| Show adventurers CLUB c rate fate rings th eBell by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter aou OU know boys and girls theres no use denying denbin it a lot of your adventure stories almost turn a man into a fatalist fatalist A fatalist as you know is a person who believes he will live until his time comes that is to say nothing he does can change the stars which ha have already arranged tor for his particular f fate ate in advance I 1 can t believe that theory of life myself im inclined to believe that if you on h keep cep running in front of automobiles you are bound by the law of tive averages rages I 1 W get run over sooner or later but you cant 11 argue r 9 ue with a dyed ln in the wool u ool fatalist along those lines hell tell you that when you yoo escape its just not ot your time and when you get hit it IS your conr time all of which brings us to our story of frederick hoyt of clear field pa fred had such a narrow escape under such strange circumstances that about the only way you can explain it is by believing that his time had not come if youre a fatalist the explanation you will like if youre not a fatalist you will probably put it down to plain every day luck id say it was a combination of both freds first job nt at tile age of fourteen was to sit in a n hallway before the door of a n certain office beyond that door was freds first boss a busy mad man who hired fred to keep callers from disturbing him fred Is buffer for boss fred was the bufter buffer and he says he turned away at least 09 99 por per cent of the callers lie he had a nice comfortable chair beside a big steam radiator and could read or play checkers with himself or do anything he e wanted to do providing he lot let anybody slip by his watchful eye there was one restriction fred mys cays upon which his job depended he leave his post arany moment of the day no pretext could excuse his absence for one second he mind that he says he had the only window in the spacious hall where he sat and could look out when he got tired reading except for a small telephone table at the other end of the hall there was no furniture fred could put his feet up on the hot radiator when it was cold and make himself at home as much as he wished following out his orders to the letter he paid no attention to anything else that might be going on around him ignores I 1 telephone but its agent of fate the telephone ne at the far end of the hall ball he ignored no one seemed ever to use ilse the thing anyway and yet that telephone was destined to be the instrument of fate the instrument that would snatch him from a particularly dreadful find and untimely end fred had been on the job two months when the fateful day arrived he had never moved out of that dutiful chair of his no matter what happened around him fred had been true to his trust and like a faithful watchdog vatch dog had stayed put before the door of his employer radiator good company on cold day this day was particularly cold and his side partner the steam radiator was sizzling hot the steam hissing through its pipes in front of him was sweet music to his chilly ears cars ile he hall a good book and there were few callers 1 so what more could a fellow ask aska As he glanced out of his frosty window he could see less fortunate persons fighting their way against a wintry blast and he congratulated himself on the sense of duty that had kept him at his post and held field his nice warm job for him suddenly an annoying sound grated on an freds sensitive ears cars it was that blame telephone at the other end of the hall he let it ring he should worry he going to get up and answer it and then have some salesman slip in and annoy the boss no sirree sir ree he smiled cocked his feet higher on the radiator and went on reading ringing telephone annoys fred but that doggoned phone kept on ringing it stop think when a fellow answer stop ringing but they ding dinga a it linga ling a ling went the telephone honel J rang bang went freds worm warm feet off the sizzling radiator and he made for the he other end of tile the hall ile he figured lie he could answer the larn darn thing and be back before anyone noticed his absence ile he made the hall in 10 jumps and gri grabbed libed the receiver and as he did fred says the bottom fell out of the world I 1 the bottom falls out of the world A rush of air slammed him violently against the boom A detonation like thunder shook the building under his fecal he fell like a log to the floor cries came from the front ollace erles cries and dense clouds of live steam I 1 windows crashed open opeal I 1 the agonized voice of his boss came to him crying bla name suddenly the air cleared freds boss appeared and hugged him joyously fred was amazed here he was getting hugged instead of getting tired lift ile looked around and his eyes nearly popped out of his head the radiator had been blown to pieces his easy chair was a mass of wreck wreckage agel the radiator was gonel gone blown to bits it had exploded and jagged fragments of iron protruded from the place on the wall WHERE FREDS HEAD HAD BEEN FOR THE LAST TWO if that phone rung the boy would have been blown to well im not advising disobedience by any means but by golly disobedience saved freds life that day or was it just not his mirael C service Ioe |
