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Show Thursd ay, ~ 1 1 I F~bruary .................................. ...........................................................................................................................................................! ~······ •• •• SE AL ED Th e BU N K ! I By Hen ry Kitc hell Web ster I I• THE lUIDVALE JOURN AL 19, 1931 Copyrlcht by The Bobbs-'MerrUl Co • i~u~.~.~..~.~••~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~.•~.~..~.~••~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..~.~..:.~..:.~..:.~..:.~..~.~..~.~..~.:..:,:..:,:..:,:..:,:,,:.~..:,:..:,:..:,:..:,:..:..:,~.:..:,:..:.:.,:.:..:,:..:,:..:.:..:,:..:.:..:,:,:..:..:.:..:.:..:.:..:.~..~ THE STORY At & public dance Martin Jrorbes, a newspaper man, cuta In on Rhoda White's dance with Max Lewis, whom Martin Instinctively dislikes. He overhears a conversation between Lewis and a woman, which he rea.llzea concerns Rhoda. He recall• a "blind ad" inquiring the whereabouts of "Rhoda McFarland" and senses a newspaper story. CHAPTE R !-Contin ued -2Later, but not until an hour or two later, going over the evening on foot, aa it were, he was able to surmise that his complacency over the apparent success of thla maneuver, getting rid ot both Lewis and Babe with a aingle well-placed Introduction , might ha"\'e had something to do with hls discomfiture In the scene which followed with Rhoda. She, of course, conlrln't have known how much deeper he'd plunged Into her affairs whlle !lhe'd been finishing out the dan<:e with the negligible Higgins. And It wasn't surprising If she'd felt when he came up and took her arm, det.llching her from her most recent fl".rtner with barely a word, that his JIIRnner was assumIng a good deal ttJO much, a!! If their trtendshlp had ~ a matter o1' months rather than of minutes. He'd been entirely unconeclous of th!s manner at the time. .All he'd been thinking ot was the Importance of what he had to tell her and of what she In return would have to tell h!m. He was aware that she lookl'd at hlm a little oddly as he starterl to lead her away, and he explained hls action, adl'quutely be felt by saying, "We've got to find some place where we can talk. Sha'n't we get ont of this? I'll take you home If you like." At that she got rid ot' his hand rather bruskly and turned to stare at lllm, stlll halt' perplexed but In rapIdly mounting exasperation . "I don't want to get out o1' this," ehe said. "I came here to dance." Before he could 11peak, she added, more amiably, "\Ve can talk now, though, rnn't w·e? And look, there's a place we can sit." The !'Ofa ~<he darted ott to take po~Ression of occupiPd perhaps the most public place In that entirely public dance hall, opposite the head of one of the fli~hts of the grand 11taircase. "That Is all right, Isn't It?'' she asked. "l suppose so,'' he agreed discontentedly. "At least it's got Its back to the wall and no one can hear what we say without standing right fn front of us anrl listening." :·nut what hnve we got to say,'' she demanded, "that anybody shouldn't hear?" "Plenty,'' he told her. "Of course I don't know how serious tt Is. You'll know better than I. It sounded to me like something you ought to he told about." Do you mean you " 'Sound€'d ?' heard people talking about me?" "I think they were talking ahout 10u. I'm practically sure t11ey were." His chain of Inferences had bf>en straight enough once, but It was tangled now. "I'll start w!th something ~lse,'' he said, after a moment's silence. "Do you remember asking me why I looked funny when you told me your name was Rhoda, and my saying I had an association wltl1 the name that I couldn't spot? Well, I have spotted It now. For the last week there's been an advertiseme nt ln the personal column of the News for tha a<ldress of 'l'he reason I'd Rhoda McFarland noticed lt was that It was always a blind ad; t!1e advertiser, I mean, never giving his own name." He had Instinctively avoided looklog at her while he was speaking, but the quality of the silence after he'd finished drew his eyes around to he\' face. He saw lt deeply flushed. "Well," she asked as she encountered his gaze, a sharpness that sounded like panic audible ln her voice, "what has that got to do with me?" He wanted to say, "You are Rhoda McFarland, aren't you?'' but his nerve failed him. He didn't try to answer her question. "Was It Rhoda McFarland you heard them talking about?" she asked at the end of another silence, her voice now m better control, ''and did you think ·there couldn't be more than one perBon named Rhoda?" At last l'ls mind was on the ralls again. wl didn't hear any name mentioned at all. I'll tell you what I did bear. The man said, 'She's the girl, all right.' The woman asked him how he knew. He said the girl was a cagey little brat-meani ng, I suppose, that she hadn't told him as much about herself as he'd tried to find out -but that he had got her first name. That name, apparently, cinched It, since the woman had already half recogmzed your face--the girl's face, I mean." She noted the slip and pounced up.