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Show aV WMgClure W.N.U.Sepver'' J INSTALLMENT SEVEN The Story So Far The depression has hit the Mngulre family though Mike Maguire, happy-go-lucky editor and mayor of Covington, Is serene. His daughter Kathleen Is irritated, however, over several things. Mrs. Newsum would like her son. Jaird to marry Connie Mays, the banker's daughter, though he Is engaged to Shirley, Shir-ley, Kathleen's sister. Tom. Kathleen's brother, is hard hit by the slump In real estate, and his wife, Mary Etta, secretary, talks of Reno. A younger brother. Alec, unable to get a job. Is taking up with a flashy blonde, much older than he. Ritchie Graham, a Btranger. helps Kathleen fix a flat and kisses her. He, too. Is a newspaper man and without a Job. So she goes to a dance with Gene Mays though she docs not like hltn. Kathleen thinks she dislikes Ritchie. k "Lou Knight!" gasped Kathleen. Alec nodded. "I ought to be horsewhipped," horse-whipped," he confessed miserably. "Myra and the gang bet me that she would turn me down like nobody's no-body's business." "And did she?" . Alec hung his head. "No." "Oh, Alec! And now you're phoning phon-ing her again. For what?" "To tell her I'm sorry but I can't take her to the airdrome after all because I've broken my neck or something. Gee, Kathleen, I'd never nev-er hear the last of it il I stepped out with that little suggin." "Sure she's a suggin," cried Kathleen Kath-leen passionately. "Her dad's been the town sot for years, and she used to play hooky from school because she hadn't decent shoes to wear. And they live up over a beer fiat down by the railroad shops and she's never had anything but cuffs and abuse. And she's thin and homely and all eyes and scared to death of people like any other animal that's been mistreated. But she's also proud as the devil and sensitive and pitiful. And she's probably been thrilled to death for hours because you asked her out. But what's that to you? You're going to call her up and break her heart and make mincemeat of her pride." "Good Lord, you don't think I ought to go! What would Laura say?" Kathleen's nostrils dilated with scorn. "She'll probably think she CHAPTER IX Alec Maguire needed another drink. He needed it badly. Liquor gave him a quick pick-up. But unfortunately un-fortunately liquor had a mean trick of dying on him too soon. And the letdown was terrific. "Isn't the music gorgeous?" burbled bur-bled Myra. Alec regarded her sourly. He didn't want to, but quite suddenly he saw every line about her loose rouged mouth. Her hair was metal- . V lically yellow, but next to the roots it was drab. Her under chin sagged ' unless she held it well up. But to morrow would be another d,ay, reflected re-flected Alec bitterly. With absolutely abso-lutely nothing to do. While his nerves crawled with boredom. At least Myra provided action. She had to be doing something every minute. That was why she liked her playmates young. Matur-er Matur-er men occasionally had jobs to go to. Myra herself had no serious occupation oc-cupation except her own amusement amuse-ment And she was perfectly willing will-ing to pay the piper for the privilege privi-lege of calling the tune. "I've got to have another shot before be-fore I do a rhumba," muttered Alec when the music ended. He left Myra to rejoin their party as best she could and made his way a little blindly toward the exit. Marigold Gardens had no license to sell intoxicating beverages. So everybody ev-erybody brought his own. It was quite like good old before-repeal days. Myra always parked a quart or two with her car. She thought Alec might have asked her to go along if he wanted a snort. He was a queer youngster. Brilliant but moody, and his temper was as erratic as a trick cigarette lighter. Myra had never quite figured him out. Perhaps that was why he intrigued in-trigued her. Alec had notsked Myra to share her own liquor because he wanted to be rid of her. He had to do something some-thing which he dreaded. Myra would think it was a scream if she knew. She would tell the world so. Alec's face looked a little haunted. It was a ridiculous jam for him to have got into. It was all Myra's fault anyway. any-way. If she hadn't dared him and if he hadn't been three sheets in the wind, it could never have happened. He might be pretty thoroughly no good, but he wasn't at heart that rotten. At least he hoped not. "Hell!" muttered Alec Maguire to himself and jerked open the door of the telephone booth. He continued to frown at the blank wall