Show f the he beginner A notel by henry kitchell c if the merrill V N U CHAPTER VII continued ag the two nea newspapers shapers u were ere dropped simultaneously and lie the two friends stared at each other ridden he aso miles beyond their own elation station 11 II 11 pert said there wag ilias a twinkle in his eye though and the ico ice broke with a crash I 1 D n you ned V he n went ent on were you going to milwaukee before ou eald said any tiling thing how are things going with mith you I 1 I 1 all right edward edard told him 1 I suppose I 1 be i e stuck because the first frat think I 1 had to r say was wag that I 1 id d been a d n tool fool and I 1 dont really believe it set at least if I 1 was im glad of it it ive got rid of the choke though tell you all about it getter get off bere here fir 4 11 birt suggested we e don t want to ride another fire miles on this train ae e can drive oer to the golf club and hao base dinner tell our wives mies that what we meant to do all along alone io no use tooling stiller than decesary ne cesary cesery 11 it gasn wasn t until washed up and fat gat down to dinner that ed ward mard began his stori the story of the inadvertent sale to jake jule roan man of a hund hundred red thou tholand and doll dollar at life insurance incurance contract it ft what you meant to do when you wont went after him bert asked io m rdward told him im sure it and yet I 1 dont think 1 I meant to him to put his money into the choke I 1 dont think I 1 could have asked him con cincek me as far as my mind went that I 1 d be a crook if I 1 persuaded anybody ens body to invest in that down inside there must have been somebody else in charge all the time mt somebody else real ly myself only I 1 t know it IL its queer the way isay a man can live to bo be forty sir years old without ever making his aai own a ance ce trying to the up to au an idea of nhat he lie iq Is what he can do and what he can cant it fooling himself and making himself miserable at the same time bert in the mood for gen kit 11 right he said only go ahead te I 1 me the rest of IV it there isn t a great deal to tell ident I 1 went back and saw vane the next morning told him I 1 wanted a desk and a chance at a few big fish that had proved hard to land I 1 ie so been having the time of my life the last two weeks ive got two or three of them already can you under staid how I 1 could see that game going on under tinder my nose for twenty 3 ears cars and never want to play it I 1 1 I 1 alvil ainars tys thought you knew too much about it bert perhaps I 1 thongla I 1 did ed ward conceded dubiously then he laughed it was nas selling a thing I 1 know anything about that waked me up anabo v he went on OIL he ile told bert about St Anfeldt and tle sale of the first carton of two dozen chokes lou hagent told me yet how you got out of it bert reminded him 1 I thought you ou were nere coming back to me it if you decided to do that 1 I would have edward said and added with a it grin if 11 id had to but I 1 found a certain fac tion in getting by without doing it ire 1 ve a feeling that I 1 in a bit of a crook but bat well there theres s a sort of satisfaction in that too this ilits Is what happened I 1 I 1 got a letter oh a it couple of weeks perhaps before the smash it was while you were down at asheville from a firm of 0 patent lawyers in town A client 0 theirs was wag interested in the mariner patent they said and would con sider buying if it after the smash when I 1 was g uran aring up my debt and what I 1 could pay them mith it struck roc me that I 1 might as well get what nhat I 1 could on the patent so I 1 told the people that it they wanted to make a sert ous proposition I 1 d consider it just about then I 1 got a letter from mariner the choke any good he pointed out and if I 1 i got a ranee kance to sell it be he thought id better take it IN ell I 1 put two and two together I 1 could just see him bim out there lu in I 1 OS AD angeles geleS talk ing to another boob exactly as he bed d talked to me somebody who hadn haan t liked his vaporizer very well nal was taken with his choke choice I 1 knew bow hed bed tell his story the thing was going to in a small way but had fallen into the hands bands of a piker who bad had neither put any real money into it nor allowed him to mabe make the improvements in design that he wanted to make but it if lie conid could persuade ne me to sell it out cheap there was a fortune in it il I 1 never had any doubt from the moment I 1 thought of it that that was the I 1 figured cp up it would need a is little over three thousand to let me out I 1 dlan didn t in clude my own investment in that cf of court and named that as my 91 ure for the patent lawyers they tried to bluff me out of it but I 1 stud incidentally I 1 con tinned armed my guess as to ft ho their ell cot cint really wag aas and that made me hold on all the tighter ve 10 closed tho the doal deal today ire got the bertl fled fed check for thirty are hundred la in my pocket oti oil Is lie 0 come hone in a barrel nil fill bigit as tar far as anything goes that aou ou can show in the ledger ive sunk about twelve nelve thousand dollars in it annj was lucky to get out nt at that iho the thing wn was a pro pre destined failure just as you aw saly the day I 1 told 3 ou I 1 id d gone into it