-m lt angrily. "Why do you keep talking about me? What makes you think it has anything to do with me?'' ''I heard the woman call him Max,'' he went on doggedly. "He was Max l.ew~ all rl.:llt. I got a look at him later. I don't know who the woman was. I didn't e>en see her properly. It came out In their talk that she'd been going by on the sidewalk just as-ju!lt as this girl they were looking tor turned ln. The woman thought she recognized her, got hold or Lewis somel10w, and had him come to the dance just to scrape an acquaintanc e with you. I can't help lt. J do think it was you they meant. I knew he told you his first name, but I didn't know until then that you'd told him yours.'' "I didn't," she Instantly put In, with the empha!'ls. he thought, of sudden relief. "The only person I told my name tonight wa!! you. He might have heard me tell you, though," she added. "I saw him crossing the floor right near us while we were talking about It." For a moment he thought !'he'd gh·en In and admitted she was llhoda McFarland. He moYed his hand to cover hPrs as he !>ald. '"l'hen It's my fault really that he tounrl out, and that makes me the natural person to help yon." He thought It wasn't his touch she minded, for it wasn't until he ~;poke ot helping her that she snatched her hand away. "But I don't need any help," she told him vehemently.• "I haven't anything to clo with those people. I don't know who Max Lewis Is, but I don't believe that he had any reason In the world for getting Introduced to me except that he thought I'd be nice to dunce with.'' "They were trying to find you," hP. stubbornly persisted, "before somebody else did; somebody they are afraid of or are trying to take advantage of; an old man they spoke of as 'C. J.' Do you know who he Is?" "I haven't the remotest ldf>a in the world.'' There was no doubt she meant thnt. Appnren~ly the question was n relief to her, for she added, "Can't you see now it's all nonsen!;e?" "S!t still another minute anyhow and listen to the rest •of lt. Then per-haps you won't think It's nonsense. "It was the woman who seemed most excited about you. She told !\lax It was his job to find out where you lived, tonight. She said It didn't matter whether he took you home or followed yon home. She said that as soon as they knew that, they'd have C. J.-whoever he is-where they wanted him. She said there wasn't any time to waste because you might see that arl In the paper any day and ans:wer ft." She'd snatched her hanrl away long before he'd finl;;hed spealdng. Now, In furious exasperation , she cried, " 'I-I-I!' \Yhy do you keep talking about me? Why should I answer an ad>ertlseme nt for Rhoda McFarland? I won't. I'll tell you that much, anyway. 1 nd I won't let Max Lewis take me home, either, If that's any satisfaction to you." "How will you keep him from following you home?" He saw she flinched at that, and added, "Let me go with you now. We can give them the sllp. Why not? Why won't you r• "Because It's all nonsense,'' she said weakly. "Because I want to stay and dance.'' "I'll tell you what I'll do,'' he said. "If you won't let me take you home, I'll follow you myself and see that be doesn't.'' She was angrier than he now, and apparently colder. "Why are you so anxious to 1\nd out where I live?" she asked. "Because you think I'm Hhoda McFarland? And there must be a story about me It I'm advertised torand you want to get it for the paper? Is that the way reporters do?" It didn't occur to him untll quite a bit later to wonder how she knew he was a reporter. For the moment he just at and stared at her, stupefied at the gross injustice she had done him. Before he could get himself together to controvert the monstrous charge, he perceived the harmless, unnecessary Higgins standing before them. Rhoda saw hlin too and sprang to her feet. "Do you want me to dance thl!l one with you?" she asked him. "I'd love to." Martin, boillng away inside like a teakettle, followed them as far as the edge ot the dance floor and stood there a while making up hls mind what he should do next. Not really that, perhaps, he conceded afterward, so much as fanning his perfectly righteous Indignation and rather enjoying lt. Presently, though, his reflections ceased to be even dub1;osly enjoyable. A chill misgiving blew over him that Rhoda mig-ht be right after all. Lewis, he noted, was dancing with Babe Jennings with a contented absorption Inexplicable under the hypothesis that his only Interest tonight lay ~n taldng or following another girl home. When ~Iartin perceived this, he turned a way uisgustellly and went home himself. sclousness of his glaring at her from the edge of the dance floor, but when she perceived that he was no longer there and came to the conclusion that he'd really abandoned her, she found rather !luddenly that she was tired of the Alhambra for tonight and wanterl to go home. And although she maintained that Martin's suspicions of Max Lewis were wild nonsense, she wa~ rather glad that Leander Higgins offered to take her home. Their trip, mostly by trolley car, was entirely without Incident. Of course it would be! Martin had mane up the whole thing out of his own head. She was as fl'ienuly as she knew how to be to Leander all the way to the studio door hut at that point she stlld good night to him firmly. It had been only by the exercising or a good deal ot resolution that she'd kept her mind on him up to that point. And until llube came home she wanted to be let alone. As she glanced around the studio after shutting the door on Leander lllgg!ns her eye fell on tonight's News scattered about the floor, as her roommate had left It. Was that advertise- He'd Smiled and Told Her He