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Show Tli L3ty of Lsidy Buss lrh VxH2rTt& AGLET was Molly CJ$s3 Ca3 cN Madison. Molly was y rjU the tender, sympa- lf) 3 tS thlzing, omniscient, VvD A- rA Susny blB sister to a11 $. jCvl the little snop Blrls e2sSP$ with aching hearts. They wrote her of their doubts and qualms and disappointments, disappoint-ments, and she answered them through her column, advising them what to do and assuring them that they were very young to think of matrimony. And Bag-ley Bag-ley wrote that column. Bagley wasn't to talk very much about his work outside the office newspaper news-paper office, of course. It wasn't a scandal. scan-dal. It was part of the system, and the Molly column was a considerable circulation circu-lation draw. Bagley had been assigned to it years ago because it needed application, appli-cation, regularity and unemotional aptitude. apti-tude. Ho had those, highly developed. It needed no originality, fire, poesy or horse sense; and Bagley was not credited credit-ed with any of those. Unlike a job of nursing the wounded or turning fried eggs, It did not seem to require the feminine fem-inine touch. Day wet and day dry Bagley opened enough Molly mail to read a dozen or so letters. Out of a dozen eight were answerable an-swerable because they touched on puny griefs and conundrums of general interest inter-est as interest was gauged for the small-wits small-wits who followed the dope girls at the "dangerous age," school teachers who still hoped, faded beaux who yet clung to detached cuffs, and all the other sallow, sal-low, caljow and shallow hunters after forbidden penny-ante thrills. All the letters .which were not answered an-swered went into the .discard Bagley had long 4since quit trying to be selective. selec-tive. Each day brought its assortment, which included those required to yield a set of main topics and .their minor ramifications: ram-ifications: the' girl whose sweetheart insisted in-sisted that she go out with no one else while he reserved the prerogative of mashing other girls; the maiden being rushed by the toothless gent who insisted insist-ed that the gap, of years was not. inimical to true happiness;' the girl whose mother refused to let her have company at home, and was it proper then to meet an honest hon-est young mechanic in the park; the girl who had been flirted with and who wanted want-ed to know whether such informal advances ad-vances should be encouraged; the girl who wanted to know whether she was really engaged wrien the ' man hadn't given her a ring nd such as that. Bagley wasn't' charmed with his job. For one thing, strangers who knew ha was "connected with a paper" asked him from time to time what his work was, and then he had to either lie or stall. Again, he knew it wasn't an exalted field of art, though pri.vately he felt that he .' was mighty useful to many who needed a pilot past the social rocks or moral reefs besetting the inland pond which to the lubbers seemed ' a turbulent and seething sea. Moreover, the boys called him Molly, spoofed at his department and heartlessly lampooned it. All these things made Bagley feel sheepish and rebellious. re-bellious. And over it all he knew he was capable of a finer product. He had suckled a silent belief that he could write. Now and then he had attempted at-tempted to edge in with an editorial or a witty paragraph. But the editors laughed and told him to stick to his Mol-lygrams Mol-lygrams and steer the wayward feet of the slipping female young and please let them alone they were very busy, and important news was breaking- that day. He had tried his typewriter at fiction, but fiction wouldn't have him. Yet ha never parted with the faith that he would yet twine his talent around some fascinating, pulsating story, and he would be recognized overnight some day after the many musty months of serving the mean utilities of a dismal daily without with-out a soul. Once or twice he thought he had it. Some item or some fancy had arrested him and he had eagerly gone with it, always al-ways to be released for want of prosecutionmistaken prosecu-tionmistaken identity, alibi or technicality. tech-nicality. But he kept waiting for that Big Story to find him. And so he sat this day, opening Molly Madison's mail, scanning with unllghted eye the strained outpouring. Jabbing this available letter on his spike, sniffing that dead one under the table, sniping for his eight communications that could stand . eight sermons for the clay thereof. Five or six had passed the test in the listless solitaire when he came to an envelope of salmon color, narrow and feminine. He . slit it open like a butcher slashing the throat of a pig, mindless of the blood, heedless of the squeal. He unfolded the four-page note paper and he read: "Dear, Dear Molly Madison: If a party of noble blood say a knight has paid homage to a gentle lady, and if sir knight has jousted stoutly for her hand and won out, do you think it hie bounden and holy duty to go gallvanting off on a sacred crusade for years just when her heart is breaking for love of him? Do you think she should yield up