| Show th the B E G 11 S A novel by hewy henry mtchell webster service copyright by the tha dobbs bobba merrill co SYNOPSIS acting in good faith to aid a neigh tor or ruth ingraham in a business wa way chr wilard edward patterson cashier ot of the achl otso agency ot of s a ufa life insurance company is wrongly suspected by hla his wife julia of infidelity her accusation unfit a him tor for business s and he takes take a B short ho rt v vacation L cat on on h his 1 return he h Is in deeply wounded by his daughter edith telling him his p personal bong belongings ings are in the spare room having been removed from the room which had been hla his and his cifes bedroom roo rn patterson Patt oraon accepts the situation M proof ot of his wit altea ais belief in h his guilt edith revl seventeen etoen years old 1 Is worried worried oven over the estrangement of her parents iler her mother only partly succeeds in her efforts to comfort her the son on edward ju junior n bor Is at college A b business ss n e baor matter b brines r n an an inventor J james ame mitri mariner cier i into lif ila t 1 life if 8 ld mariner riner needs with which t to 0 push ipuh his invention an automobile c choke h 0 ice and patterson after a brief investigation ves vesti ti gation decides to go in with him supplying the money and taking tailing a part tn in the management without informing hi his e family he resigns from the ansur ance nce company devoting his whole time to tile the pushing ilni or of the invention an old friend albert willard Wll lard Is frankly skeptical of the value of the choke patterson rat terson tells his wife of the change be h has made she accepts accept the situation edith Is made aware of f tho the change changa in the family fortunes by lier her mother telling her she has decided to part with ith th the e co cook 0 she and edith to do the lie ho housework u sew 0 r kz at christmas edith editha school a private one puts on oil a play in which the girl has a part her brother edward comes from college for the holidays with him Is roger morgan whom edith had known ns as a child ifer her mother asks edith to I 1 leave ea v a her ber present school and finish her studies at the public high school it will mean rn e an a saving of several hundred dollars ra and edith agrees A talk with jtb roger koger morgan heartens her edward tells her he Is in going to pay ills his own way through the university and she sh decides to leave school and fit herself to become her fathers stenographer R he Is hurt but her determination Is in evident vl dent CHAPTER V the coward they compromised with edith it was agreed after an evenings argument rit ent and a mornings investigation by julia that the child might go to hea ht nice little business college for a trial month by the end of tant time if she still wanted to she could go to work tor for her father at the office it was he who insisted upon the delay ills wife to his astonishment after she had heard what E edith adith had to say about it was in favor of letting her ta kethe plunge at once she was frankly enthusiastic over the plan lie had bad never been able tj make out whether julia believed in tile the choke choice or not nor she had never sald said she thought their own car ran better with it than before she blew cold when lie blow blew lot hot she never tools took so dark a view of the future as when he came home buoyant over a grind good order or n gorgeous prospect yet when the prospect faded or the man who hild had sent in the bis big order turned out not to have the money to pay for it wh when n he found himself drifting on the rocks of despair she just took hold of him and pulled him through often lie he recalled bort bert willards Wll lards saying baying that she was a good sport it riad had surprised him at the time anil and it surprised him still it was true true up to the hilt in a way it was true if you considered what she did but if a good sport was nn an adventurer who took hazards and defeats as it part even nn an enhancement of a game then julia was as little a sport ns as anyone he knew less than lie he himself but whatever the source of her courage might be the steadfastness of it sometimes made him gasp and it was not he believed all a bluff either elthier elt lier from some source or other she was wag finding happiness she been so eo cheerful in months ile he wondered rather bleakly whether tills this might be due to the cessation of their marital relations was that part of their life something she had always hated and was it t now her sustaining belief that she had escaped from it permanently she confessed herself puzzled about the change in edith shed known more of the girls real feelings of course than he had brid anyhow she was delighted with the change of heart its really on her account more than yours julia amazingly told him that I 1 want her trained to earn her living I 1 dont want lier her ever to have to wake up to the fact that ashes helpless at the mercy of some one else any one ele eke not even the best husband in tho the wor word ld she said it with such intensity that he asked before he stopped to think did you ever feel like that 1 I dont now she said and he was glad she went on talking about edith without giving him a chance to asir any more questions you must make it a