Show P YS 14 I 1 I 1 I 1 A I 1 A novel by henry webster ca copyright by the bobba werrill co service A I 1 A A k A A I 1 A I 1 k A A k A A k A i A A L A i SYNOPSIS perfectly rood good faith in an effort to aid a net neighbor R dutli u ingraham in AL a business buBl neta way ad I 1 Pat la tenon caa cahar or or of the chicago agency of a life ilia insurance company Is g wrongly suspected by his wife ali julia of iler her practical accuse fionin alon in a letter latter fro from m a summer resort unfit fito him for or business bu lne and he be takes a short rat batterson pattersons Patter terson sons a weakness Is a shirk therk ir ing 0 of t Y on hla his return from rom his ht V vacation cation he Is 1 deeply wounded this daug liter fa edith hesitatingly telling him that his personal peronail pe ronal belong 1 were in U the spare par roo room m having be been en removed fr from 0 m the he room w which hl c h had been his and his hi bif cifes e s bedroom patterson Patte raon accepts the situation as proof 0 1 f of i 1 hla ll 11 v cifes afes belief in his guilt kl edith d 1 t h oil 17 y yeara e aro old Is in worried over the estr n iame t of her parents having little nor r than chrt a dim comprehension of the affair CHAPTER II 11 continued 3 f for a long ion time after that mother 4 say anything she was sunk down ever so BO deep in her own thoughts it until edith remarked that she guessed she ml might ait as well get up and had swung tier her legs out cut of the bed by way of carrying out this purpose that her mother spoke tin im sorry youve been thinking things like that we arent very happy just naw now your father and 1 I 1 I cant tell you why but I 1 cant bear to have bave you made unhappy about it dear I 1 that you were y 14 1 I dont want you iou to side aide with me 4 J against him orto or to think unkind things about him if I 1 have made you do that I 1 been fair to him it will work out somehow I 1 suppose 1 l t I 1 until it does docs I 1 1 I want you it to be fond of us both and not go on wor 5 crying about something you cant pos sibly understand run along now dear and dress dresa and go down and have breakfast brea kast with him but stop and give me bae a kiss first mother called her back into the room just before the girl was dressed theres something id like you to do edith see it if dad wont go with you to the matinee instead of me I 1 dont know whether hell think he can get away from the office or not but if he can I 1 wish lie he would I 1 really wean rn e an it dear ive got a committee meeting tills this afternoon that I 1 hate to miss riny anyhow how dad had agree dafter a blink of surprise and not muc much limore more than a minute of consideration to cut business for the afternoon and take her to the show lie ile had been genuinely pleased by the proposal and all the more so BO apparently because it involved playing truant lie was waiting for her in the station ile he blinked at tier her aar she came up to him until she got quite near he said he realized who she was that was the polo coat of course and tho the chrysanthemums which some of the girls at school hod remembered her birthday had given her well take a taxi over to the theater lie he remarked this Is going to be a real party its a long time since ive taken a pretty girl to a show edith had been to the theater numerous times but this was tier her first experience of being a pretty girl getting taken to a show and she got a real ahr thrill III out of it F for or that proved to be no mereille me mere idle compliment of dads dada lie ile act parental at all along in the first act as soon as things began to get funny and exciting they found each others hands and kept them clasped through most of the play far for convenience to in communicating their special moments of enjoyment of course the curtain had to come down at last dad helped her inta ant her polo coat and slipped ills his hand through tier her arm ana as they walked up the aisle while the orchestra played the people out which somehow kept the spell alive a little longer but at last they ntine were out on the sidewalk and it seemed that the inevitable end had come A faint half pleasurable melancholy invaded her spirit and colored her voice as she said we may as well weli walk over to the station weve got lots lota of time for the five eighteen really she hinting A cab had swooped down invitingly to the curb before them and she ehe bradfelt had felt her father who still had bad hold hod of her arm hesitate otherwise shu have said eald a word no he said with sudden resolution tion well finish this thing on off properly hop in and then amazingly shepheard she beard heard him tell the chauffeur to drive not to the north western station but to the street number of is their home in lakeside 1 I think she told him deep in the wonder of it that this has been just about the most perfect time ive ever hadl had I 1 his only answer to that was to find her hand fiand and squeeze it they wont went back over the play once more inore 1 I dont suppose she admitted that lt could have happened really iino no 11 he be assented what a play like that Is trying to io do Is to make people forgot forget for a while what can really happen were all hungry you see for adventure for something left out of our lives and that sort of play gives it to