her desires of young love and be proud that her gallant gal-lant cavalier goes forth on so nifty and lieroic a mission, or don't you fisure It out she Bhould insist that, as he has been keeping steady company with her, he ought to do the honorable thing by her before he goes trapesing off to the Holy Land after such a parcel of foolishness? Besides, he might get slew. And if not he'll probably be a broken down old man by the time he returns with the Holy Grail if he ever finds it and gets away with it. I am that gentle lady. A prompt answer will deeply oblige, for my heart is breaking as above stated. Anxiously yours, , in a perplexing quandry. "Lady Bess." Bagley skimmed it like the others-skipping others-skipping between periods after high spots. He had darted half through it before be-fore he pulled up with a realization of what he had been reading or with a realization that he had been reading something. So he went back to the start and took it a word at a time, through. Then again. Then he laid it down, wiped his spectacles and reread it. What in the name of nonsense was Yes, yes. And did she know her name? Or where she lived? Or this salmon-colored comedy? Letters had come before, palpably kidding Molly Madison. But this was a deep and subtle one. If it was meant for irony it went wild. If it was sincere how could It be? This was 1916. What was this rubbish about knights and jousts and crusades? And who had ever heard of a crusader keeping steady company with a lady? It was a weird confusion of medieval claptrap and modern boarding-house. And it was a real problem, too, this query, and no doubt would have been to any Molly Madison in the days of King Arthur. "Perplexing quandry" was right. Bagley laid aside the letter of Lady Bess and found others from which to fill his space. But at the end of the column he wrote: "Will Lady Bess please telephone or send her address to Molly Madison for private reply?" He turned in his cop7, turned up his collar, stuck the queer letter in his inside in-side pocket and turned toward home. All that evening he felt as if something some-thing were hanging over him something indefinable, yet something epochal. He missed his beer and Balzac that night. He went to bed and started thinking; as a man can think only in bed. He couldn't get under that letter. And he couldn't get over it, either. He was satisfied on only one deduction the letter might have been a Joke but It was not a jest. There was a tear in it. And Bagley knew that where Bagley could find a tear the Greater Bagley that was to be could snare the germ of a classic. Before he closed his eyes to dream of curio shops, castles and chivalry, his heart was hammering the wild hope that salvation was at his door that he could eoon enter proceedings for divorce from Molly Madison on grounds of incompatibility. incompati-bility. The Molly bag was not skimmed next day. Bagley turned it upside down and raked the yield in search of another Ealmon-tinted envelope. There wasn't any. Bagley tore them all open, think- Illustratcd by R. Tandler. H ;: ' ;: .; : n .; ':. !' i: i.iu1!!1 ii''i'i:: "':::s:a 'rn: !!'!:'!!:!: I'iii",:::'!''!!!;!,::!'".",;::,! ! !. :::',.i' 1 O OMANCE is just around the corner, as Bagley, the j cold-blooded lack-luster writer of advice to the love- I 1 lorn, discovered when he searched out the secrets of Lady I Bess, the shopgirl who wanted to be loved by a knight. I ;:i!l!!iilliii!!ll:!!!i!:iii!ii:im;!i:iiii!!!!!rt!FmliimiH!!iii! ing that Lady Bess might have switched her colors. No, there was no answer. He petulantly picked enough sorrowing .hearts out of the mess to fill the day's space, heedless that he was telling the first five that an offer of marriage from a man who couldn't pay the installments was an affront, and the last two that love laughs at loan sharks. That flight he scarcely slept, and hurried to the of-fiec of-fiec at an hour earlier than ever before to winnow with hungry fingers the heterogenous crop of envelopes. Not a pink within two shades of Bess-salmon did he find. He slapped together some piffling filler for the Molly corner and then, emphasizing by banging the keys of his typewriter as though one who should read could hear his crescendo staccato, he composed for the tall of the copy this snapper: "Lady Bess: Must hear from you immediately im-mediately with address where I can send answer to your letter of Tuesday. Can save your crusader if you act immediately. immedi-ately. Molly Madtsok." "That'll fetch her," said Bagley. And lo on Saturday morning his unsteady un-steady hands closed upon the narrow, flsh-hued duplicate. of the visitation that obsessed him. He dropped it, fumbled it, kicked It, caught it and executed an assist as-sist with his left, saving an error. He tore the hide off, and read: "I am next to your tricks. Sir Gilling-water. Gilling-water. You have bribed Molly Madison to ascertain my whereabouts so that your black knights can confiscate me and drag me to Tewksbury Forests and forsooth throw me to the one-eyed ogre who would fain possess me In his wicked enchantments until I yield my hand to you. Don't make me laugh