Clever—?
Date: 2026-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

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Title: Clever—?

Author: Jack Woodford

Release date: August 17, 2026 [eBook #79383]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Frank A. Munsey Company, 1928

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79383

Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLEVER—? ***

“Shell out, kiddo”

Clever—?

In the rôle of rescuing hero he entered Janice’s
life—and in his wake came doubt and uncertainty.

By Jack Woodford

Janice was just about through for the evening. Only one customer tarried over his salad sandwich and tea in the small shop, just around the corner from Lawrence Avenue.

The customer somehow disturbed Janice. That she had never seen the man before this evening she was quite positive. There were things about him that she instinctively disliked, for no reason that she could put into words.

He was so smooth-looking, so altogether immaculate and theatrical.

Glancing at him again, out of the corner of her eye, she judged him to be about thirty-five.

There was a bluish, clean look about his smoothly shaven firm chin. His teeth were even and white, and his black eyes matched the slick black sheen of his hair, which was brushed smoothly back from his forehead. He had long, dark lashes, and a way of looking lazily out from under them that was disconcerting.

Possibly he was an actor, Janice thought. Certainly he dressed much as did the younger among the occasional vaudeville actors who drifted in now and then from the theater over on Wilson Avenue.

When he had ordered, Janice had been struck with the deep, musically vibrating tone of his voice. Soft and liquid it was, a rich barytone, with just the tinge of some foreign accent. Altogether, she told herself, he was too “pretty.” Prettiness, in a man, did not appeal to her.

Just as she was deciding that she disliked the man heartily, because of his bold, appraising glances, another man, short, swarthy, and rough-looking, entered the shop.

“Too late to get a cup of tea and a sandwich?” the newcomer asked.

“Certainly not,” returned Janice courteously, mindful that the woman who owned the shop needed every cent. “Won’t you be seated?”

The newcomer glanced out of the window, then suddenly swung around and, facing her, with his back to the window, pointed a stubby black automatic her way.

“Shell out, kiddo,” he said. Janice’s heart nearly leaped out of her mouth. It was Saturday night. The neighborhood banks had closed at noon. There was a comparatively large amount of money in the cash register.

“Move!” the man snapped throatily, “or I’ll let the light through you, sure as—” She quickly went to the register and punched the “No Sale” key; the drawer slid open. Tremblingly she handed all of the bills to him. He snatched them, tucked them into a pocket, and said:

“Come out into the kitchen, baby. I’m going out the back way—I happen to know that the cook’s gone home, so don’t try to string me. You’re a sweet mamma, any way a guy looks at you, an’ I’m going to let you kiss me good-by—if you hurry.”

Janice backed away from him, but he jammed the gun into his coat pocket and, still covering her with it through his pocket, urged her along toward the kitchen door.

Before the door she halted, but the intruder gave her one final push and she bumped against the swinging door and stumbled through into the kitchen. A momentary blackness rushed to her head. Her knees suddenly doubled beneath her, and she slipped to the floor.

At this juncture she heard the sound of a scuffle. Almost helpless with fright, but not unconscious, she lay supine upon the floor. Presently the back door opened and then immediately closed.

Gathering strength to rise, Janice struggled to her feet and turned on the light. As she did so the back door opened again.

She was about to scream when, to her amazement, not the stocky man, but the customer whose looks she had disliked, came back through the door.

“Here,” he said, holding out his hand, “is your dough. I got it out of his pocket. Here, also, is his gun. You ought to keep one around the place.”

Mechanically, Janice took the weapon and the wad of bills.

“But how—” she began. “What on earth—”

“I crawled behind the tables to the kitchen door while you were handing him the money, figuring I’d go out the back way and come around front to nail him when he came out.

“He was so interested in you he must have forgotten all about me. When I heard him say he was going out the back door I decided to wait for him out there.

“He’ll never succeed. A young man who doesn’t keep his mind on his business any more than he does ought to take a correspondence course in bookkeeping and settle down to a life of thrift, rather than one of bold, bad enterprise!

“Still, I ought not to criticize. Had I been about to rob you, when I saw you I’d forget all about my plans too.”

She blushed and was about to rebuke him, but thought better of it, in view of what he had just done. After a pause and a bold smile he returned to his subject:

“When you two came out into the kitchen, I waited until he let go of the gun in his pocket, in order to kiss you, and then jumped him. Outside he got away while I was getting his gun and your money from him.”

“Oh!” breathed Janice. “How can I ever thank you? You endangered your very life!”

“Where would one find a worthier cause?” he asked, with a graceful shrugging movement of his shoulders and arms. “You’re white as a sheet,” he went on. “Sit down at one of the tables.” She obeyed him mechanically.

“Now I’ll play waiter,” he told her. Going to the service counter he secured a napkin, draped it over his arm, drew a glass of water from the cooler, and returned to put the glass down before her with a flourish.

“Do try our excellent water!” he advised, standing at her elbow. Despite the fact that her heart was still hammering, Janice laughed aloud and drank the water.