us its like a dream only better are grownup grown up people like 1116 that toor too shed almost said old instead of 11 grownup but a sense quite new to er that perhaps dad dian didn t think of j p himself as old awoke in time to make the substitution possible 1 I think more like that than young people he ha said reflectively you see anything may happen when youre young anyhow its possible to believe that it will but when youre forty six years old you know it wont I 1 know I 1 will never be rich nor con successful any more than ill find a bag of pearls or a treasure box of lleces of behind the wainscoting in the library 1 I dont see BOC she argued why something wonderful coulden couldn coul happen to you just as well as it can to anyone else because broadly speaking lie ho told her things dont happen to anybody life like that really the next nest thing really grows out of the one happening now so that a man like me chos aved two thirds of his life can tell pretty well what the last third of it Is going to be even if hes wrecked by some fault or some disastrous mistake be ible able to see I 1 suppose if you looked tack rack ln ahai it was vas tile the sort of mistake that lie he would make when he got the chance they talk such a lot during the rest of the ride but there was nothing uneasy cheat the silences they were awfully close somehow when the taxi pulled up before their house the girl on an impulse slipped her arm around tier her fathers neck and kissed him thanks dad she said ive had a most wonderful time CHAPTER III the optimist it was at this point that james mariner came into edwards life there was nothing extraordinary about the man or his errand the grist of edwards job was dealing with people like him hearing healing their ex pla plantations nations listening with an air of sympathy to the tale of their troubles discounting their hopes and finally seeing to it that the great insurance companas comp anys rights were guarded to the last penny james marinero mariners Ma case was one of the commonest sort years algo ago when hed been temporarily prosperous ripa nad believed he was going to be rich hed taken out a big life insurance policy the riches materialized and after paying pacing a few premiums hed let tile the policy lapse hed come upon it the other day while looking over some old papers in ills his box and he wanted to realize ort on it it must be worth he thought at least six thousand dollard dollar anyhow six thousand was what he wanted E edward dward felt sure again from long experience that the cash surrender value of the policy would prove to be nothing like that amount also before the interview had lasted alve minutes he saw that despair had fortified mariner in whatever belief he had bad that he could get hla his six thousand or anywhere near that ile he evaded coming down to facts and figures he wanted to put off the moment of disillusionment illusion ment as long as he could lie ile wanted to tell his story first the story could have no possible bearing on the case you had only to look it up in a little well worn book of tables to know to a cent how much mariner was entitled to be paid for ills his policy neither the urgency of ills his needs nor the brilliancy of hla his expectations had any relevancy in the matter at all yet it was out of some tiling thing moro more than mero mere tolerant good nature that edward let the man tell his story lie he know why he did ile he told himself bitterly as he sat back to listen with only half ills his mind at first that his own desperation his sense of failure his lacerated self esteem was finding momentary comfort in his visitors appeal it long though before lie he forgot to think about himself when mariner begin began telling what he wanted the money for a change came over him the stigmata of failure faded out olit despite the gray streaks in hla his hair and the lines in his bis lean face there was something about him that edward an impression of youth he wanted muted something tremendous and it was something that he be saw almost within ills his reach yet hla his manner was not that of a viso visionary nary lie ile had not lot forgotten how to smile it appeared he was an inventor his most important invention had been a carburetor for automobiles it should have made him a very rich man for the principle of it hail had proved to be sound and was now in almost universal use but he had got gat involved disastrously in litigation you had to have millions behind you to get anywhere with that tha tand and he had had no backing at all 1 I wandered in the wilderness a while he smiled reflectively as lie he said that trying my hand at all sorts of things the less I 1 knew about them the better they looked but I 1 waked up at last and went back to my own field ive invented a device for giving a rooter motor ane tie sort of mixture it needs a rich or lean anto m ati cally he broke on for another i wile aralle it likely 04 0 course hurlia uly speak iny inc that the tiling Is as good as ab it looks to me the man with one idea gets to be a fanatic about it but I 1 do know this as solid scientific matter of fact if the things halt half as good as it looks to me or even a quarter as good its revolutionary 1 I dont base that statement on theory but on experience im manufacturing fac turing