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Show I j The Man Nobody Knew ' ,r , h, k n m r , , By HOLWORTHY HALL (Copyright by Dodi. Mead A Co.. Inc.) i aaiMMC mrriianii MM n imHtlWWJtttagg?.,n '"Tf-.-.i "LET 'EM MAKE ME LOOK LIKE THAT!" Everyone knows about the Legion Etrangere the famous Foreign Legion of the French army. Well, Richard Rich-ard Morgan of Syracuse, N. Y., enlisted in the Foreign Legion in the great war under the name of Henry Hilliard. So you can guess that the hero was not in love with himself him-self or with life. The Hun sent him to the hospital with a wounded knee and arm and a face pretty much shot away with shrapnel. The surgeons fixed up his knee and his arm. When they proposed to restore his features, he liel and said he had no photograph of himself. And in his rage against life he caught up a picture postcard bearing the radiant face of Christ and cried: "Let 'em make me look like thatl Or anything else, either I don't give a d n!" The French surgeons were interested and did a good job. And presently "The Man Nobody Knew" is back in Syracuse, telling of the death of Dick Morgan and selling mining stock and falling deeper in love with Carol Durant, the "only girl" of his old life who had refused to marry Dick Morgan, the failure. Complications! Well, rather especially when the mining stock apparently turns out to be worthless and the only man in the world who knows Hilliard's secret dies of I apoplexy and the hero finds out that the heroine did love Dick Morgan. And Holworthy Hall handles these complications compli-cations and these real, human characters and this American Ameri-can community in the masterly way that makes him read from one end of the country to the other these days. .Good reading! " 1 . CHAPTER I. In tlie beginning of things, he was merely a number; but even that was credltnhle, because his number was low enough to signify that he had responded re-sponded pretty .promptly to the rally-! rally-! lng call. After that, and with the cataclysmic suddenness which marked nil changes of military status on the western front, he became, one frosty morning, a Case, and got himself roughly classified (and tenderly hnn- died) as a Stretcher Case, a Grand , Blesse, and, in consequence, a proper : temporary Inmate of a field hospital on the Belgian plains. There, be was unofficially known as Joyonux, or Joyous One; not because lie displayed a very buoyant disposition disposi-tion fur from it ! but because he belonged be-longed to the Foreign legion; and In the course of another day or two he was routine-ticketed as an Evacue, and provided with a lukewarm hot-water hot-water bottle and a couple of evll-smelllng evll-smelllng cigarettes to console him on the road to the base hospital at Neu-llly. Neu-llly. At Neullly he became, for the first time since his enlistment, an Individual, Individ-ual, and at the very outset he was distinguished dis-tinguished by certain qualities which lintl passed unnoticed In the frying pan and fire of the trenches. For one thing, lie was obviously Immune to kindness ; and for another, he was apparently ap-parently Immune to hope. He was a man of Inveterate silence; not the grim silence of fortitude In suffering (which is altogether too common a virtue vir-tue In base hospitals to earn any especial es-pecial merit), but rather the dogged reticence of black moods and chronic bitterness. To he sure, speech was physically difficult to him, but other men with similar misfortunes spoke blessings with their eyes, and gave back gratitude in voiceless murmurs. Not so the Joyous One. From the day of his arrival he demanded nothing, lesired nothing, but to brood sullenly lloof ; and so, when he became an In-livldual, In-livldual, he also became a mystery to he nursing staff. It was rumored that le was an Implacable woman hater, tnd there seemed to be something in t. Hegardless of the care of the Amer-':iii Amer-':iii nurses (all hoveringly attentive o one of their own nation who had night for France), his spirit remained hysinnl and clouded in gloom. Only ivice. in the Initial month of his eon-. eon-. nenient, did he betray the weakness ;' mi ordinary emotion; on each occa-oti occa-oti a gold-laced general had come to ilute, in the name of the republic, one l" the Individual's neighbors, and to liver a bit of bronze wtut iungled om a ribbou str-r red and green, was said doubted by those who idu't ven It) that at these ceremo- ihe Individual had grown fever-n, fever-n, and let tears come to his eyes, but bsequently he had relapsed Into ill greater depths of stoicism than fore ; his own bed-jacket was Inno-11 Inno-11 1 of cross or medal, and his depres-n depres-n was apparent, and acute. The rses, arguing that perhaps his pride .s wounded as seriously as his flesh, ered quick condolence and got them-ves them-ves rebuffed with shrugs of the In-iilual's In-iilual's shoulders, and inarticulate mils which had all the earmarks of ipressed profanity. Me didn't even ten when 1'ierre Dntout, a hard-hit ritorial in the next bed, squandered ay's supply of energy to lean across 1 whisper