“Isn’t it about time you were closing now?” he asked a moment later. “It’s pretty late, and nobody except holdup men are likely to come in this time of the evening.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I was just going to close up and go home when you came in—and stayed so long—thank goodness you did—there’s no telling—”

“I suppose you never suspected, or dreamed, twenty minutes ago,” he went on with a twinkle in his bright eyes, “that you were going home escorted by no less a person than the customer whom you eyed so frostily when he presumed to stare at you—he not being able to remove his eyes from the contemplation of such an exquisitely pretty girl.”

“Now, please,” objected Janice, “don’t talk like that. You’ve been so wonderful—don’t spoil it.”

He became comically solemn, drawing down the corners of his mouth and knitting his fingers across his stomach as he stood across from where she sat at the table, in ludicrous imitation of the comic supplement conventional ministerial type.

“I promise to be good,” he told her, “if you’ll let me see you safely home.”

“It’s only a short way—and it will be ever so kind of you. I’d be afraid to go alone now—after what nearly happened; especially as I have to carry nearly two hundred dollars that’s here.”

She glanced down at the wad of bills now reposing on the table before her, with the revolver beside them.

Rising, she put on her coat and hat, shoved the bills into her purse, gingerly carried the revolver over and put it behind the counter, and turned off the lights within the store. In the street, after she had locked the door, he took her arm possessively.

II.

“It’s not far,” she told him; “just up Kenmore, two blocks, and then a block east on Argyle—but perhaps we ought to see a police officer and report the—”

He laughed aloud.

“It’s easy to see that you haven’t been in Chicago long. The common or garden variety of holdup wouldn’t interest a policeman; they’re too busy with fancy robberies—there’s always plenty to go around, and one for each cop to work on every evening, if he’s ambitious. Never call a cop in Chicago unless you’re prepared to pay him well to do his duty.

“And, besides, I’ve no grudge against that stickup. I could present him with a box of cigars in gratitude for what he’s done for me; if it hadn’t been for him you would have been lost to me entirely.

“Why, you were eying me poisonously before he came in—and now—it’s a great, and eternally queer, life!

“Isn’t there some way we could go to your home that’s lots farther than the way you usually go?”

Janice did not quite like his glibness. She had never known any man who talked so easily and freely in the presence of a lady. He seemed so appallingly without diffidence; and yet, there was something jolly about it, too.

“W-e-e-l,” she hesitated, not at all sure that she ought to say it, but tempted because of the loveliness of the night, after the long, hard, confining day in the lunchroom, “perhaps we might walk down to Clarendon Avenue, by the lake, and go around to Argyle that way; it’s much farther.”

“I wish we could go by way of Gary, Indiana,” he told her smoothly. “Still, Clarendon-by-the-Lake is something.”

It was queer, Janice thought, that he should be so utterly unconcerned over what had nearly happened. Down home they would have talked about the attempted holdup for years, would have dated subsequent events by placing them at such and such a time after the holdup.

The men folks would have considered that she should be in a state of nervous collapse for days after such an occurrence. Still, his attitude did not displease her. City people were totally different; and, after all, worse things happened every hour in Chicago.

When, a few minutes later, they reached the lake and Clarendon Beach, it was so deliciously cool there that Janice yielded to his persuasion and let him lead her out upon the stone porch of the large Municipal Bathing Pavilion, to sit down upon one of the benches and watch the bathers at play beneath the huge electric spotlights, mounted upon gaunt steel supports.

“Tell me,” he began, when they had seated themselves and he had lighted a cigarette, “how a bit of a girl like you comes to be running a lunchroom all alone? It’s the last thing any one would expect to see you doing. You don’t look the type at all.

“One would expect, seeing you upon the street, that if you worked at all, it must be in a little specialty shop, or the lingerie section of some ritzy store on Sheridan Road; or, possibly, in a beauty salon—”

It had been a long time since Janice had enjoyed a chance to confide in any one—and there was a lovely moon. The jolly voices of the night bathers drifted up to them. It was wonderful to be sitting down in a cool breeze, after a day upon one’s feet in a hot room.

“Well,” began Janice, a little surprised at herself for so willingly becoming confidential, “you see, the lady who ran the lunchroom when I applied for a position there as waitress can’t stand more than an hour or so on her feet.

“She seldom comes to the store any more; in fact, she’s never coming back to stay. She’s getting ready to go to California to live with her son, who has a good position out there.

“I’m going to buy the lunchroom and run it. There’s a comfortable profit in the little shop, and it will grow—is growing. With enough capital the store next to it could be leased, too, and the partition knocked out, and a fine business made of the lunchroom.

“Of course, that’s out of the question for the present; but, anyway, the woman will sell me the store, fixtures, good will, and lease for fifteen hundred.”

“And you’ve saved up fifteen hundred dollars?”

“Well, no, I haven’t fifteen hundred dollars; I haven’t fifty dollars to my name. But some one is coming to town very shortly who has fifteen hundred dollars to buy the store with for me—for us, that is—”

“Oh! A sweetheart, eh?”