the thing in a small way and selling it and it works mr patterson it does the business here I 1 I 1 perhaps like to look at it ile he plunged ills his hand into one of the balg ing pockets pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a small piece of apparatus about the size of an apple made of aluminum mariner with a twist of the wrist took it apart tle thing that does the business lie pointed out a colled coiled up ribbon of whitish metal when its cold when the motor Is cold its colled coiled tightly as you see it now and nd serves as a choke to the air supply slakes makes your mixture rich when it gets warm as the motor does doeg it expands opens up and lets in the he struck a match and held it near the tha coll edward astonished ls hed saw it OJ aen en up air look here he struck a match and held it near the coll coil edward astonished for lied hed never heard of a metal so BO sensitive to heat that it would act like this saw it open up just as the inventor said ile he ask about the compost com tion of the metal but assumed it must be a profound secret well very interesting he said 1 I certainly wish you success it will succeed all right theres no question about that gut but whether I 1 succeed with it Is a question of money you tou see im d d by lack of capital its enough to make a man turn bolshevik to see the money lying around in the hands of people who dont know what to do with it and this thing wants it I 1 its got to have it theres an enormous profit tn in it at five dollars if I 1 can manufacture it economically of course my costs just now are out of all reason they wont come down until I 1 can get into volume production and discount my bills I 1 dont need much to put the thing on its feet its a joke how little I 1 need six she thousand doll doIl lars laral 1 but unless I 1 can get it oh of course I 1 will but I 1 know just where to turn until ynell I 1 came upon this insurance polly policy ill either borrow the money on it and give you my note or I 1 can turn it in outright if you prefer all the buoyancy and confidence that had marked his manner while ho he talked about ills his invention was gone 1 now lie ile was again the shabby necessitous failure he fie had looked when he took his seat beside edwards desk edwards heart bearb sank well he said trying to speak cheerfully lets come down to figures its just a question of arithmetic now you know it turned out just about as held hed guessed TheDo the policy licy was worth a little over fourteen hundred dollars ile he wrote it on a slip of paper and slid it across the desk to mariner it so much as you hoped ho he re marked but still its a tidy littly sum it ought to tell help mariner read the figures without reach reaching ng to pick up the slip they were written on ile he move at nil all lie ile looked us as if lie he move all the vital force seemed to have gone out of him lie ile spoke in a daze it if wont do me any good im dono done tor for if I 1 cant get more than that 1 I tell you that story for nothing lie he went on after another silence 1 I told it so that I 1 could goc get something besides tile the cut and dried treatment I 1 know that a big ance company like this has its rules and regulations but I 1 know that a man in your position it if lie he wants to do it can ind some rule that will justify him in dealing with a special case this tails Is a special case you cant help seeing that if you dont see it como coine down to my factory take a my car out here drive it yourself my aly G d man mail you dont think im going to drop this bowl after three years when all it wants Is one more push to put it over the top of the hlll hill you wont turn roe me down without taking at least a look will you youl A queer thing happened to edward bet lie began explaining as hed explained a hundred times before that the essence of the insurance business was that it recognize exceptions to rules neither tile the merits of marinero mariners Ma device nor the urgency of his needs needa entered into the case at fill all ile he could have fourteen hundred and odd dollars if he be wanted it and that was nil all it was not surprising that a stricken look came into marinero mariners Ma wistful brown 4 eyes edward was used to seeing people look like that the astonishing thing was that he heard himself as the man leaned forward to rise from hla his chair however ill turn the thing over in my mind and if theres anything more that can be done dome A sudden blaze of hope in the inventors face stopped him short after a moments pause he added irritably youre not to build on that probably I 1 have said it but bt ill call you tonight or tomorrow morning edwards job had never seemed so barren or so nearly unendurable as it seemed today ile he felt he was an automaton lie he wondered fantastically w whether it would be possible to build an actual automaton out of cogs and levers some borne sort of super adding machine that could take ills his job awny away from him do ev everything that he did lie ile gave the notion a further twist of irony there was no danger it would cost a lot of money ile he edward patterson bergon the human machine came cheaper why did he stick why did he keep up the pretense 7 what was there in it for him anyway A livelihood of course probably his only one but what was there in |