I possess a cracked, lip. Your bum castle will rot and canal boats 'will be floating down your moat before you get Jerry to my permanent address. You've got to give It to me. Sir G.; I saw through your little game. Lady Bess." Bagley staggered. This was past his rosiest conjectures. It was sweet as any nut. Now he would turn the town on end to find that woman. She was his key to the bigger things of his secret dreams. She would inspire a story fit for the best magazine on the stands. The postmark on that envelope was of a substation ten minutes' ride from the office. He hastily scribbled a gob of Molly, threw it at the foreman of the composing-room and flipped a car for the outlying postoffice. There, 'of course, they could tell him nothing. A letter that passed through had as much identity as a raindrop in a cloudburst. That was as far as his Ingenuity In-genuity had mustered him; and there he stood, with the futile envelope In his ha.nd. The sun, streaking through the windows, win-dows, played upon the oblong thing and threw up Its distinctive color. A Nile--green watermark which he now discerned dis-cerned made the stationery even more nearly unique. And for once the detective detec-tive who lies salted in the blood of us all whispered to the anaemic woman's page worm that in his hand he held a clew as definite as a trade-mark, as direct di-rect as a business card. He had all day to do it, so he started on a canvass of the stores within the zone of that postal branch. And the third place where he showed his trophy rung the bell. A girl behind the table .smiled when she saw it. No, they had no more like that; it had been the only box of its kind in a job lot. He told her with his breath coming in chunks that he didn't want to buy anything nothing except information. He pressed a quarter quar-ter into her unresisting hand and asked whether she remembered to whom she had sold that strange carton of correspondence corre-spondence props. Indeed she did. Yes, yes. And did she know her name? Or where she lived? Or Well, it wasn't customary to ask parties par-ties who bought writing paper their names; but the girl did remember the purchaser of the crazy salmon-shaded stuff, having been attracted to her be-' be-' cause she had bought the one box that nobody else would take. She had crossed the street diagonally and walked over there and entered that frame house next to the undertaker's. Bagley set his tie he didn't know why, but it seemed the proper thing to do on approaching a young woman in whom his most Iridescent dreams were contained. Then he tipped his hat to the salesgirl, being always elegant and refined even when agitated, and beed it for the house across the way. He felt a quaver of being silly as he reached tor the bell button. What If the girl answered? How would he know her? What should he say If he did? And If another came to the door, whom was he to inquire for? Surely no Lady Bess lived next door to a morgue. But he shoved. He heard a bell and he felt a tremor go up his arm from the finger end to the spine and down that lightning rod of sensations. When the door opened It nearly knocked him off his feet. He caught a knob and looked up. He saw a stout old lady, wiping suds off her hands upon a checkered, gingham apron. "We don't want no Insurance, If that's what you're peddling," she said harshly. "No, ma'am," said Bagley, wrestling his Jugular against .his Adam's apple and betting on the apple. "Well, then? What's this ringing decent de-cent people's bells and bringing them up out of their hard-working basements?" Bagley held forth the envelope. The woman reached for it, then stopped short as though suspicious of the effects of contact.' "Who do you want, anyhow or are you drunk?" she inquired. "I you I Lady Bess " "Oh, Bess. Why didn't you say so. Come in." Bagley stumbled over the threshold and found himself in a living-room, furnished fur-nished in plush and pine. It could have been nothing but the parlor of a respectable respec-table widow woman who took' boarders. There is no more chance of .misunderstanding .misunder-standing a room like that than to confuse con-fuse the purpose of a butcher shop or the mission of an arsenal. "Your name ain't Gilllgan, is it?" ased the woman, half afraid that it was, apparently. "Bagley," said he. "Bagley? Never heard her , speak of you. What do you want?" "I should like to talk with her a moment. mo-ment. I'm I I represent Molly Madison of the " "I knew ft! I told Bess that If she kep' writing to that woman they'd find her. Do you want her for Gilllgan?" "Who Is Gilllgan ' asked Bagley. "1 never heard of him. I want to talk to her get her story; you see, her letters let-ters " ; "Sure. As queer as the paper they're wrote on. Well, she ain't home now. She's downtown, working." "Working? Lady Bess?." "She ain't Lady Bees when she's working. work-ing. Only at nights. She's Just Bessie daytimes Bessie Shanahan. She works at Eichenheimer's the big store in the light hardware, enamel kitchenware and aluminum sink-strainers." "But her letter " The woman sat down. A cloud settled upon her motherly face. She had her hands