sympathetically to him: I d man . . . Yieux espece de choux- ... I know how It Is . . . ! I haven't got any friends either. v 1 want you to take my Croix de Guerre. . . . When I go nowhere." Kven when speech returned to the Individual he was a man of curt responses re-sponses and stinging monosyllables a problem to the surgeons, a problem to the nurses and (If the expression in his eyes meant anything), an overwhelming over-whelming problem to himself. It au- peared that, after all, it wasn't simply women that he hated It was the universe. uni-verse. His military book implied that he had no parents, no close relations, no friends to notify, no fixed abode. He received no visitors, no letters, no packages freighted with magical delight. de-light. But to those who pitied him In all his loneliness he was utterly contemptuous; con-temptuous; he even went so far as to fillip sidelong to the floor a religious post card tendered him by a devout and sentimental passer-by, and he did it In her presence, unashamed. Later, when a smiling orderly picked up that post card and tucked It under his pillow pil-low he was no less contemptuous in permitting it to remain. But the one stupendous fact ' which, more than all else combined, made him an object of bewildered curiosity was this that of the scores and scores of men with head-wounds who were reborn at Neu- niy that spring and summer, he was the only one who had never asked for a mirror. This, of Itself, wouldn't have been astonishing as long as he delayed In the preliminary stages of recovery, for now and then a man with head-wounds proves to be super-sensitive ; but in the second stage it was remarkable, and In the third stage It was unique. The staff held It to be extraordinary frxnn a social as well as from a pathological path-ological viewpoint, that a man so terribly ter-ribly disfigured should have no interest inter-est not even a morbid interest In his own appearance. And it wasn't that the Individual was simply Indifferent Indif-ferent to the mirror; on the contrary, his aversion to It was active and energetic ener-getic ; he flinched, and motioned it frantically away as though the mere conception of seeing himself as others saw him was too repellant, and too unthinkable to endure. There came a day in April when a photograph was requested of him. Surely he knew where there was a likeness of himself, didn't he? His old passport photograph, which had mysteriously disappeared, or The Individual glanced up from his present task ; the wound in his arm was still annoying and he was absorbed ab-sorbed in learning to write with his left hand. "What for?" he muttered, j "Why," said the nurse, cheerfully, "for a model. To help the surgeons. They'll take your picture for a guide and make you look almost exactly the way you did before." The Individual from America sat up straight, so that the nurse was startled by his animation, which was without a parallel in his local history. "What !" lie said. "Certainly !" The nurse spoke In the tone one uses to an ailing child. "You've known that, haven't you?" The Individual's voice was queerly unmanageable and strained. "You mean to say they're going to make me look the way . . . Could they do that? Could they? Even now?'' "Why, of course," she assured him. "You never told me that!" he said, passionately. "Why didn't you? Why couldn't you have told me! And here I've been . . ." He put his hands to his bandaged face and seemed to shrink within himself. Then all at once he burst out: "Well, there's nothing to prevent . . . Then they could make me not look like It, If they wanted to! Isn't that so?" She regarded him in vast perplexity, and thought of summoning a surgeon, for the man had begun to quiver as though from shell shock which he hadn't undergone. "Why, I don't understand what you mean," she said soothingly. "But if you'll just be calm and " The Individual gestured with fierce Impatience. "If they can do what you say, nnd make me look like any old thing they choose to, then what in the devil are they asking for a photograph for?" "Why, to go by," she said helplessly. "You want to look like your old self, don't you?" "Xo, I don't!" The nurse gasped. His tone had been churlish, but the echo of it vaguely suggested triumph and relief His symptoms had subsided . . . could it be that he actually was relieved? Dumfounded, she made another effort to convince him. "But you want to look just as nearly near-ly like" "Don't you suppose I know what I want?" he interrupted rudely. "But hnven't you a photograph, anyway, any-way, that I can " "No, I haven't !" he snapped. "I haven't." It was a lie ; the passport photograph was In the lining of a certain cer-tain wallet, and he had hid it there for reasons of his own. But now that one great danger was definitely past, and a still further bulwark of protection protec-tion offered, if the nurse snoke truth. the Individual could afford to come out from ambush. "And I don't want to look the way I did before, and what's more I never did ! But If your doctors are half as smart as they think they are let 'em make me look like that! Or