before him as he dialed a number. num-ber. Kathleen cleared her throat. At least she and Alec always fought mw. Near the railroad shops there was a business street of sorts. It consisted con-sisted mainly of cheap eating places, squalid second-hand furniture stores, pawnshops, small grimy groceries and beer joints. Upstairs were Hats. Dingy dilapidated places with shaky floors and flimsy walls and no modern mod-ern conveniences. Fire traps Mike was always calling them and attempting at-tempting to arouse an inert public to demand their destruction. Mike's son, tramping up the steep rickety staircase which mounted from outside, out-side, cursed under his breath. How had he ever landed himself in such a mess? Even drunk he should have had more sense, to say nothing of decency. CHAPTER X Covington was small enough for everybody to know practically everyone ev-eryone else by sight and gossip Alec had vaguely known old Pete Knight's little girl all her life although al-though he didn't remember ever having spoken to her before today They had gone to the same public school because until recently the town had only the one. But they had never been in the same class or even in the same room. Alec thought Lou was about seventeen, three years younger than himself. Pete Knight was Covington's bad I example. He came originally from good stock, or so it was generally believed. At least when he first blew into town some fourteen years before, he gave evidence of having been at one time a gentleman. Even yet traces of a former gentility showed through his maudlin speech. But somewhere the man had lost hold of himself. Mike had a theory that Pete Knight had taken a knock-, out blow in some fairer existence which left him punch-drunk, so that he couldn't pick himself up again. But if so, he never referred to it. And he resented any attempt at prying into his past if he had one. Certainly he had no present or future. fu-ture. He must have been about thirty when he dropped off a freight train in Covington and he had been steadily drinking himself to death ever since. Several months after his arrival Lou appeared. She was barely toddling. A queer forlorn little lit-tle tyke even then, who had made the trip in the care of successive railroad conductors. He worked, when he wasn't on a spree, at anything he could find to do from washing dishes in a greasy spoon restaurant to hauling garbage for the city. But most of his earnings earn-ings went for whiskey with which further to befuddle his already foggy fog-gy brain. And for several years he had been a physical as well as a moral wreck. But when he was in his cups he presented a tragically ludicrous figure. The sort small boys loved to follow and torment with rocks or snowballs just to hear him roar like a baited and bewildered trapped bear. "Come," said a small husky voice when Alec rapped at one of the battered doors which lined the long dingy upstairs corridor. The girl, standing a little beyond the scarred kitchen table, reminded him uncomfortably of a small hunted hunt-ed animal. The flat had only two rooms and was depressingly scant of furniture. But at least an effort had been made to retrieve the ugliness ugli-ness of dark cracked walls and narrow nar-row broken-paned windows. A straggling strag-gling geranium grew in a tin coffee can and the rusty cook stove had been polished. "Hello," said Lou Knight. She was very thin and her blue eyes were enormous in her small wan face. She had thick pale brown hair, a shy nervous mouth and little roughened hands that kept twisting at her side. Her glance begged Alec not to laugh. At the room, or at her, or at ner sleazy blue silk dress which pulled in places, revealing raw seams, and which bagged in others. But Alec had never felt less like laughing. She was such a pathetic pa-thetic littls scrap. So dreadfully shy. So afraid of sneers and blows because be-cause life had handed her little else. "Ready7" he demanded awkwardly. awkward-ly. She nodded. And he went on, trying desperately to sound natural. "Sorry I was late. But if we hurry, hur-ry, I think we can just make the last show." She said nothing. But he saw the cords working in her thin little neck. She was scared to death. Alec's throat hurt at the look in her eyes. She stumbled on the stair from sheer nervousness and he put out his hand to steady her. But she caught her breath sharply and flinched away. Alec flushed. Had she thought he was going to hit her? He hated himself for being so painfully aware of her shabby little slippers which had