“My fiancé. We are to be married as soon as he arrives.”

“That’s a terrible blow!” he sighed.

“Now, don’t be silly!”

“Not being silly—I’m downright heartbroken.”

She turned a glance of reproof upon him, but his eyes sparkled so merrily back at her that she withheld any further objections.

“Somewhere,” she said very softly, “maybe even among the bright voices we hear down there upon the beach right now, there is another girl for you.

“You are very nice, and very brave. You deserve to be made extraordinarily happy. I hope you will find a lovely girl.”

“I have!” His implication was unmistakable, and he was serious now. Janice rose from the bench.

“Don’t tell me you want to go already!” he exploded, rising hurriedly.

“Really, I must. It’s getting late, and I’ve got to be at the lunch room early in the morning.” Making a wry face, he gave in and they started off.

“Tell me something about this luckiest man alive, your fiancé,” he begged, as they turned down Clarendon Avenue, walking north toward Argyle.

Janice felt that she should not be so loquacious to an utter stranger; but he had proved himself such a wonderful friend, at the risk of his very life, and she was alone in the city, and more than a little lonesome.

“Well, you see, we lived on adjoining farms, his father’s and mine, in Nedry, Iowa, a little town you probably never heard of. My father married again, after my own mother died, and his new wife didn’t take any particular fancy to me.

“And yet, I had to stay on at the farm, working like a machine; the lunch room work seems like play compared to it.

“Robert, my fiancé, came to me one day and insisted that I accept some money he had saved up and go to the city to find a position where I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

“I was of age then. He asked me to marry him, and I told him that I would, whenever he wished.

“We’ve always loved each other, ever since we were kids. I had no hesitancy in taking the money and coming on, especially when he told me that he would arrange to follow, so soon as he conveniently could, and that we would be married when he got here.”

“How old were you then?” put in her new friend.

“Eighteen,” replied Janice. “Why?”

“Oh—nothing. Go on. I’m very much interested in what you’re telling me.”

“I came on to Chicago. Found a position in a mail order office, which I detested. Lived out here on the north side, in a furnished room. And then, one day, I saw the ‘Waitress Wanted’ sign in that little restaurant.

“The place looked so very neat and cozy. I wanted to work with real things, like food and dishes; I was so tired of handling crisp bits of paper, poking slips of things into files and taking them out again, without knowing, or caring, what it was all about.

“I applied and got the job. Then the owner was taken sick. I wrote Bob all the details. He said that he was lonesome and tired of farm life. He’d saved up enough to buy the lunch room. He’s coming on to Chicago, right away.”

“And you’re content to keep right on working in the restaurant, after you’re married?”

“I’ll simply love it. It will be wonderful—knowing that it’s my own, or at least half mine—and that the business I’m helping to build will belong to Bob and me.”

“Do you really love him?” her companion suddenly asked, after a short silence.

“Why, of course,” replied Janice, without a moment’s hesitation. They were before the building which contained her room. She started up the steps and turned to say good night.

“Good night, little princess,” he said sadly. “You haven’t seen the last of me yet, though—and I’d like to give you something to think over, if you don’t mind.

“I haven’t the slightest doubt but what this Arcadian hero of yours is a worthy chap. You two were thrown together by circumstances over which neither one of you had any control. You grew up together; you became, probably, like brother and sister to each other.

“He has loaned you money, rescued you from intolerable circumstances. He is now going to have your dreams come true by making it possible for you to own the little lunch room you’ve taken such an odd fancy to—all very nice and logical; but thoughts of convenience and expedience do not predicate love, my dear girl; are you sure that what you feel for the ‘Bob’ person is love?”

Without waiting for a reply he turned, lifted his cap, and strode off.

III.

For several moments Janice stood very still upon the spot where he had left her, watching his tall, slim form stride off down the street. Then she went on up into the building to her tiny, hot room, at the end of the hall, on the third floor. She undressed thoughtfully.

“‘Is it love?’” The question kept stabbing at her consciousness. It was as though some one had taken hold of her and roughly shaken her. “Is it love?” The question repeated itself over and over again in her mind.

She glanced at the pale, wistful-eyed girl in the mirror. The girl stared back questioningly, with wide, round, startled eyes.

The question pursued her even under the covers, though she pulled them over her head, hot as the room was.

The following evening Janice, as she had half expected that she would, saw the young man enter the shop again, at about the same time that the attempted holdup had occurred the night before.

“Good evening!” he called out confidently, as though he were a friend of years standing.

“Good evening,” she greeted.

“You say that to every one,” he charged. “Name’s Rickey; say ‘Good evening, Rickey,’” he ordered, with polite insistence. Janice returned, banteringly:

“Service is the policy here. We strive to please the most exacting—Good evening, Mr. Rickey.”

“No, not ‘Mr. Rickey,’” he mimicked in a ludicrous falsetto exaggeration of her own voice, “just Rickey.”

“All right, Just Rickey; what are you going to have this evening?”

“You.”

“Now you’re being silly again,” her tone became a trifle sharp.

