
As fast as she could get there by taxi, Janice rushed out to the
hospital on the northwest side. Explaining that she was affianced to the
injured man, she was at last dubiously admitted, after some
complications due to the fact that it was a time at which visitors were
not permitted entry.
“H’lo,” Bob greeted her cheerfully, from his bed in a small ward wherein
he was, at the time, the only patient.
“_Bob!_” she cried, kneeling down by the side of the bed, taking one of
his big, rough hands into her own tiny ones: “Bob. How badly are you
hurt?” She tried to force back the tears, but her lips trembled so that
she scarce could speak, and the film of smarting tears almost blinded
her eyes.
“Hurt! Shucks! I’m not hurt. Got a wallop over the head with a billy
that split open my scalp. Knocked me out for a time. They insist that
I’ve got to lie here until morning.
“I’ve been hurt worse on the farm, lots of times, and went right on
working.” His head was bandaged, and there was blood upon the bandage.
“But how did it happen?”
“Stickups; they came into my room. They got my wallet, and everything
that was in it,” he added.
Janice tried to speak, but it was impossible. Looking into his cheerful
face, the tears fell fast. She was thinking of the years it had taken
him to save that money.
“Don’t mind, dear,” she managed at last. “I’ll keep on working. If I
have to give up the place in the lunch room, when Mrs. Halsey sells it,
I’ll find another job, and I’ll help you find one. We’ll be married at
once, and work together.”
“Maybe,” he pointed out, “the police will recover my wallet. They got
one of the fellows. I knocked him out before they got me. But he didn’t
have the wallet on him, they said.
“And, anyway, how about this Rickey chap? Maybe you _do_ truly love him.
Maybe he could help you to buy the restaurant right away. Maybe you only
thought you loved me because there was nobody else around, back home.”
“Don’t even talk that way,” put in Janice, blushing. “I don’t ever want
to see Rickey again so long as I live—I’ll never forgive him for having
let you go to a questionable place.”
“You’re sure you don’t love him?”
“Oh, Bob! _Please_ believe me when I say that I don’t.”
He smiled up at her confidently. “I believe you, and I fully understand.
There are men who could fool anybody.” His eyes told her that she was
fully forgiven. She threw herself upon her knees, by the side of the
bed, putting her arms about him.
“You _sure_ you’re not badly hurt?” she asked, holding him so tightly
that, strong as he was, he winced and looked up into her face in
surprise.
“Honestly, it’s nothing,” he assured her, a new pleasure in his voice.
“And,” he added softly, “you _do_ really care, don’t you, Janie? It
doesn’t seem possible you could care for a big, awkward stiff like me!”
She lowered her head to his shoulder and hid her face against the side
of his neck. He felt the damp of her tears.
“Why! What are you crying about, Janie, little angel? There’s nothing
for you to cry over.”
“I’m crying,” she got out, “to think that I ever for a moment supposed
that any man but you could hold even a very tiny corner of my heart.”
He raised her up and, kissing her, patted her head lovingly. Several
moments later a surgeon came in and lifted her up, escorting her to the
door with a polite:
“Please—he ought to get a nap now.”
Outside the ward she asked the surgeon tensely:
“How badly hurt _is_ he? I must know.”
“It’s almost nothing,” the doctor told her with a shrug. “He really
could go right now, only I thought it best that he stay until morning,
so that I can have one more look at the abrasion on his head.
“There’s not the slightest danger, but I don’t want to take any chances
on an infection setting up. I can check it easily, if I have him where I
can watch.”
He picked up a paper from the waiting room table and handed it to her.
“Seen this last edition?” he asked politely, “there’s an account of the
affair in it.” Janice took the early morning edition of one of the
city’s leading dailies and was confronted with a picture of Rickey.
The news article ran:
“Gentleman Sanders” is in trouble again. This nimble-witted
ex-convict, who has kept the smartest minds at the detective
bureau busy for several years, met his Waterloo yesterday
in the person of a farmer from Iowa who, in company with
several of his notorious companions, he succeeded in relieving
of his wallet—but only after the gentleman from Iowa had
handed him a haymaker which kept him in dreamland until the
police arrived.
Unfortunately Gentleman Sanders’s companions made off with
their victim’s wallet, and no trace has been found of them
or the wallet.
However, the various rewards on Gentleman, which will naturally
go to Iowa’s husky son, should more than make up for the
contents of the wallet.
Several of Gentleman Sanders’s bigamous wives have been searching
for the slick young college man who turned to crime.
Early the following morning, Janice went again to the hospital. Another
surgeon, then on duty, cheerfully permitted “the hard-hitting gentleman
from Iowa,” as he called him, to leave with her in a taxi.
As they drove toward the lunch room, Bob took her into his arms, kissed
her, and hugged her until Janice squealed for mercy.
“You’re not so slow,” she told him delightedly, “catching one of the
keenest crooks in the city, and carrying on like this in a taxicab—how
did you know that city people often kiss and hug in taxicabs?”
“Been getting the Chicago papers ever since you left,” he laughed. “All
I’ve thought about since you pulled out was you and Chicago; can’t we be
married _right away_?”
“I’ll get Mrs. Halsey to come to the lunch room for an hour or so this
afternoon, and we’ll go down town and be married.”
“O. K.,” he grinned.
When they got to the lunch room and opened up, Bob sat down at a table
and grandly ordered breakfast.
“I’ll cook it for you myself, before the cook comes,” Janice told him.
“No, you won’t!” He looked very stern. “I won’t have you cooking a meal
in a restaurant for me—and I won’t have you waiting on table in a
restaurant. We’re going to have plenty of capital now; we’ll rent that
store next door, and join it to this one.
“I understand that that reward money will run to nearly five thousand
dollars. That’ll be enough to run the new restaurant on, on a good,
substantial scale, to start, and yet leave a small, safety-first
reserve, in case things don’t go well, so that we can get into something
else later, if needs be.”
Just then the mailman came in. There was the usual deluge of advertising
matter, which Janice threw on the table unopened; but, this time, there
was also a letter for her. It was a large envelope, registered and
insured. After signing for it, Janice excitedly tore it open.
A sheaf of currency fell out upon the table, and with the bills was a
letter, which read:
My own dear little Janice:
From what you’ve told me about this Rickey chap, I’m afraid.
I think he was in on that holdup you described, as a lookout,
and that he decided to go after bigger game when he got
inside the store and saw beautiful little you.
I am afraid he has engaged the room for me with intentions
not wholly kindly; you may have let him trick you into telling
him about the money I would have with me when I came to Chicago.
It would be so easy for him to get both my money and my girl,
if he’s the wrong kind.
But he may not give me credit for a little smartness, myself;
and he may be overestimating his hold on you. We’ll see.
If I’m all wrong, I’ll humbly apologize to him. But, in the
meantime, I’m going to play safe and mail this money to you for
safekeeping.
Bob.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in _Argosy_ magazine,
July 28, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]
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