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Show WHEN. WORLDSl LVLLKU& and PHILIP WYLIE i Copyright by Edwin Balmer St Philip Wylle $ WNU Service Their taxi squeezed through Broadway In -which frantic policemen police-men wrestled vainly with overwhelming over-whelming crowds. It stopped at a brownstone house in the West Forties.-' , 1 ' ' A night club, and It was crowded, though the suu was still shining. The three floors of the house were filled with people In business clothes drinking and dancing. On the top floor two roulette wheels were surrounded sur-rounded by players. Tony saw heaps of chips, the piles of bills. He looked at the faces of the players, and recognized two or three of theus. They were hectic faces. The market had closed. This' was a real smash not merely a money smash a smash of the whole world ahead. Naturally mony was losing los-ing its value, but men played for it cheered when they won, groaned when they lost, and staked ag-ain. The limit had been taken off the game. ' ' Downstairs at the bar, were three girls to whom Tony's two friends immediately attached themselves. They were pretty girls of the kind that Broadway produces by an overnight over-night incubation;1 girls who bad been born far from the Great White "Way." Girls whose country and small-town attitudes had vanished. van-ished. All of them had hair transformed trans-formed from its original shade of ashen blonde. Around their eyes were beaded lashes; t&eir voices feter Vanderbllt And ne wai trapped, too Tony was thinking aj he saw him trnjiped with him anj-i anj-i Eve and Kyto and the panhondlei and Btrina and Jacqueline and all' the rest on the rim of the world, j Tony cleared his brain. "Hello, he said. 1 Peter Yanderbllt looked up anij his face showed welcome. "Tony I Jove! Of all people. Glad to se .you.' Sit. Sit and contemplate." H beckoned a waiter and ordered, "You're a bit on the inside, I take it friend of the Hendrolis. You know a tilt more' of what's going on;" "Yes,' admitted Tonyt it was senseless to deny it to this man. "Don't tell me. Don't break confi dences-for my sake. I'm -not on that has to have details ahed o( others; F tinny, ' isn't ' it, to think of . the end of all this? I feel etiniu-lated, etiniu-lated, don't you? All of It going to pieces! I feel like saying, 'Thalik God! I was sick of It. Every one was. Civilization's a wretched parody. Evidently ther was a just and Judging' God, 'aftef all, and He's taking us in hand afrain the way He did In Noah's time . . . Good thing," -I say. 'But Hehdrob'and his scientist! aren't doing so well. They're mak iug a big mistake if they hold any thing back much longer; they'd bet ter tell anything no matter how bad It is. : They'll have to, as they'll soon see. Nothing can be as bad ai uncertainty. They're top-notch scientists, sci-entists, but the hu'uian' element Ii the one thing they can't analyze ant reduce to figures. What they need is a council1 of public relations. Tell Cole Hendron I - recommend Ivj Lee." - itising, lie left Tony and vanished In the throng. Tony rose, secure his hat and went out. The latest newspaper contained I ' statement from the White House The President requested that on th( morrow every one return to work " It promised that the governmenl would maintain stability in tin country ' and inveighed violently against the exaggerated reaction ol the American people to the scl entists' statement. Tony smiled. "Business as usual Business going on, as usual, durinf alterations," he thought. He took a taxi to the nendrons apartment. Several meu, whos voices he could overhear In loud ar guuient. were with Cole Hendron be hind the closed doors of the bij study on the roof. No one was M'iti Eve. She awaited him, alone. ; - She was dressed carefully, charm Ingly,1 as she always was. H pressed her to "liiiu for a moment! and for that instant when he kissed her and held her' clo?e, all wondei and terror was sent away. Whal mattered the "end of everything, 11 first he had her! He had never dreamed of such delight in posses sion as he felt, holding her; he had nMer dared dream of such response from her or from any one. He had woo her, and she hini, utterly. A! he thought of the -cataclysm de straying them, he thought of it com. ing to them together, in each other'! arms; and he could not carp. She felt it, fully as ne. Hei : fingers touched his face with a pas sionate tenderness which tore him "What's done It for us so suddenly sudden-ly and so completely, Tony?" " 'The shadow of the sword,' 1 suppose, my dear oh, my dear! remember reading it in Kipling ! when I was a hoy, but never un- ; deratanding it. Remember the two Id love when they knew that on would . surely die? .There is m happiness like that snatched undei the shadow of the -sword.' " "But we both 'shall die, if eithel does, Tony, That's so much better. H The voices beyond the closed dooi ; shouted louder, and Tony released her. "Who's 'here?" Eve said in reply to Tony-s quesn tlon, "Six men, the secretary ol