“Please forgive me; but, really, what I came in for is to know whether you won’t come out with me and have a bite to eat somewhere else? Not that this isn’t the finest lunch room on the north side—only, it occurred to me that maybe you were tired of always eating here, and would like a change.”

He must be a mind reader, Janice decided. He was so clever and thoughtful. She was tired of eating the food that she served all day. Still, was it fair to Bob?

She decided that it was, since she would not hesitate to tell Bob all about it, just as freely as she would have told him all about a friendly companionship with some girl—if there had been any chance for such—if all of the girls in the district hadn’t been so impossibly frivolous and man-mad. Her decision made, Janice said:

“All right; tell you what I’ll do: if you’ll make it a ‘Dutch Treat,’ I’ll go with you.”

“But I’m not Dutch,” he protested. “I’m French.”

Janice laughed.

“I’m not Dutch either, but that’s the only way I’ll go.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m engaged, and I don’t think—”

“Goodness, what hair-splitting! If it’s wrong for you to let me treat you, it’s wrong for you to go out with me at all. And surely even your corn-fed friend wouldn’t be so narrow as to deny you a platonic friend, just because the friend happened to be of the same sex he is?”

Janice frowned, she hoped, severely, and he hastened to make amends:

“Please forgive me; I didn’t mean to speak lightly of your fiancé. I probably did so just because I’m jealous of him. I humbly apologize.

“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll match you to see who pays for both dinners.” He was so good-natured about it all that Janice found herself forgiving him completely and championing the “head” side of a dime.

He threw the coin into the air, caught it in his hand, slapped it down upon the back of his other hand and announced: “Tails! You lose!”

Half an hour later they sat down at a beautifully white table, in the largest hotel of the neighborhood.

It was the first time in her life that Janice had ever been inside such a hostelry. She was enchanted with the glistening white tablecloth of heavy linen, the dainty silver vase containing flowers in the center of the table. She noticed that they were real flowers, and wondered how the management could afford to change them every day.

The pretty dosser over the back of her chair seemed to burn her back, and she hardly dared lean against it, for fear of harming it.

The bewildering menu, with its foreign names, and its almost incredible “teal” and “capon” left her speechless. She knew what they got for capons and teals down home—what they charged for them here was amazing; they got as much for half a capon as her father received from the buyers representing out-of-town hotels for a dozen whole ones.

She wondered how the management dared trust the heavy silver service to their diners in a city like Chicago, not knowing that the theft of this same silverware by some of the diners was paid for by every one who ate a meal there.

She was thinking of her humble little “card” at the lunchroom—which she had previously considered quite fancy—when she noticed that people at surrounding tables were staring at her. At once she felt uncomfortable and self-conscious. She thought of her cheap dress, which she had made herself.

Rickey noticed her obvious discomfiture and instantly guessed its cause.

“My dear, you’re superb; don’t worry about your clothes. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I hadn’t seen that you looked up to it.

“You’re dressed more prettily than any one else present. That little frock you’ve got on is so simple and neat that it looks positively Parisy.”

“Then why are people looking at me?”

“‘People’? Isn’t it mainly the men who are looking at you? Do you not see that they are frankly admiring you?”

The waiter came to take their order, and Rickey thoughtfully ordered for both, not permitting her to be embarrassed by her ignorance of the foreign items upon the menu.

When the waiter had gone he resumed softly:

“You’re soothing upon the male optic nerve; that’s why they are looking at you. Such clear, soft skin, natural healthy color and bright eyes and lovely, naturally golden hair is not often seen in this high-tone hashery. You’re like—” he searched for a minute, “like Aphrodite, after reducing. No wonder they look at you!

“I’ll match you another dime to see whether or not I eat you.” He saw her look of dismay at his flippant words and suggested quickly:

“Dance?”

They had finished their hors d’oeuvres and the orchestra had started a fox trot.

“Oh, no—I’m sorry,” she said. “It isn’t that I don’t want to; I simply don’t know how.” She blushed and wondered how it would be at all possible to tell such a sophisticated young man that where she came from dancing was still thought to be a device of the devil.

“Impossible,” he denied. “Any one as graceful and fairylike as you are has it born in them—and this fox-trot thing—it’s a cinch. Anyway, the floor’s so packed no one will see, even if you do make a few mistakes at the start. Let me show you what you can do if you half-try.”

Much against her better judgment, she rose and he escorted her out of the loge at the side of the dancing floor, in which they had been sitting. Out upon the polished floor space reserved for dancers, Janice felt as though she had dived into ice water over her head.

The jazz band was beating out a melody that seemed to throb through her like a fever. A potent evocation for some latent sense of rhythm within her, it caused her feet to glide about the floor with surprising ease.

Rickey controlled her lithe young body with just the suggestion of a push or pull, so that she seemed to be dancing expertly, with an almost magical facility:

“Used to be a dancing instructor,” he explained. “Quit it because there wasn’t one customer in a thousand as graceful and as easy to teach as you are.”

