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Show HIT- I g g CZ Cj IO g JJ By Courtney Ryley Cooper IS Copyright by Courtney Ryley Cooper (WNU Sen-Ice.) M PRECEDING EVENTS Joe Barry, country youth in New York, ekes out a living as caretaker in a poor rooming house and accordion player in Louie Bertolini's restaurant. Lured by the open country, he spends a night in the fields, neglecting neg-lecting his duties. Next day Ber-tolini Ber-tolini discharges him. A frequent fre-quent visitor to Bertolini's offers of-fers him $10,000 to impersonate a "bootlegger" in trouble. It means a penitentiary sentence for Joe, and he hesitates. The i man, "Martin," gives him $1,000 "on account." CHAPTER I Continued 4 "But I wouldn't know what to do or say. I'd have to give myself up and say I'd done things that they could prove I didn't." "Don't let that worry you. All you have to do is to refuse to answer any and all Questions. That's no difficult job. Well," he asked quickly, "do you want that money? I'm handing you a chance to trade a few years for a good time all the rest of your life. Think it over." "But" "Kid," the man leaned closer. "That word's licked more men than all the penitentiaries in the world. Can it. Look here," he said, "I'll give you tonight to-night to think it over. Keep the money. Come to Louie's tomorrow at noon if you're going to be a weleher. If not, get yourself on a morning train and hop out of town for another good time. Just look the country over and see if it isn't worth trading a few years for. Got a pass-key, haven't you? Give it to me; I'll have the chauffeur drop by and fix up the place. Forget that part of it. Take a day off. I'll come to your room at ten o'clock tomorrow night and get the verdict. Nothing difficult about that, Is there?" "No, sir." "And while you're out," said Martin, "I'd put most of that money in some small-town hank. Give me the name of the bank tomorrow night and I'll deposit the rest for you; four thousand thou-sand more when you prove you're going go-ing through with it and the other five when you're really on the way. Well," his tone had finality. "Nobody ever got anywhere by hesitating." An hour later, Joe Barry stood trembling in his gas-lit room. One sweating hand was clasped about the heavy roll of bills in his trousers pocket. What was a few years to a young fellow? A person had to get a start in life somehow better than half starving half starving and being caged up here In the city, in a room like this. He counted the money for a second and third time. He spread the certificates cer-tificates out before him, one beside the other, until they covered the entire center of his bed. There would he nine times this many more, put to his credit wherever he should say. Ten thousand dollars would buy a little business, maybe a music store, and a home In some small town. Start him up in life where he could amount to something! It might be the beginning of a fortune. After a long time, he counted the bills again. Then he put them under his pillow and tried to sleep. CHAPTER II Money had done Its work by morning. morn-ing. Symbol though it might be of Impending lack of freedom, it now held the lure of something exactly the opposite. Joe Barry's ideas of penal Institutions were based upon the small Jail In Waverly where the Incarcerations Incarcera-tions of the town drunk were more a subject for laughter than anything else; the county Institutions be had seen here and there, places to be avoided, it Is true, yet not imbued with the formidable aspects which a knowledge of a true prison can give one. Dannemora. Sing Sing these were merely names, without anything to aid in their pictnrization. Such thoughts, however, were not In Joe Barry's mind in detail. He only knew that he was going to lose his identity for a few years in some sort of an Institution, and that he was to be paid ten thousand dollars for I doing it. He could call one thousand dollars his own, and there were nine I thousand dollars more to come. He was rich I ! It was with this feeling of wealth. j bathing his brain with anesthetic unguents, un-guents, that he took an early train out of the city. A day out of town; to do as he pleased, with no thought ; of anything except that he was j wealthy and free! Free from the I querulous demands of that dirty lodging house on Third avenue, from the invectives of Louie, the uncomplimentary uncom-plimentary remarks of Fullhouse and the apathy of diners, gobbling their i spaghetti. Best of all, he was free from fear, that gnawing sense of the ominous which every country boy has in New York, fear of traflic. fear of the noise, fear of the friendlessness and coldness, cold-ness, fear of actual hunger when a job has departed and days elapse before be-fore a fellow can stumble Into an- j other one. I By noon. Joe had done many things, j He had traveled some eighty miles from New York, into Pennsylvania. He had opened two savings accounts of four hundred dollars each, told his first lies and given his first alias; something which he had found extremely ex-tremely easy to accomplish. They had not questioned his adopted name of Joseph Bradley and his address of Great Bend, Kan. His general air of unsophistication had looked after that ; both banks had merely drawn a line through the section of the new account ac-count card calling for references. Then he had asked innocently: "Can't I just leave this book with you? I'll be away, and a friend of mine Is going to make some deposits to my credit." After that, he had gone forth to the spending of a part of his remaining two hundred dollars. There was the barber shop, from its bath to a shampoo sham-poo and a massage. Then came a clothing store. At last, everything else purchased, a new Joe Barry, well-dressed, well-dressed, well-groomed, alert, the hard lines gone from the corners' of his lips, paused In the fitting of a new hat. "I thought I heard band music," he said to the clerk. The salesman looked at his watch, then went to the door, leaning far out. "The parade," he said on returning. "Late as usual. Ever seen a circus parade on time?" Joe Barry heard only two words. "Circus parade!" he said and grinned. "Gee I A big circus?" "Not so big. Dayton Brothers. Pretty good at least, it was last year." Joe Barry saw the fag-end of the parade. He could see menagerie cages rocking along far ahead, with plumed horses ; a clown rode the line of march upon a stilt bicycle ; there were three elephants, tail to trunk, and a calliope, hooting forth a steamy footnote to the procession. After Joe had eaten his luncheon he went out to the circus grounds. Three hours later, he still was on the show grounds, merely wandering around. He had seen the big show, and the sideshow twice. A starved boy-man had found a feast in the thing which had meant an acme of happiness since his earliest memories. He stopped to talk to canvasmen and roughnecks, asking them where the circus would go from here, and if it was fun to be with a show like this. He listened to the gruff roarings of the animals in the menagerie tent, and stared at the maze of stakes and ropes, wondering how on earth they managed to pick up everything when they moved at ' night. At last, he paused before a small tent, set apart from the dressing tent proper, looking down with sudden longing upon a glittering thing which rested upon a chair there. "Gee!" he said at last. "It's an Iorio !" After a time, he glanced about, like a boy about to go under a fence to an apple orchard. Then he leaned forward for-ward and touched it. "Gee!" he said again. It was the first time he ever had seen one, outside of a music store show window. He glanced about him, then Impulsively picked up the instrument, instru-ment, merely holding it In playing position without the strap over his shoulders. Just to get the feel of It, and to run his fingers over the piano keyboard and to tap the tiny mother- or-peuri protuDerations wnicn denoted the "hundred and twenty base." Temptation was strong. At last he yielded. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Barley Hardieit of Cereali Barley, the hardiest of all cereals, can be grown through a greater rang--of climate than any other. Its production produc-tion dates from the niot ancient times when It was used prin -iprlly as an article of food. The production of barley bar-ley ranks third among the rereal crops of the Dominion in acrcrii'e and total yield. Canadian News Bulletin. |