real job for her ned she told him earnestly pay her real wages whatever ashes worth and always maythem pay them just as you pay the others and if she turns ont not to be good enough discharge liar dont try to make her feel that ashes just one of the family helping out dont try to pretend to anybody that ashes doing it for fun lie he said of course not in a rather aggrieved tone but he admitted to that this was exactly what he had been meaning to try to pretend she had made him wince by putting patting her finger on a sore spot lie ile had never realized zed before that he was a snob nob but now the tact fact confronted him lie ile had bad been trying to find a way ti to save his face lie he flinched from thi the thought 0 of editha going in on thi the train with him every morning under the eyes eres of his more prosperous BC ac whose daughters have to go to work ile he had had li in the back of his mind even while jull julia talked the whimsical explanation h he would mice make to mariner when he told him who the new stenographer was going to be hed always said bald that snobbery was a form of cowardice lie ile a coward was he mariner looked tt a bit manic blank when edward told him of oc editha plan and ills his own tentative agreement to it but lie he offered no overt objections I 1 shed find it a pretty dull way ot of spending her days he thought but of course she have to stay if she found it so 1 I dont believe shell find it dull edward said it will take her it week or so to get the hang of it end and it may prove too much tor for her but if it does ill let her go end aind get some one olle else its to be ba a plain businesslike arrangement well pay her a fair salary and see that she earns carns it its her own idea from the first but tt it will be a material help to me if it works mariner said oil oh all right of course and apparently forgot nil all about it ile he was in a queer sort of mood these days anyhow it was hard to be sure you tad lad his attention for anything upon edward ed ward editha presence was profoundly disturbing it gave the day a different color and texture gesture from any that had gone before it made the office a different place that sort of electrical tingle which her presence put in the air be a permanent thing could it how long would it last why it would aou id last edward found de deciding c iding exactly ex ac aly as long as lie he could play up to it on the day she saw him slack despondent frightened ready to quit the spell would be broken there had been nothing aggressively virtuous about her manner shed just been natural once indeed shed mildly shocked him by uttering a perfectly audible id d nl n over some mistake in her typing and once when shed bent over ills his desk to see some correction lie he was pointing out to her shed forgotten she at home and rumpled ills his hair no ko she was all right light shed keep it up as long as lie he did as long as lie remained the person she wanted him to be slip be critical shed take him for granted ns as long its as she could what she do was be sorry for him encourage him pull him up when she saw he was down she could pull him up wonderfully as long as she know it was necessary that was what it came to then lie ile must never give himself away avay they got into the doldrums the impetus that their business had got from the automobile show in january had spent itself nobody now took any interest in ills his car the accessory game was be nothing much doing until spring or nt at least until a few fine days clays gave a hint that it was coming A real advertising campaign was the only thing that could possibly wake them up right now this was the burden of tile tho sales mens complaints edward did his best and it was a better best than lie he would have been capable of a month ago to inspirit them and keep them up to their work lie he admitted it was a handicap that they better supported by advertising ver but a real campaign was out of tile the question tho the financial resources of the business run to it edward had an out of town customer on his hands one day and took him to lunch when lie he got back to the office about three he found the city salesman dictating a letter to edith the glimpse lie got of the man through the glass opened it offended liim him the fellow was leaning over oer her closer than necessary and his good looking lookup enough face wore a fatuous smile ile he looked around with a perceptible start as his employer er opened the door straightened up and said with a completely changed minnor manner all yours very truly lie seemed suddenly too in a great hurry huny to get out on ills rounds lie ile had a lot of people to see lie told edward between now and six almost against ills his will and aware that ills his voice sound as casual as lie he meant it to edward asked Is that a business letter edith the hie girl laughed 1 I should say noti she turned around to him with nothing in her face lint but a grin of perfectly spontaneous amusement wo its the silliest stun stuff ym ever saw its a letter to a girl lie ile Is sort of a washout isn t he dad edward sighed im inclined to think he Is he be said the sigh was half rueful half relieved ile he was glad edith felt that way about him but this feeling he kept to himself you bo be brokenhearted broken hearted