“You will persist in flattering me, won’t you?” she reproved.

“Because I love you!” he sang with the song that was at the moment being played, the words happening to fit in perfectly at the time.

The dance over, they went back to the table for the rest of their dinner.

“Tell you what let’s do,” said Rickey as they finished up with two pink frozen sorbets; “it’s a little late, but the moon will be delightful. Let me go around to the ‘Drive Your Own’ garage and pick up a car. We’ll go for a drive out along the north shore.”

The rhythm of the dance was still in Janice’s head. Like a spell of enchantment, the consciousness of excitement and strange beauty was upon her, seeming to make her unfold to new delights of which she had never dreamed before.

She was intoxicated with the sight of wonderfully gowned women, men in sleek evening wear—brightness, music, flowers, laughter—like some strange new and delightful world.

Surely Bob would not object to this interlude of hectic pleasure. When they were married they should have to work very hard; there wouldn’t be much time for fun. Not that she’d object!

IV.

The car was secured from the garage, and in a few minutes they were rolling along smoothly on the even surface of Sheridan Road. The air, which, a moment before, had been dead and stifling, was now rushing in cool waves against her face.

After a time Rickey stopped the car beside a wooded embankment close to the lake. In Hubbard’s Woods.

“Enjoying yourself?” he inquired.

“Oh, wonderfully! But doesn’t it cost an awful lot to rent a car? You must be a millionaire, taking me to such an expensive place for dinner, renting a car, never worrying about or even mentioning your job.” He laughed heartily.

“Me—a millionaire. What a notion! I’m a poor but honest working man. I sell steel—on a straight commission basis. Since I receive no salary, my time is my own. It costs next to nothing to rent a car.

“Don’t let it worry you. I’ve never known a girl who could be ‘taken out’ so economically as you; I’m positively ashamed of myself, the way I’ve treated you.”

There was a full moon riding high over the blue-black, sparkling waters of the lake. In some near-by home a radio set was receiving an excellent program, which they could hear filtering softly through the trees. Janice felt that she would remember the moment always.

A moment later she knew that she would, for Rickey took her into his arms, lifting her light body off of the seat to his lap. She struggled, but he held her tightly.

“Little angel,” he breathed, “I can’t help this. I must tell you that I love you. Please don’t be angry with me. How can I possibly keep from telling you—you make yourself irresistible without at all trying to—probably, in fact, that’s the very secret of it.”

“You ought to be able to keep from saying such things to me, after I’ve told you that I’m engaged,” Janice told him firmly.

“But could Bob possibly love you as I do?”

“Bob loves me, I’m sure.”

“You don’t sound as though you were so very sure of it. Just give yourself time and you’ll believe as I do that your engagement to Bob was merely a matter of propinquity.”

“But I’m promised to him!”

“That’s just it. You’ve mistaken his kindness for love. If Bob is the right sort of fellow, and you explain things to him, he’ll release you—I feel sure of that. He’s got to.

“He’ll see that you’ve changed. You’re no country girl any more. You’re bright and clever; together, dear, we could go far beyond anything you’ve planned.

“You’re made for something better than serving meals in a lunch room—not that you don’t considerably raise that profession by your connection with it.”

Without giving her any indication of his intention to do so, he pressed his lips down upon hers. She jerked from him and withdrew to the farthest corner of the seat.

“Please let’s drive back,” she said, calmly enough, though her heart was filled with rage, rage at herself that she could have so thrilled to his kiss, promised, as she was, to another.

It seemed cruel that she should be in such a position. Before her a new life might well open up, with Rickey, a life full of beauty, far removed from the drabness that had always marked her living, marked it just as unmistakably in the city, as back in Iowa.

Was she, she wondered, one of those unlucky ones born under some fateful star, doomed to a commonplace, unlovely life? She bit her lip angrily, as she noticed that the little trefoil device, containing a miniature light, on the radiator cap of the car, was becoming blurred to her vision.

What right, she asked herself angrily, had she to think of a life with Bob as commonplace and unlovely? What had come over her? She looked far out into the somnolent complacency of the lake, as the road paralleled it for a long stretch.

Thoughts bobbed into her head unbidden: Bob, in overalls, his hair creeping out over the edges of his ears; a corncob pipe in his mouth; his face tanned, weather-beaten to a hard bronze; his slow manner of speech; his equally slow way of thinking.

Rickey, in his immaculate clothing, his dark good looks, smooth, white skin, nimble mind, easy fluency.

When he turned to her again, as they passed through Winnetka, she listened silently as he talked and drove.

“You’re just a wee bit stubborn,” he said in a tone of voice that took the sting out of the words; “you made up your mind and you’re determined to keep it made up.

“I honestly believe that, deep down in your heart, you recognize, now, your mistake in having become engaged to Bob. But you’re going to go ahead and marry him, even though you’re beginning to suspect that you do not love him, just for the sake of keeping your mind made up.

“Janice, dear, you must reconsider. Your happiness depends upon it; his happiness depends upon it, and so does mine. You two couldn’t get along well together. Your mind is capable of infinite expansion.”

