OCR Text |
Show REX DENHAM'S LUCK By CLAUDINE SISSON It was ten o'clock In the evening, and Rex Denham was strolling about the streets and 6nioking and thinking. Ha had landed from an ocean liner that day. He had been two years abroad to forget things. He asked himself If he had succeeded, and he shook his head and sighed. There was a woman in question. When men lose money they curse. When a man loses the woman he loves he sighs. It's not a matter for even fcls-most confidential friends. He must fight It out alone. No; he had not forgotten. She probably had, just as thousands of other women had. Had he been too hasty In speaking the words that brought on the quarrel? "If you charge me with that I never want to see your face again!" she had aid. " When a lover t'jinks he has a rival It is really- worse than if he knows it to be a fact and can meet him. Was she a coquette? Was she flirting? Was It true, as some persons had whispered, that she gloried in breaking break-ing men's hearts? He had asked himself him-self the question in London Paris Berlin on the land and on the sea, but he had never answered It to his own satisfaction. He was asking it again tonight as he sauntered and smoked. A girl ten or twelve years old walked walk-ed rapidly past him. He saw her only as he had seen hundreds of others. She was thirty feet ahead of him when a man sprang out of a dark doorway and seized her and grabbed at the poor little purse in her hand. At her Nflrst scream for help the smoker Bd forward. He reached over the Caro.of the struggling girl and - jr ;he man by the throat and Uit.- struck with his cane. The released re-leased victim retreated to the curbstone curb-stone and stood to watch the affair. She enjoyed It. She grinned and smiled. v "Say, let up, 'will you!" called the man after a minute. "I thought it Grasped the Man by the Throat and I Then Struck With His Cane. was my own kid, and that she was going go-ing after something for her mother." The athletic assailant desisted. He dragged the man to the curbstone, straightened him up and then gave . him a hoist that sent him nearly across the street. 'My, but how I do love you for that!" exclaimed the girl as she stood twisting her apron. "If ever I get married " "Did he get your purse?" interrupted interrupt-ed Mr. Denham. "No. I hung on and bit his hand. I always bite them. He'd have choked me, though, If you hadn't come up. Gracious, but how you did wallop him! Ain't a pugilist, are you?" t "Oh, no," laughed the man as he pulled at his rumpled sleeves. "Belong to the ball team'" "No." X "Just a gent, eh? Just a gent look-In' look-In' for trouble?" "No, I wasn't looking for trouble, hut when he grabbed you I thought It time to interfere." "Say, you did it bully. I bit him, and you caned and kicked him, and I guess he won't come around here for some time to come. Lawks! if he'd got that ten cents the painter lady would have give up and died. It was her last cent." -- "Who do you mean by the painter lady?" asked Denham as they sauntered saun-tered along together. "Why, the lady who paints pictures and can't sell them afterwards. She's got a room in our house. She's four weeks behind on her rent, and almost starving to death. She's so thin you can see through her, and when she ain't painting she's crying." "Seems to be a sad case." "You bet! Heap sadder case than mine was a few minutes ago. Say, If you are a gent you ought to go up and see her. She's your style. She's a born lady. She talks so big we can't hardly understand her. Oh, she's been top of the heap, but had to come down. 1 guess It's what they call a romance. Mebbe she wouldn't see you, though. She never sees strangers." "And her name?" asked Denham, without much Interest. "We call her the painter lady, but one day she told me I might call her Bab." "What! What!" "Say, don't scare a girl to death. Lawks! but I chewed my heart that time. Yes, I call her Bab Miss Bab. I ain't hight 'nuff up to call her Bab alone. 'Twouldn't be manners." "Can you describe her?" "Blue eyes, chestnut hair, white teeth, and a real lady. One of my shoes would make a pair for her. Got slim hands. Never uses slang. Goes without eatin' two days and then pretends pre-tends she isn't a bit hungry. If I was a gent like you I'd go up and see a lady like her. If you'll come with me I'll introduce you. I'll say: " 'MJss TJab, this is the gent as saved your last ten cents and gave a fellow the awfullest kick you ever saw.' " There had been a young lady named Bab two years before. She was hundreds hun-dreds of miles away when Rex Denham Den-ham last saw her. She had a widowed mother who was fairly well off. Bab!" Bab! The name spoken stirred him. If there was a Bab in trouble she should have aid. If the girl's description descrip-tion was correct "Got to go into the butcher shop after mutton to make broth, said his companion. "They might give you the guy if you went In with me. Don't make a sneak while I'm in there." She found Denham waiting when she came out. It would have taken two stalwart policemen to move him on. "Say," said the girl, "crackers go with mutton broth, but I haven't the cash. Butcher got It all and then said I was too chin-chin besides. Want to buy 'em for Bab?" Denham accompanied her to a delicatessen deli-catessen store and filled a basket with goodies, and then insisted on carrying it home for her. She walked along beside him with her head held very high, and when spoken to by a girl she knew her austere reply was. "Anna, can't you see I am walking with a real gentleman!" The mother could tell little more than the daughter. It was a cheap looming house. Yes, the painter lady was a lady, it was easy enough to see that. She was something of an artist, art-ist, but her pictures would not sell. She had sold most of her wardrobe, but had fallen behind. The description descrip-tion was right. "And not a word to her," said Denham. Den-ham. "She'll ask, but make no explanations. ex-planations. Coax her to- eat nnd pot strong. Cheer her up a bit. Take this money and buy whatever she thinks she can eat. If she doesn't improve we'll have a doctor. I'll send in wine from the drug store, and tomorrow to-morrow evening I'll call again." "Ma, don't you see how it Is?" said l he girl to her puzzled parent. "We take in a lady. She can't pay. She comes down to hard-pan. I take her last ten cents to get her mutton for broth, and I meets a gent who rescues res-cues me and canes and kicks a loafer.-Straight loafer.-Straight as a bee-line, nia. I tell the gent the lady is Bab, and he can't stand still. Romance, ma romance! Romance, and I am in it! You are going to see high jinks around this hotel." Denham came on the morrow. He came on the next day and the next. On the third day Miss Bab was reported re-ported better and he went up softly to find her trying to work. He was not Introduced. There was no need of It. It was two hours before he came down and announced that the landlady was to lose her roomer. In two hours much can be told many misapprehensions set right. The two years had seen death chicanery false friends illness, despair poverty, pov-erty, but a brighter day had dawned. As the carriage drove away the landlady's daughter began to sniffle. "And what's the matter with you?" was asked. "Just my luck. If I hadn't told him about Miss Bab he'd have married me!" - |