OCR Text |
Show 'at it John Arthur's Game Leg By EDGAR T. MONFORT V. (Copyright.) JOHN ARTHUR was so sensitive about his limp. Yet it was such an honorable limp so honorably won. Injured in the leg during the war, somehow the operation to repair the accident had not been entirely successful suc-cessful and for a long time he had used crutches at last lie had learned to get along with a stick, and for awhile had hoped eventually to abandon aban-don even that, but as the years passed he realized that it would never be. He was doomed to hobble through life. He was walking down the street one day when he dropped the magazine maga-zine he was carrying under his arm and with a stiff knee stooping down was next to impossible, so he had to stand beside his prostrate magazine, ignominiously sprawling on the sidewalk, side-walk, and wait for a kind passerby to hand it to him. Florence Evans, walking Jauntily along the street in her little blue flannel flan-nel dress with the blue felt hat to match, saw the mishap from a distance dis-tance and hurried to restore the book to '.ts owner. "Thank you," he said, embarrassed as he always was under these circumstances. circum-stances. "Got a game knee and stooping's too much of a stunt for me." He tried to laugh it off. "I think you're game!" she came back at him, "to speak of it so lightly." Then by the flush of his dark, handsome hand-some faee sl;e knew that she had said the wrong thing. She put a timid hand on his coat sleeve. "I mean, I mean It isn't bad. Nobody No-body notices It, I mean but I'm sorry." She said It so wistfully as she walked along beside him that it made his heart jump, and he cursed his lameness the more. "My name's John Arthur," he said after a moment, "if I may introduce myself." "Not the Pennington's John Arthur! Why, everybody in that family simply adores you! They've written me such reams about you !" "And I'm willing to bet you're Miss Peggy Hampton just back from Europe where you went to acquire knowledge." "Exactly that!" she laughed. "Why, we know each other already, don't we?" "I should say so! I should have red nizer; ycu from tho!-' ' scription, but I Just wasn't expecting to see you :u !.:. moment. I thought ycu: weren't due In until next week." "Yes, but I was exempt from final exams because I was good. So I came over early, and when mother and dad saw me they couldn't believe their eyes." She was a charming little trick, he thought, trotting along by his side so amazingly small beside his huge frame that it made her look like a very animated ani-mated doll. They parted at the next street corner and Arthur stood with bared head. "Of course, I don't think that I could cut anyone out or anything like that," he stammered. "Just friends but if I might call once in awhile ?" "I just wish you'd call twice In awhile," she smiled warmly. "It would be fun." And that evening after Peggy went to bed she kept wondering and wondering won-dering when he would conic, lie was so delightful and so good-looking and oven the limp somehow made him more attractive to her. She pitied him and wanted to mother him. From the very first visit they got along famously together. Knowing many of the same people, loving the same authors, they had no difficulty in finding things to talk about. They wonld spend the long lazy summer afternoons together "huddying" as thoy called It, reading a book or just Idling the time nway. It was toward the end of summer. Me was leaning against a tree with his Irgs stretched out In front of him, the hook they had Just been reading tossed face down on the grass, the smart roadster parked at the side of the pike. "I'd give ten years of my life not to have this," he said tapping his leg wll h his cane. "oh, hut Jack," she protested, slipping slip-ping her hand In his, "I might never have met you If It hadn't been for that and the magazine." "I wish to heaven we hadn't met!" he said at last between slilT lips and Peggy, affront od, fell back. "Oh, well, If you feel that way," she said coolly. "Oh, Peggy, my Lord, you don't know I'm wild about you. Put a fellow fel-low In my fix can't " And Peggy, all smiles and warmth In a second, her face alight with happiness, hap-piness, did a most unmaldenly thing. She crept up Into his arms and drew lliem about her. ".Maybe you don't know how to propose," pro-pose," she said mischievously a moment mo-ment laler, " hut I do and unmet lines, If a girl wauls a man It's her only chance of gelling him." "till, Peggy," he said, Ills voice hanky wllh feeling, "Peggy, do you really believe you could stand II V" "Stand II V" she scoffed. "Why somehow I don't know how to put It Into words, bill It Just .seems to make me I love you more." "Well, hanged If I don't love my old game leg after lliall" he laughed, "and after all It was what brnujihl us logelher." |