Janice was silent. Something deep within her was agreeing with him; and yet, something else—was it just loyalty, she wondered?—was very violently disagreeing with him.

It was as though a tiny, almost incoherent voice that did not use words at all for its medium of expression which was whispering to her. It was as though the heart itself were meekly striving, in its own language, for recognition, against the dictates of the mind. He cut in upon her thoughts with:

“Afraid of your own best judgment—that’s what you are. But forgive me; I won’t pester you any more to-night. Think it over, though. I haven’t given up; I just don’t want to spoil your ride. I won’t say anything more about it.”

“Thanks, awfully,” she said with relief: “you’re really so considerate. And it’s a mighty good thing you are, because your ability as a salesman is—” She didn’t finish it and he, understandingly, after a minute, said:

“How could one be other than gracious with you?”

V.

At home, after their ride, Janice sat down alone in her room for the purpose of thinking things out straight. Was she doing wrong? she asked herself. Was she letting herself be superficially attracted by a surface glitter?

Because she happened to love to read, had she let herself be fascinated merely because she had at last met a man who looked and talked like a character in a book, as opposed to the dull, plodding, slow-witted men she had known at home?

And, on the other hand, had she any right to turn from Bob’s devotion to her, and his demonstrated sincere regard for her, even though her heart turned from him to another—as she was afraid that it was about to do?

Hadn’t Bob a very definite right to his happiness? Wasn’t it more important to consider Bob’s happiness than her own?

She decided that she had no right to break Bob’s heart.

But the decision, though she knew that she would stick to it, brought her no peace of mind. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Why was it, she wondered, that love was always so complicated—even in real life, just as in books? Was it a test of some sort that every one had to go through some time, in order to prove themselves really deserving of the priceless gift of true love?

At any rate one thing was clear to her: She would tell Bob the truth, but if he would not release her from their engagement—until she was more certain of her own mind—she would marry him as she had promised. On this final decision she lay down to sleep.

When, the following afternoon, she got Mrs. Halsey to come to the lunch room to watch things for an hour or so, while she went to the station to meet Bob, she was still rather undecided as to what, exactly, her course of action would be.

She was near to panic with the realization that the crucial hour had come. All of the rest of her life might be altered within the hour.

Rickey, thoughtful as ever, had sent around a taxi to take her to the station. He had instructed the driver to tell her that the trip down was paid for in advance. He had even sent a note by the driver, telling her that he had engaged a room for Bob. The key to the room was inclosed with the note.

At the station, while she waited for the train, Janice made up her mind to one thing: she must tell Bob all. But, later, when she saw him, her determination to do this almost fled.

She hardly recognized him. When he swooped down upon her, neat traveling bag in hand, he looked just like any well-dressed city man, so far as his clothing and outward appearance were concerned; but his shoulders were broader, his face healthily tanned.

Before every one he swept her diminutive form into his arms and kissed her. All in a moment, understanding came to her, as she stood strained against his big, protecting body.

It was Bob that she loved. What subtle influence could ever for a moment have caused her to think otherwise?

“Oh, Bob!” she breathed. “You mustn’t! You mustn’t, before all of these people!”

But he was too happy to notice her strange, tense manner. He swept her along with him toward the exit, chatting volubly. She had never heard him talk so much.

It was as though his release from the farm had opened some prison door within him, behind which he had previously confined a different sort of Bob, waiting and longing for emancipation. She remembered that something of the sort had taken place with her, too, when she had first come to the city.

“Everything’s lovely,” he told her. “Dad found a first-rate hired man to take my place. I sold out all of my own personal things—stock I’d raised myself—everything. Got the fifteen hundred, and more, right with me, in cash.

“Didn’t know anybody up here except you. Wasn’t taking any chances on having trouble getting a check cashed.

“We’ll be regular folks, Janice, dear; isn’t it wonderful, after all those dull days down on the farm? I never minded them so much when you were there—but after you’d gone! Lordy! It was as though heaven and earth had passed away and left a great hole with no edge around it.”

She remained silent as they climbed into a taxi and started north. She hoped that presently he would talk himself out. Then, maybe, she could summon up courage to tell him what she must tell him, in all fairness to both men.

“Let’s get married right away, to-morrow,” he ended up, beaming down at her and drawing her slim form into the strong circle of his arm. She looked back up at him tragically, finding time, however, to note with approval that his hair was neatly clipped and that he was really handsome, even as judged by city standards.

“Bob,” she began, hesitantly, “I’ve got something to tell you.” And then she told him everything, clear down to the fact of Rickey having engaged a room for him.

He said nothing at all, during her recital, never once interrupting her. When she had finished he remarked only:

“You say that this Rickey chap is very clever?”

“W-e-e-l, he’s—”

“And you don’t consider me, er—precisely clever, do you, Janie?”

“Oh, Bob! Why put it that way? And, anyway, I know, now, that it is you I love.”