then it if I 1 let him go he asked broken she whipped around upon him and saw by his grin thit that he vw wai her ber ire he really any good Is be she asked oh dear deai ibish I 1 wish you could get somebody that tha was some good or I 1 wish she go on to complete thi the alternative and presently he asked her he what it was ile he much will wont nt to somehow but the silence forced the th question from him 1 I wish go out and sell the thing yourself she said just to tc show them up lie ile tried to laugh that off as a simple simpie absurdity but he found he t let it go at that 1 I doubt it if I 1 could show them up in the first place he said you see ive dev esver er sold anz aasa thing in my life theres it a special technique about it that ive never learned and then of course cours e I 1 have to be here really especially now that sir mr Mar mariner liter has practically abandoned us lie essayed a smile there hns has to be somebody on the bridge you know well id be here she reminded him 1 I mean I 1 usually know what to tell people now when they telephone and ive sold three chokes this week to people who were driving by and stopped to see what it was like oh T 4 the fellow was leaning over her closer than necessary and hia his good looking enough ore a fatuous smile of course slie she concluded after a pause 1 I know you really are too busy I 1 was only wishing g I 1 know that anybody who was any good could sell those things lings ti 11 the afternoon mall mail came in just then like a godsend and gave gae them something to do but that talk of theirs forgotten lie he believe at least that site she had forgotten foi gotten it As for himself it kept gnawing away in his mind like a persistent mouse audible whenever the silence gave him a chance to hear it lie be expected could lie he to rush out whenever lie he found a free moment and peddle their article about the neighborhood cant I 1 interest you sou in the mariner auto choke of course it was preposterous all the same he grew acutely self conscious about tile the periods of unwelcome leisure which kept cropping up during his business days and he resorted sometimes to rather far fetched occupations to fill them up did edith suspect the hollowness hollow ness of his pretenses it if she were to see through him what would she think ilow how would she account for his unwillingness to turn salesman now and then when he had a chance would she decide that he was lazy or afraid of course lie ha believed in the auto choke ile he believed it was a valuable adjunct to a car lie believed that it actually was better more to be relied upon cli cheaper caper in the long run than any of the other devices in the market which pretended to do more or less the same thing he believed heartily enough in all this to hire glib young men to go about telling people it was true and trying to persuade them to buy chokes on their representation that it was the on only ly fault he had to find with these young men was that they do it well enough that pretty well disposed of 0 his moral superiority perio rity it oh he was making a mountain of a molehill I 1 lied hed been arguing with himself about it until he was getting morbid the thing to do would be to put one of the chokes into his pocket some day walk into the nearest garage lie he came to and sell them it a dozen that would settle th the e question whether there was anything the matter with him or not noi take the sting out of ediel is 1 I know that anybody who was any good could sell those things of course shed been talking about the salesmen when she said that not about him anyhow held hed do it when he had time and restore his sense ot of proportion leave his mind tree free for dealing with matters that were really lm important naturally hed find it unpleasant a man of ills his years sears and position to start out peddling to try to get the attention of a man who was busy bruiy or pretending to be about something else and want to listen lerten to him to assume a manner of hollow goodfellow ship say friend ive got something here it made him sick to think about it call it fear it if you liked hed do it though some time ue he was going to have to do it lie ile did discharge the city salesman and none of the applicants who answered swe ed his want ad in the paper was conceivably satisfactory the out of town salesman too was temporarily laid off mariner was more nearly nonexistent than ever lie ile and edith had the office to themselves there came a particularly bad day no orders at all in the first mall mail an obviously disingenuous letter from it a customer who owed them quite a lot of monay money offering a perfectly ninety day note instead of the check edward had counted upon another bad debt a dun that he simply the heart to answer a tax notice and a long chatty letter from a bond house announcing an attractive offering of municipal tax exempt securities curi curit ties les that was all nothing to do out of doors the day was ironically fine the sky a pitiless cold blue the winters sun in great broad golden r splashes plas bes making a mockery of his despair lie shut his book and put down ills his pen edith at that moment had gone into the shop for a consultation with charlie franklin lie ile got up and put on his hat and overcoat with hands that trembled |