state, the. governor, Mr. Borgun, the chief of a . newspaper chain, two mure." She was nut thinking aboul them. "Sit down, but don't sit near me. Tony ; we've -got to think thing! out." ; (TO :BE CONTINUED.) ' . SYNOPSIS . ' D-avId Ransdell, noted aviator, has beoip cum missioned at Capetown to del iver a consignment of photo-graphic photo-graphic platoa to Dr. Cole Hendron, In New York. Tony Drake calls at the Heudrous' apartment. Ransdell arrives a rtd Eve Hend ron, with whom Tony ta deeply In love, introduces in-troduces Tony to Ransdell. New York newspapers publish a statement state-ment made by Hendron, saying that Professor Bronson has discovered discov-ered two planets, which must have broke-n away from another star or sun, and are approaching the earth. The result of the inevitable collision col-lision must be the end of this world. The approaching bodies are referred to as Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta. Bronson Alpha, it Is asserted, will hit the earth and demolish de-molish it. To devlae means of transferring' trans-ferring' to Bronson Beta ia what Is occupying the minds of the members mem-bers of the League of the- Last Days. CHAPTER ill. 6 AT TEN7 o'clock the gong rang and the stock market opened. There had been no addition to public pub-lic knowledge In the newspapers. The news-ticker carried, as additional addi-tional information, only the effect of the announcement on the markets mar-kets in Europe, which already had been open for hours. It was plain that the wild eyes of terror looked across the oceans and the land across rice fields and prairies, out of the smoke of cities everywhere. The stock market opened promptly prompt-ly at ten. One man dropped dead at his first glance upon the racing ticker. On the floor of the Exchange Itself, It-self, there was relative quiet. When the market is most busy, it is most silent. Phones were ' choked with regular, crowded speech. Boys ran. The men stood and spoke in careful care-ful tones at the posts. -Millions of-shares of-shares began to change hands at prices down. The ticker lagged as never in the wildest days Of the boom. And at -noon, in patent admission admis-sion of the obvious necessity, New York followed the example already-set already-set by London, Paris and. Berlin. The great metal doors boomed shut. There would be no more trad-Infor trad-Infor an indeterminate time. Until "the scientific' situation became cleared up." Balcom came Into his office; he put his head on Tony's desk and sobbed. Tony opened a drawer, took out a whisky bottle w4iich had reposed re-posed in it unopened for-a year, and poured a stiff dose into a driukkig cup. Balcom swallowed it as if it were milk, took another, and walked out dazedly. Tony procured his hat'and walked out. Every one else was on the street people in herds and throngs never seen on Wall or Broad street or on this strefceh of Broadway, but who now "were sucked in by this unparalleled excitement from the East side, the river front, the Bowery, Bow-ery, and likewise down from upper Fifth and from Park avenues. Women Wom-en with babies, peddlers, elderly gentlemen, dowagers, proud mistresses, mis-tresses, wives, school children and working people, clerks, stenographers stenogra-phers everywhere. All trapped thought Tony all trapped together on the rim of the world. Did they know it.? Did they feel It? Tony dropped Into a restaurant, where, though it was only afternoon, after-noon, an evening of hilarity already had arrived. The Exchange was closed! is'o one knew exactly why nr what was to happen. Why care? That was the air here. : Two men of Tony's a:ge, acquaintances acquaint-ances in school, and frtends In Wall Street, stopped at his table, "We're noing the rounds. Cume along." At Ten O'clock th Gong Rang, the Stock Market Opened. One Man Dropped Dead at His First Glance Upon th Racing Ticker. were high ; their silk clothes adhered ad-hered to their bodies. They drank and laughed. - : "Here's to old Bronson I" they toasted. "Here's to the ol' world coming to an end !' . Tony sat with them : Clarissa, Jacqueline, Jac-queline, Bettlna. He gazed at them, laughed with ' them, drank with them; but he thought of Eve, asleep at last, be hoped. Eve, slender as they, young as they, far, far lovelier love-lier than they; and bearing within her mind and soul the frightful burden bur-den of the full knowledge of this day. After a while Tny looked again at the motley crowd ; and across the room he saw a friend sitting alone In a booth. Tony rose and went toward the man. He was a person a personagf worthy of notice. no-tice. He was lean, gray-haired, immaculate, smooth. His dark eyes were remote and unseeing. First nights knew-him. Mothers of very rich daughters, mothers of da ugh--ters of impeccable lineage, sought him. Wherever the gayety of the gay world went, he could be found. Southampton, Newport. Biarritz. Cannes, . Nice. Deauville, Palm Beach. He was like old silver yet he was not old. Forty, perhaps. per-haps. A bachelor. I Ms name wns |