“Let’s not say any more about it,” he suggested, “for the present. However, this thing will have to be worked out in the right way before we can talk marriage. I wouldn’t for the world have you marry me while there is the slightest notion in your pretty head that it might be some sort of duty.

“Is that the post office over there?” he broke off to ask, as they traveled slowly through the traffic on Clark Street.

“Yes,” Janice told him mechanically.

“Driver, stop at the post office a minute, please,” he ordered, opening the glass panel in the front division of the cab. “Got to get a letter off,” he explained cryptically to Janice, as the cab stopped and he swung out and up the post office steps.

Janice watched him mount the steps, her heart heavy. All of the spring had gone out of his step. She had, she told herself, ruined everything.

That it was Bob she truly loved, she knew now beyond any question of a doubt. But he would never believe that there was not some reservation in her mind.

How happy they could have been, she told herself, and why was it that Rickey had come into her life? Providence was most unkind. She furtively dabbed at her hot eyes as she sat alone in the taxi, thinking of poor Bob’s dragging steps up the post office ramp.

It was a long time before he came out. When at last he did, he spoke cheerfully of matters “down home,” bravely pretending to be happy.

But Janice knew only too well that she had made him miserable, upon what should have been the happiest of his life’s days. She hung her head and gazed dejectedly out of the taxi window.

VI.

It was necessary that she go immediately back to the lunch room to relieve Mrs. Halsey, who was white of face, and almost ready to drop when Janice arrived.

Rather glad, Janice was, of the opportunity to work and think alone. Bob, apparently, was almost relieved at their temporary parting.

He bid a cheerful good-by to her from the taxi, when she got out before the lunch room; then he went on to the room Rickey had engaged for him, without once looking back, though Janice watched for him to do so.

All afternoon, while she worked, she waited for Bob to come to the lunch room; and, at dinner time, she thought surely he would appear. But the hours passed, and there was no sign of him.

At last, after closing up, she decided to go to his rooming house. Probably there would be some sort of lobby, where they could talk; perhaps Bob would take her out for a walk.

How lovely it would be to walk with him, to show him the things that had interested her, when she had first come to the city; watch his eyes open wide at the sights she could show him: the huge Municipal Beach, the Lake Shore Drive, and its constant pageant of beautiful motor cars!

How delightful it would have been to rest her arm upon his big, strong one and walk closely to him, side by side, as they often had through the countryside at home, talking so understandingly, without ever a thought of any one coming between them!

And she had ruined all that; her heart was near to breaking as she drew close to the address that had been contained in the note from Rickey.

The building proved to be close to the edge of a run-down section on the north side, where two twisted short streets joined.

A slatternly old woman shuffled up some steps that led down into a basement doorway. The woman eyed Janice strangely when she asked that the young man who had come in that afternoon for the room Rickey had recommended be notified that she was downstairs.

“He’s in the hospital,” the woman said, with an abruptness that was nothing short of brutal.

“In the hospital?” Janice gasped. “In the hospital! Oh! I see! You just don’t understand who it is that I’m looking for. I suppose more than one man came in for a room this afternoon, of course.”

“No, no—I know who you mean,” interrupted the woman, “the country jake. Sure. I know. There was a big fight in his room. He was hurt. They took him to the Grant Brothers’ hospital.”

As fast as she could get there by taxi, Janice rushed out to the hospital on the northwest side. Explaining that she was affianced to the injured man, she was at last dubiously admitted, after some complications due to the fact that it was a time at which visitors were not permitted entry.

“H’lo,” Bob greeted her cheerfully, from his bed in a small ward wherein he was, at the time, the only patient.

“Bob!” she cried, kneeling down by the side of the bed, taking one of his big, rough hands into her own tiny ones: “Bob. How badly are you hurt?” She tried to force back the tears, but her lips trembled so that she scarce could speak, and the film of smarting tears almost blinded her eyes.

“Hurt! Shucks! I’m not hurt. Got a wallop over the head with a billy that split open my scalp. Knocked me out for a time. They insist that I’ve got to lie here until morning.

“I’ve been hurt worse on the farm, lots of times, and went right on working.” His head was bandaged, and there was blood upon the bandage.

“But how did it happen?”

“Stickups; they came into my room. They got my wallet, and everything that was in it,” he added.

Janice tried to speak, but it was impossible. Looking into his cheerful face, the tears fell fast. She was thinking of the years it had taken him to save that money.

“Don’t mind, dear,” she managed at last. “I’ll keep on working. If I have to give up the place in the lunch room, when Mrs. Halsey sells it, I’ll find another job, and I’ll help you find one. We’ll be married at once, and work together.”

“Maybe,” he pointed out, “the police will recover my wallet. They got one of the fellows. I knocked him out before they got me. But he didn’t have the wallet on him, they said.

“And, anyway, how about this Rickey chap? Maybe you do truly love him. Maybe he could help you to buy the restaurant right away. Maybe you only thought you loved me because there was nobody else around, back home.”

“Don’t even talk that way,” put in Janice, blushing. “I don’t ever want to see Rickey again so long as I live—I’ll never forgive him for having let you go to a questionable place.”