anything else either I don't give a d n !" Shocked and horrified, she was gaz-ng gaz-ng at a picture postcard he had snatched from under his pillow and thrust upon her. It was a reproduction reproduc-tion of a religious painting by Rembrandt. Rem-brandt. It was the radiant face of the Christ. CHAPTER II. Nine o'clock on a night in June not i June evening, heavy-starred on velvet, vel-vet, but a furious June night, with Stygian blackness looping overhead, and Stygian water battering and boiling boil-ing against the hull plates. The ship was dark as the night itself; blind dark, without a single ray to play the traitor. On deck a solitary venturer hugged the rail, and apathetically watched the waves tear past. Out of the warmth and cheer and the vitiated atmosphere of the smoking smok-ing room came Martin Harmon, big, florid, exuberant. A heaving lift of the deck sent him lurching sidewise; he saved his balance by struggling lllil W illi 1 "Let Them Make Me Look Like That." toward the rail, when suddenly the slope was reversed, nnd he slipped and slid to the barrier of safety, clutched it, and found himself at arm's length from the lonely wntcher, who hadn't stirred, or even turned his head. "Hello !" said ITnrnion, his surprise tinctured with easy familiarity. "Some night!" "Yes. It Is." The tone of the response re-sponse was curt, so curt that Harmon instinctively leaned forward to discover dis-cover what expression of countenance went with it. The night was so black that he might as well have tried to penetrate a curtain of solid fabric. "Seen any U-boats yet?" he asked humorously. "Not yet." The taciturn one moved a trifle away; a man less thin-skinned and less dined nnd wined than Harmon Har-mon would probably have taken the hint and removed himself, but Harmon's Har-mon's was an Inquisitive disposition, and he never attempted to curb It lie was the sort of traveling companion compan-ion who makes Christians reflect up- on the definition of justifiable homicide. homi-cide. "What is your line?" he inquired after a pause. The other man laughed queerly. "The first ... if it makes so much difference to you." "Beg pardon? I don't quite get you. You said . . ." "I said the first line. I meant the first-line trenches. I've been in it." Harmon jerked his head upward in comprehension. "Oh, I see! You mean the war! And you've been right on the spot where the. fighting Is? Pretty lively up there, isn't It? Something stirring most all the time?" "I Imagine so." The other man's accent was amazingly diffident, and Harmon peered at him, incredulous, "Good Lord, don't you know?" "Not a great deal. I happened to get hit the first day I was In the trenches." "But you got In It again afterward, I suppose? I'll bet you did!" "No." "What! You never got back at all? Just one day, and you're through?" "Yes. After I was discharged from hospital I was discharged from the army too. Permanently unfit." "English army?" "No French." "Well, that's some record !" said Harmon appreciatively. "That certainly cer-tainly is some record! Not to say tough luck the toughest kind. Going back home, I take it?" "Looks that way, doesn't it?" Harmon ignored the sarcasm. "Back to work, eh? What did you say your line is?" "I didn't say. I haven't any just now." Harmon pondered a second. "Oh! Gentleman of leisure? Soldier Sol-dier of fortune, eh? Well, I wouldn't worry If I were you. You're disappointed disap-pointed ; that's natural . . . but the world hasn't come to an end yet. Of course It Is something of a come-down to leave the army and get into harness again, but after all there's plenty of excitement right In the United States. Big work to be done, son ! Big money to make. And it helps the war along, too. I tell you there never was a bigger big-ger opportunity to make money than there is right this minute. The hard job isn't to find the scheme ; it's to find the men to run it. Don't you worry . . . you'll land something right off the bat !" "Thanks for the compliment !" "Oh, It's no compliment 1 Anybody can make money these days. It's a plain statement of fact . . . Say, let's go In and have something. Come in and be sociable. What you want's a drink. Am I right or am I wrong?" "Well" "And that's what the doctor ordered or-dered ! Come on 1 It's on me." The other man hesitated, and at last succumbed, out of sheer unconcern, uncon-cern, to a companionship he realized In advance would be distasteful. "All right," he consented briefly; and together, arm In arm. they stumbled stum-bled and tacked across the treacherous deck, and presently crossed the threshold thresh-old into the haiy light of the smoking room. Harmon, smiling broadly, wiped the brine from his smarting eyes. "Now, then," he said, "what particular particu-lar brand of poison do you " And broke off short and stared, fascinated, at the extraordinary young man in front of him. He was anywhere from twenty-five to forty, this American from the distant dis-tant trenches, and his age was as bard to guess as a clever woman's; there was something about him peculiar to youth, and yet when his face was in repose, he might