Was Not Rich Yet. ment really In the paper, or had 1\Iartln Forbes made that up, too? No, there It was in the personal column, just as he'd said. "Rhoda Mcltarland will learn something to her advantage . • '' She dropped In to Babe's chair and the section of the paper slid f1·om a slack hand back to the floor. It had given her a surprising shock to see her discarded name In print like that. It bt:ought things back that she'd thought she was done with for ever; some things that she hadn't thought about In years. Their yard at home, with the venerable live oak In the middle of tt, In whose branches she and her three Inseparable friends used to scramble about like young monkeys; the three A's they used to call them because their names all began that way-Ann, and Allee, and Amy. They were all ln the same grade; seventh It was, when her father told her one morning that she wasn't to go to school any more for the present. For the present I She'd never gone to !IChool again; not since that day. And Amy and Allee and Ann faded out of the picture. They didn't come to play ln her yard any more. And she had understood that it was because of something that was spoken of, when It was mentioned at all, as the trial; her father's trial-Prof. Walter Whitehouse McFarland. She'd had a glimpse of his name once In black headlines in the newspaper. Her father had stopped being a professor at the same time she'd stopped going to school. He was at home all the time, and for a while-thou gh whether 1t was days or weeks she couldn't rememlrer-th ey'd made a sort of pretense of having school at home with him for teacher. Interrupted harassed days those were, with people coming to see him and being sometimes told that he was out, even when she knew be wasn't; reporters and men with battered-loo king cameras taking plctures-Qf the house, when they couldn't get anything else. There were a few days toward the end, just before they left California tor good, when he had been away from home all the time and she had known. somehow, that the trial was going on. Also she had known before she saw him on his return, though again the source of her knowh>dg-e eluded her memory, that the outcome of It had been favorable to him, that he had "got oli." She must be right about that since she still so vivi•lly rpmembered her disappointm ent and perplexity, when she saw h!m again, O>Pr CHAPTE R II the fact that thPre was nothin!!; triumphant about him; that he harl been, If Why She Changed Her Name possible, whiter and more bitterly Rhoda tried to tell herself she was silent than evf>r. She'd hoped he would tPll her what glad she had snubbed Martin Forbes. lie had con· the trial had been about. She enjoyed, after a fashion, the never, even In atter years, told her that. Only once, that she knew of, had his spirit !lashed up. This had happened when her Uncle William-he must have been her dead mother's brother; he couldn't have been her father's-ha d come to see them, after the trial and before they started east. She couldn't remember ever having seen him before, but she dlrl remember the falsely genial smile with which he had reproached her for having forgotten him. He'd heen an ogre to her ever since. Her father had not been afraid ,or him. He'd sent her from the room on Uncle \YIIIiam's saying that her father could probably guess what he'd come to see him about. She'd obediently gone, but only as far as her bedroom, and the boom of the ogre's voice had come through the thin walls all too clearly. He'd come to tr)' to make her father give her away, for ever, to him. He'd spoken of her, terrifyingly, as "the child"! But hf>r father, though quiet and conciliaton• at first, had finally defied her uncle and told him to go straight to h-1 ! She'd never heard him sw!'ar before or since and she had thought that the reason of his asking her, after her uncle had gone, whether she had heard any of their talk. Anyhow, It had been why she told him she had not. She hadn't understood much of It at the time. beyond her uncle's assertion that her father had disgraced himself and wasn't a fit person to bring up a ch!ld. She must, though, have stored up a good many uncomprehended phrases of that talk, or how could she have been so sure, two or three years later, when she read In the newspaper of a sensational prosecution of another professor under the Mann act that this was the kind of trial her father had had. Her father, of course, hadn't been sent to prison. He had "got oft." But why, If he hadn't done the horrible thing, hadn't he gone back ~ the college and she to school and Ann and Alice and Amy come to play with her again? Probably because people had thought he'd done It, anyhow. Their departure from the little university town out In California had felt like running away to her and, she was sure, to her father, also. There was one Incident about the journey which she remembered very clearly. Her father's voice had flagged and she'd looked up to see if he'd fallen asleep. He wasn't asleep, but sta1·ing out OYer the desert with such a look of pain in his face that she burst into tears. He'd comforted her very tenderly and had said to he1· the only thing, she thought, that he'd ever sa!d in direct reference to the catastrophe : "I've got you," he told her, "and they can't take you away from me. And I'm going to see to it that you sha'n't be the loser by this thing that's