“You’re sure you don’t love him?”

“Oh, Bob! Please believe me when I say that I don’t.”

He smiled up at her confidently. “I believe you, and I fully understand. There are men who could fool anybody.” His eyes told her that she was fully forgiven. She threw herself upon her knees, by the side of the bed, putting her arms about him.

“You sure you’re not badly hurt?” she asked, holding him so tightly that, strong as he was, he winced and looked up into her face in surprise.

“Honestly, it’s nothing,” he assured her, a new pleasure in his voice. “And,” he added softly, “you do really care, don’t you, Janie? It doesn’t seem possible you could care for a big, awkward stiff like me!”

She lowered her head to his shoulder and hid her face against the side of his neck. He felt the damp of her tears.

“Why! What are you crying about, Janie, little angel? There’s nothing for you to cry over.”

“I’m crying,” she got out, “to think that I ever for a moment supposed that any man but you could hold even a very tiny corner of my heart.”

He raised her up and, kissing her, patted her head lovingly. Several moments later a surgeon came in and lifted her up, escorting her to the door with a polite:

“Please—he ought to get a nap now.”

Outside the ward she asked the surgeon tensely:

“How badly hurt is he? I must know.”

“It’s almost nothing,” the doctor told her with a shrug. “He really could go right now, only I thought it best that he stay until morning, so that I can have one more look at the abrasion on his head.

“There’s not the slightest danger, but I don’t want to take any chances on an infection setting up. I can check it easily, if I have him where I can watch.”

He picked up a paper from the waiting room table and handed it to her.

“Seen this last edition?” he asked politely, “there’s an account of the affair in it.” Janice took the early morning edition of one of the city’s leading dailies and was confronted with a picture of Rickey.

The news article ran:

“Gentleman Sanders” is in trouble again. This nimble-witted ex-convict, who has kept the smartest minds at the detective bureau busy for several years, met his Waterloo yesterday in the person of a farmer from Iowa who, in company with several of his notorious companions, he succeeded in relieving of his wallet—but only after the gentleman from Iowa had handed him a haymaker which kept him in dreamland until the police arrived.

Unfortunately Gentleman Sanders’s companions made off with their victim’s wallet, and no trace has been found of them or the wallet.

However, the various rewards on Gentleman, which will naturally go to Iowa’s husky son, should more than make up for the contents of the wallet.

Several of Gentleman Sanders’s bigamous wives have been searching for the slick young college man who turned to crime.

Early the following morning, Janice went again to the hospital. Another surgeon, then on duty, cheerfully permitted “the hard-hitting gentleman from Iowa,” as he called him, to leave with her in a taxi.

As they drove toward the lunch room, Bob took her into his arms, kissed her, and hugged her until Janice squealed for mercy.

“You’re not so slow,” she told him delightedly, “catching one of the keenest crooks in the city, and carrying on like this in a taxicab—how did you know that city people often kiss and hug in taxicabs?”

“Been getting the Chicago papers ever since you left,” he laughed. “All I’ve thought about since you pulled out was you and Chicago; can’t we be married right away?”

“I’ll get Mrs. Halsey to come to the lunch room for an hour or so this afternoon, and we’ll go down town and be married.”

“O. K.,” he grinned.

When they got to the lunch room and opened up, Bob sat down at a table and grandly ordered breakfast.

“I’ll cook it for you myself, before the cook comes,” Janice told him.

“No, you won’t!” He looked very stern. “I won’t have you cooking a meal in a restaurant for me—and I won’t have you waiting on table in a restaurant. We’re going to have plenty of capital now; we’ll rent that store next door, and join it to this one.

“I understand that that reward money will run to nearly five thousand dollars. That’ll be enough to run the new restaurant on, on a good, substantial scale, to start, and yet leave a small, safety-first reserve, in case things don’t go well, so that we can get into something else later, if needs be.”

Just then the mailman came in. There was the usual deluge of advertising matter, which Janice threw on the table unopened; but, this time, there was also a letter for her. It was a large envelope, registered and insured. After signing for it, Janice excitedly tore it open.

A sheaf of currency fell out upon the table, and with the bills was a letter, which read:

My own dear little Janice:

From what you’ve told me about this Rickey chap, I’m afraid. I think he was in on that holdup you described, as a lookout, and that he decided to go after bigger game when he got inside the store and saw beautiful little you.

I am afraid he has engaged the room for me with intentions not wholly kindly; you may have let him trick you into telling him about the money I would have with me when I came to Chicago. It would be so easy for him to get both my money and my girl, if he’s the wrong kind.

But he may not give me credit for a little smartness, myself; and he may be overestimating his hold on you. We’ll see.

If I’m all wrong, I’ll humbly apologize to him. But, in the meantime, I’m going to play safe and mail this money to you for safekeeping.

Bob.

Transcriber’s Note

This story appeared in Argosy magazine, July 28, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.

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Table of Contents

- Clever—?

- II.

- III.

- IV.

- V.

- VI.

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