and yet ilert bert I 1 was tas right I 1 was mas right all the way uny through I 1 was a fool but it was as time for me to be a fool and down inside I 1 knew it 0 0 0 0 0 when did first aug suggested that filio she go back to school 1 adith thought bho she want to do it IL she felt a long nany a out of it all it struck her aft as rather beneath her dignity to bo be a schoolgirl again you want me to go dont you dad I 1 she said I 1 1 hy do you I 1 1 on my own account you mearil mean he be asked I 1 yes I 1 suppose I 1 do it ili lease me a little better sails satis fled 11 ith myself if I 1 dont don I 1 has 0 to feel that I 1 had my fling partly nt at your lour expense that iset isn t the view of it id want you to take though id wont want aou ou to do it for yourself not for me I 1 think I 1 can see low how you feel about your school friends hut but if you ninth a little at the thought of going back to it tiam cm isn t now low the best time to get over it you dont want to be cut off from them permanently after all your neighbors and for the most 41 D n you ned he went on were you going to milwaukee before you said anything part they 11 probably continue to be and then to look at it practically it if sou ou want to be a business woman and hae has e a job you ought to go to college theres one in boston that makes a specialty of training girls to be secretaries the first step to ward that would be to graduate from miss arthurs loure pretty young to begin ans answering Nering advertisements ti looking for a job she gae gaie her father a I 1 lug u all right dad she said go go back onia do I 1 have to do it all for my self do you mind it if I 1 do just a little for you I 1 don t mind he told her with a laugh 1 im I m not as sensitive about sacrifices as I 1 used to be she kissed him boure re a peach jad dad she said 1 I didot use to know that you were like this 1 I didn dian t either he told her do you remember ala day we rde rode out from town in the maxle ib after the matinee your birthday it wc lou told me there must be things besides mistakes that a person could make male if he got the chance like the man in the play who never knew he be was clever and adventurous until after he had that dream 11 my dream bad had many of the qualities of a first cliss nightmare but im glai glad I 1 had it ju just t the same going back to thool chool hool was more of nn on ordeal than she had bad anticipated A new spart suit which she sile had bought out of the savings of her salary wai she felt all that held her together the first day it gasn wasn t that the i he was not made cordially cord laly wel welco coLic uc indeed the effusiveness of it struck her as overdone the glad outcries at sight of 0 her the hugs bugs the helpfulness showing her where thin thing were that were just where always been beel finding her place in textbooks sharpening her pencils As if shed just bad had a terrible illness or lost her mind or something they must have done an awful lot of talking about her while she was out to male them so anxious to make male up for it IL there were no phys or teams or committees now to round out her days her place in the fabric of the school had closed up behind her when she left and there time to get it back she vat f tel el like fooling around with the old gang any more A lot of their talk went over her head and some of it she almost suspected behind her ba back ek anyhow they hey had a whole new set of standing jokes which the she wan going to ask to have explained she wag was on perfectly f fetidly terms with them all of course but it was with a disheartening cleer differ dl eer enre she had endless Im apiary iary con with roger about it on her walks to and aiom school and while ale was dropping asleep at night she realized now how right hed been about them all all they were young they found out et how real a thing life was they could go into spasms of excitement over a new bob gi giggle gle off ind and on fur for dais da over it R break somebody made siang something that could be tI bisted sted into a R meaning that hamilt leen teen intended they pent spent hours discussing the emotions of it ft as imply sill 1 I it wt an attitude she consistently maintained she liked to giggle herself sometimes she hung back a little one day coming coining out of french class to give isabel norris and jane cole who iho were coming along behind her arm in arm a chance to tale her it would be fun tu to lel ell them whit had find happened to myrtle doming don ling in geometry the period before isabel and jane appreciated myrtle and would adith thought enjoy henrlne li about the incident but they were absorbed in a matter of their oi own n instinctively edith quickened her pace she t know whether they were ere looking at her or not but she wouldn t for anything in the horld haie let them see that shed meant to wait for them the crowd her old crowd Martha carolyn all of them had got up a beach party and she been asked evidently she ansa want ant going to be eliy 1 could have asked her safely enough she have gone it would have been decent of them though to ghe her a chance to say so evidently meant to drop her from the first well they wouldn t find any trouble doing it she took a front feat sent and bolted the minute class was out snatched her hat and coat and fled