happened to me. In the long run It may be just as well for you that It did happen." At the tlme she'd bad no Idea what he'd meant by that. But the events of the later years of his llte made It clear enough. He'd had a scheme of some sort, now that he wasn't a college professor any more, for making her rich. A scheme that he'd never brought off, to be sure, but one that down to the very night of his death he'd ne>er lost hope about. As it had workf'd out, It was that hope of his, always on the point of coming true, that had been the cause of most of her unhappiness during the four long years they had lived In that Chicago hotel. She didn't know that she regretted them now. That made a pretty hard .llort of problem to work out. Most people, certainly, would say It was a horrible way for a child to he brought up. The hotel itself was all right, one of the less pretentious ones of the new residential type. Their two rooms up on the tenth floor, furnished In Imitation black walnut and taupe upholstery, est>eclaUy perhaps the floor lamp with its heavy silk shade, had carried out the Idea that they'd come to live in a palace. The kitchenette, with Its electric stove, had seemed a marvelous toy to her; and the!r white tile bathroom, with Its modern plumb· lng and Its never falling abundance of hot water, had been a luxury. She'd taken it for granted, during those tlrst few days while breathless she explored the wonders of the hotel, that the wealth her father had hinted at wag already In his pockets. It wasn't untll he expressed concern over her loneliness- it was beginning to strike in a little-that she asked him why. now that he was rich, he had to work so hard and couldn't take a little time oft to play with her. He'd smiled and told her he was not rich yet, not r!ch at all, but that he thought it wasn't going to be long, not more than a few months at most, befOt·e he was. As soon as that happened he'd stop work and they'd go roaming the world together. Meanwhile she was to be patient and get along as best she could. Ilow many times dnring the next four rear>~ bud they had that same without essential variation 1 talk, Dozens-sco res ! Toward the end, the note of It had got sharper, more like a cry or desperation, until her one care, with him, had come to be to avoid everything that could remind him of the life she led during the long days from the time he left her at the breakfast table until he came back sometimes long after dinner at night. She didn't wonder now, looking back upon it, that as the months stretched lnto years the thought of the llttle girl left unoccupied and uncared for should have driven him frantic. And yet, somehow, it hadn't been horrible at all. H she'd been n timid child, of course it would have been dreadful. Or If people hadn't naturally liked her and wanted to be kind to her. Or It her father had been the sort who asked nagging questions and told her she must never do that again. She'd begun doing things from the first day he'd left her there in the hotel that he probably wouldn't ha>e approved if he'd known about. Most of the things she'd done hnd been sensible enough, she thought-an d where she hadn't been sensible she must have been lucky, for she'd never got into any serious trouble. One thing that went a long way toward making her situation tolerable during those four years was the tact that she'd always bad as much money as she needed. From somewhere her father had had a perfectly adequate and regular supply. From her fourteenth birthday on, she'd known ex actly how much It was: a hundred dollars a week. At that time he'd begun handing It all over to her except what his small personal wants r&quired, and had given her the job of keeping their accounts and paying their hotel bills. It had always been in cash-five yellow-back ed twenties. There'd never been any sign of a change for better or tor worse In their circumstanc es. She never knew where the money came from. Once she asked him out• right, and he had so pointedly Ignored the question that she never asked It again. She was afraid she'd guessed. She was afraid It was her Uncle \Villlam-th e ogre. Her whole ca. pacity for fear was concentrated . focused upon that one point. She b&Iieved that It was he from whom she and her father had fled, thereby frus· trating his Intention to take her away. 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Th~ old treasury building Is still standln~,t. the bar locked until prei!Sed up by the key with Its pegs. Such huge keys opened the way Into the mighty palaces of Ninevah and Per!'lepolls and admitted to "hund1·ed-gn ted "Thebes." Today In miniature and . more refined fashion, the small key that enters the cylinder lock pushes up the i!ttle brass pins Inside and permits the opening of the door.-Detro lt Free Press. Hia Noiae Bringa the Coin Begging for the funds with which to rebuild a temple, an old Chinaman has for 23 years been traversing the streets of Peiping. A!l an evidence of his holy character he wears a skewet passing through his cheeks and protruding on either side. His method of extracting the coin i!l unique. He carries a huge wooden gong wh1ch 1a known as "Buddha's Ear,'' and taking up a position in front of a native home he makes a deafening noise until some member of the family cornea out and gives him an adequate coin. 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