scuffed, run-down spike heels. He supposed he was a snob, but the hardest thing he had ever done in his life was to walk through the crowd of hangers-on outside the Covington Cov-ington Airdrome and purchase a couple of tickets for himself and Lou Knight. Even after he was safely inside where there were no lights his handsome young face burned. (TO BE CONTINUED) "She'U probably think she raised her son to be an idiot." raised her son to be an idiot, but I believe she'd prefer that to a cad." Alec drew a long breath. "I'll never live it down," he muttered. "But here goes." He dialed his number num-ber and this time he waited for his connection. "This is Alec Maguire," he said doggedly into the receiver. "Will you please send somebody upstairs with a message to Lou Knight? Tell her I've been unavoidably detained and am going to be a little late, but I'll be there." He turned away from the telephone. tele-phone. "I hope you're satisfied," he growled. He did not return to the ballroom. Kathleen watched him going sulkily out the entrance, and didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. He was lucky enough to catch a ride with Len Woods and Sylvia Mason who had decided to move on elsewhere. They set him down on Main Street and, still scowling, Alec crossed the railroad tracks and made for that unlovely part of town against which Mike was always crusading in the Clarion's editorial page, where one row of ugly shotgun houses, all precisely pre-cisely alike, butted against another and the streets were unpaved and dusty, the yards small and cluttered clut-tered and bare. Myra would be furious. Alec knew that. But the stimulation of the alcohol al-cohol which he had consumed earlier earli-er in the night had yielded to black depression, and in his present humor hu-mor he did not much care what Myra My-ra elected to do about his cavalier desertion. Nevertheless he was aware that he would feel differently the next day when the hours stretched interminably before him and he had nothing to do but think. The sort of thoughts that had been driving him crazy since he took his degree at midyear and found himself him-self adrift in a world that yawned when he begged for his chance. Just a chance, that was all he asked. A chance to do things. Big constructive construc-tive things such as he had dreamed of. "God!" said Alec Maguire to himself. fair. He whirled, recognized her, smothered an oath and hung up the receiver before his connection could be completed. "If it isn't little sister," he sneered. "Out slumming with Hot Shot Mays and the like of that. I thought you had more sense. I had to look twice when you came in. Just couldn't believe the old eyesight." "That was alcohol, not shock, Buddy." Bud-dy." Alec went very red. "One in the family's enough," he muttered. "Why don't you cut it out then?" "Gene Mays never did a girl's rep any good." "Maybe you think I like having people refer to my brother as the Boone divorcee's latest gigolo." The moment she spat out the word Kathleen was sorry. Alec went so white she was frightened. "All right," he said in a thickened thick-ened voice, "you win. I'm putrid. "A I'm not fit to open my trap no mat- I ter what you do. I admit it. And that's that. Now will you beat it? I've got to telephone and I didn't invite an audience." Kathleen's lips quivered. "I didn't mean it. Alec. But, gee. Buddy, it breaks my heart when you're like this." Alec looked away. His handsome boyish face was haggard, his black eyes a little desperate. "I'm not drunk now if that's what you mean," he said gruffly. "I know. But don't go back in there, Alec. Cut that bunch and surprise Mother by turning up at a decent hour for once." "Yeah, and lie awake till day-light, day-light, rolling and tossing because I'm too gosh-awful blue to sleep," jf he said bitterly. "What time is it?" ' "Nine-fifteen by my watch and chain though I don't guarantee it," said Kathleen with a rueful grin at the wrist watch which she had won with a prize essay on the beauty of being altruistic in a grossly material ma-terial world. r Alec groaned. "Blow," he said sharply. Kathleen regarded him with narrowed nar-rowed eyes. "You may as well tell me what it's all about," she said firmly, "because I'm sticking till you do." Alec again colored violently. "You won't like it But if you must have it, you must. We were all pretty well liquored up this afternoon and Myra wanted to do something different, differ-ent, for a thrill. So she dared me to call up somebody and make a date lor tonight." "Who?" "Lou Knight" |