dry by then, so she held them folded, out in front of her knees, as she leaned across and told half whispered the tale: "Bessie, I gueBS, was always a book-reading, book-reading, funny girl. She never had no reg'lar pleasures, such as going out and dancing and getting mashed like other girls, because well, you see that Is, she's goshawful cross-eyed; has been from a child. That made her different. The boys didn't pay no much shucks to' her. And that makes a mighty, mighty difference In the life of a girl. "Well, Bess Shanahan, by that cruel trick what seems always to make a man without hands want to be a violin player or a nach'ral washwoman want to be a society leader, always had a wild mania for to be loved. "Being as how she didn't have nobody to love her, she would sit home nights and read about it. And always she'd read them old kind of books-n, knights and kings and swort kind of foolishness what n , happened. Once she saw a K: a woman named Lady G'h raved about it for weeks. Sh , Fl that plckeher all over the t night to the different theaterT played, and every night sheseen "' After that she always ca.M ' Lady Bess. ' She asked me 7 , "" call her Lady Bess, and I Us d,' when I'd call her that in the ! she'd frown sometimes, and ' she'd smile-and sometimes shei" "It seems to get her at w-1 Iady thlng.ua them miracle, Z' ' dlers with iron overcoats." f Bagley heard with changing eM He felt his story slipping. But hearing a new one that fascinaJ He had handled so many fl6 f girls' Innermost secrets. Ana m the first one with a new twist ' " "Well, about six month, assumed as-sumed the woman, when she caurt,"' with her wind, "a no-good skat.L; name of Gilllgan begins making,'!'' for her. He worked in a store tep ? did then. She couldn't believe It at .! ' so she tells me. The second night at the fllrom show together he ton her for half a dollar; the next seventy-five; the next nlght-wei, itJ up to two dollars and a half. . Bessie wakes up that she's being for her money. Oh, how she musth-felt. musth-felt. If you knew her romantic ny It almost killed her. She told UUg? gan to never talk to her again. Thai si quits that store and she move! to 0 house, here." "Did you say Gllligan, , TOffi,t ' Gllllngwater?" '"Joe Gilllgan it was; Sir GiUlnmt. she ca;is him now. I guess Gilllgan e very refined. Anyhow, she chucks fc And she thinks her heart Is brokt, I cause he was the first man what eve-well, eve-well, what ever kissed her. And buta-i out a forchune hunter! "So, as I says, she run away anl i':, hides herself out here and she geti f. new job. In Eichenheimer's li a fe,:-young fe,:-young lad name Kennedy. Kennel; s walking down the street one day not It behind Bessie Shanahan, when up th Btreet comes this viper, Gilllgan. E sees Bessie and walks over ani grat; her arm. She tries to shake him off, to: he hangs on. She screams. ThliKsi. nedy, reco'nizing her as one of Iheilotsi girls, comes up and swats this GIlllfE: party and knocks him out from under hj hat- Then he escorts Bessie home, her?, because she's pretty scared. "Well, after that there ain't no Mi Ing Lady Bess. She goes raving abo:: this here Kennedy. She calls him h: brave knight and she says she'll be fcli vassal or his bride, whichever Sir Mi', maduke (his name was Mike) shoii: elect. "Well, this Kennedy boy, who aln'li bad lad, he comes out here one night see her his first and his last call. Tta' was when the militia was grttt? mobbed to fight them Villas. Well !: turns out he's a corp'ral In the FigMii; Seventh. He hadn't never made no Ir to Bessie, but he sort of pitied te ! gruess, so he thought maybe she'd like l: have him say good-by. Anyway, the young boys likes to be seen In tt khakeyes, and they scours their tost! for somebody to say good-by to. "Bessie clings to him and begs bt not to go. But, of course, he gws : way. "And since then she's been wcrsetU: ever with her foreign books and her and 'lady' rot And then she writes b this Molly Madison. I knew that oc. get her into some kind of trouble. U' it. I beg her not to do It, but ane'J !' ward that way and when I try to be s-vere s-vere she shouts at roe to get amy ' grovel, base varlet that I am, and ! do nothing with her, though I " love her as if she was my own, for as fine a girl as ever came out of t cent Irish home, saving that she H" tie squint-eyed." 1 Bagley thanked the woman, stiffly and departed. Later that evening he called when Bessie Shanahan was "at h"5 I don't know what happened that, for it was at that stage thai ; took me into his confidence-oW ' thereafter. f,: But I met him and his new Mrs-. Mrs-. ley a day or so ago, which was months after that first call, " somewhat embarrassed after duced me to his bride, for he ' be gazing at a horse half a"" ... as she blushed and stammered . light at my acquaintance. I d her squarely In the eyes. It have been chivalrous. And one anyway, you see. s "We'll have to be going n Bag. "So long, old man. Com. "Good, knight," I thaagM l ;(. say, and I thought she I But maybe she only stud Good and said It to me. h(;j For I shall never know at wnM she was looking. , Copyright, me. by J. Kcel" |