easily have claimed two score of years and gone undisputed. undis-puted. It was a face which suggested both the fire of immaturity and the drain of experience ; there was breathtaking breath-taking gravity about it, a hint of the dignity of. marble, of ageless permanence. perma-nence. It was a slightly thin face, scarred by a heavy line or two. and indelibly stamped with the evidence of Intense thought and inward suffering; suffer-ing; but it lacked the hollows which, at the first glance, should have supported sup-ported the evidence. It was a thin and oval face, with a mouth of large and sympathetic sweetness, a forehead white and high, a prominent, delicate nose, and Irises of. clear, luminous gray. It wasn't altogether an Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon type of countenance, nor was It definitely European; It seemed rather to have taken all the better qualities from several races. It was a face to inspire immediate trust and confidence nnd respect, and Harmon, despite his lack of practice In all three of these reactions, was evidently attracted at-tracted by It. "Yichy-Celestins for me." said the old-young man indifferently. "I'll ... I guess I'll have vlehy too," said Harmon, relaxing. "If it wasn't for something I can't Just describe de-scribe I'll say . . . well, never mind. Er . . . what business have you been in. by the way?" The younger man's reply was tardy and not particularly gracious. "Why. the longest time I ever put in at any one business was selling Insurance. In-surance. The last thing I did was to sell bonds. Why?" Harmon stiffened. "A salesman ! . mumuiiin in'i"iiin iiiwuw iib miw n n iinirr i Good Lord ! That's the last tiling in the world I'd have . . . but, say I You must have been a whirlwind 1 Why, a man with a presence like yours would hardly have to open his mouth I You've got a sort of ; . . I'll be hanged if I know what to call it . . . but a kind of feeling, if you know what I mean. Salesman 1 Why, nil you need is an introduction and a dotted dot-ted line!" The young man laughed rather forlornly for-lornly nnd sipped his vlehy. "Just at present I haven't either." Harmon's gaze was unfaltering, and his Interest and admiration bounded higher. Mechnnlcally, In accordance with his habits, he was striving to discover dis-cover how this new acquaintance might be put to practical use. "Was IS M Iff "Meaning What?" I right, or was I wrong? Playing In hard luck don't strengthen a man's courage much, even if he tries to bluff himself Into thinking It does. Cut out the regret stuff; that's my advice, and you can take it or leave it. Forget nil that tough luck you had over here, and get busy figuring out how you're going to cash in on all your experience. experi-ence. America's full of chances you'll land something big in no time. Can't help It If you try. Salesman! Son, you're carrying your best recommendation recom-mendation right on top of your own shoulders !" The young man gave him back a wry smile and finished his vlehy. "I only hope it comes true," he said. Harmon looked at him steadily, and falling under the spell of those radiant features stared and stared until he came to himself and all at once brought his fist down on the table, so that the glasses rang again. "Well, why shouldn't it? As a matter mat-ter of fact, why shouldn't It?" The younger man's expression hadn't changed. "Meaning what?" "Meaning," said Harmon deliberately, deliberate-ly, "that the first thing I've got to do when I get home is to hunt up a couple of good salesmen myself. Are you hunting for a good Job, or aren't you?" "Aren't you a little hasty?" Tlie young man's Intonation was sardonic. "I've cleaned up most of my money," said Harmon very slowly to the celling, cell-ing, "by making quick decisions. I make up my mind pretty fast. If you can interest me on short notice you can Interest other people. Mind you, we're just discussing this sort of thinking out loud. No obligation on either side. Doesn't do any harm to talk about it, does it?" "Then suppose," said the young man placidly, "you define your Idea of a good job. I'm rather particular." "But you admit you're out of luck and " ' "But you admit I'm a whirlwind" The young man smiled with faint amusement. "I said you ought to be with training." train-ing." Tlie young man's mouth turned upward up-ward at the corners. "Go ahead and describe the job." "Well, my Idea of a pretty sweet job for a man of your age is to start of course about twenty a week and commissions." 'Yes? What per cent commission?" 'Oh, eight to ten per cent." The young man glanced at" Harmon and laughed quietly. "You're a broker, of course, but that doesn't sound much like conservative investment securities to me. What is It industrials?'' Harmon grimaced. "Yes. I'm a broker." He set down Ins glass and fumbled for a card I "There! But I was thinking more 1 about stocks than bonds. Some new-Montana new-Montana properties copper and 7i., ! Metals are the big noise these ,invs i I guess you realize that, don't von? Munition work." "I'll show 'em whether' I I can make good cr not!" (TO ci-: cusrisvu |