she hoped shed hear caroln carol n call after her to wait but she she found the house locked up she remembered now that it was the day mother was out to lunch it struck her that bho she ouight to write a letter to fd rd she in ever so ro long not since the last one shed dons done on the typewriter doan down at dad dads a office she sat at her dek a long while connecting the blots on her deak pad with lines to make them into geometrical figures before she wrote anything on the sheet of note paper shed laid out at last she wrote I 1 dear ed v at the top of 14 it and got herself started 1 I I dont sup suppose poe you 11 be sur to get a letter from me written with a pen because mother has probably told you that im not at the office any more and there any more office I 1 ve gone back to school and I 1 simply hate it dad me to so I 1 went I 1 think I 1 m going to college in order to be belter better prepared to take a job she connected up a lot more blots before she added aLy blything thIng to that thal then writing pretty fast she went on if it by any tiny chance you see mr sir morgan aou ou might ask him if be he happens to remember whether that secretary of ills ids fathers went to college or not and if she did what college it was I 1 don it suppose hed held remember only it he did happen to I 1 thought id like ille to know ion dont don t need to ask him ante unless Ss you happen to see him I 1 reme remember in her he said once that she was an awfully good secretary and what I 1 want to be she think of anything more she particular 5 wanted to say to ed and et she realized she couldn coulden t end it here he ile might won der why she written it to roger in the first place he ile might even show it to roger NN ere there any mi misspelled spelled words in it shed put in some more junk when she could think better she was reilly getting a headache she was lying down with a wet handler handkerchief chief over her eyes when mother came come home mother hother struck her somehow of heartless t take tale her cabache ca dache on trust at all wanted to know what she had eaten for lunch aud and on being told she hadn haan t eaten anything sent seat her down to the ice lee box to get et a of milk perhaps shed have paid a little more attention and learned that hunger wan t really at the of the trouble at all it if dad unexpectedly come home jut juet then himself he ile was sort of excited and in a P r rh rin in wanted his bag lag paled pa led while bo ishaq and changed bis his clothes so that he could catch the five chitty train to new york that night there was nas a b binker binler he knew taking that train and he be thought it if he went down with him he could sell some insurance also he had an idea he wanted to take up with the home office some new sort sorl of con tract he wanted them to adopt it looked for a while as if he going to notice that anything thin waa was wrong with her ile did come in nt at int in t and rind tell her he was sorry about her headache 1111 tell you what im going to do edith he said if I 1 can make male the company adopt this contract of mine send you to europe this summer with the willard Wll lards how now about it Is that a betl she told him it would be wonderful but somehow some hov she field feeling a little aggrieved to have a thing like ille that sprung upon her just then and of course a thin thing like that simply happen really even after seen him off in the taxi mothers distinctly bracing attitude toward her headache pert persisted isted shed fed feet a whole lot better mothers mother s suggestion was if shed do her hair again and put on her new sport suit sull she supposed she might as well but she did it under protest rather she was till upstairs when the doorbell rani rang and a tangle ofra millar voices came up from roia the ball hall mother colled called como come dofan ns as boon soon ag as ouro dressed here are some friends of your tours come to take her to the beach party it aas a carefully pro pre surprise or bould have been if jane and isabel been such bonc heads and elver giver it away mother lind had known all along n liy III she shed d cent sent her up tip to dross dress bh shi j reilly did have a headache though blied loe lose to go to tho the party but ehe she bellee shed letter better sho she was afraid shed apoll the fun tut only carolyn and arthur birdsall had como come in at first tho the rest of their load were uniting out in jim names barnes car now reinforcement reinforcements were mere hummon summoned ed to odd add ti their r p persuasions erlei the party had been g got ot up especially for edith 1 I wont on t go it you dont arthur managed to tell her in a determined whisper wheres fth cros dorothy edith asked him dorothy was arthurs sister isn t she going I 1 carolyn laughed arthur made her ride in Mart marthas bals car with the fire fireless leps cooker she aid said afraid ched shed cramp his style it n was as really a very good evening for a beach party freezing cold by the lake e especially after the sun w went cut down they hod had to tear around to keep they ran races in the sand tripped each other up m wrestled res fled IN wallace allace carter did tim bling stunts cartwheels and things and his bister sister told win could turn then them better thin that show him hildhl the girls all |