BEST SHORT STORIES

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 8

BEST SHORT STORIES

IX.—BEAU PEST.

By

RICHARD CONNELL.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.)

In Grand City, which is way up in New York State, and from which you can throw a stone into Canada if you feel that way, and which isn’t a city, aYid isn’t very grand, everybody knew Squinty Dubois. He was the only messenger boy in town, a position m which he took no small pride, even if he did deliver the yellow tidings about Aunt Sophie’s twins, clad in a uniform the fit of which was one of the minor ecandals of Grand City and the adjacent countryside. Statuesqueness and beauty had been denied Sqvinty Dubois, and nature, to make it a thoroughly artistic job, had thrown in as fine a pair of crossed eyes as you’d be likely to encounter in many a long day. When the bovine Pudge Lang transferred his bulk from the messenger service to the police force, Squinty begged for the vacant post so persistently and eloquently that it uas given to him and the uniform as well. The job was small, but the uniform was not. . “You’d make a lot more money down to the bottle works,” his father pointed cut —his father, out of work just nine years come Easter by reason of . a mysterious weakness in his back which kept him from lifting anything heavier than a knife and fork. “Let the boy be,” said his mother, touching her moistened finger to the sizzling flat-iron. “He has the ambition, that one.” From Quebec she had come, Germaine Bourbon, a fine figure of a girl till marriage and fat had overtaken her, and the accent of Quebec was still in her speech. “It’s the uniform,” said the father derisively. “ Squint’s always been a nut about them.” “And why not? ” his mother demanded. “ Was not his great-great-grandfather a sergeant major in the army of Napoleon himself ? There s good blood in the boy—on one side anyway.” “Yeah?” said his father. “Yeah?” “ Yes, vast lump of idleness —the blood of the Bourbons. Did a Dubois ever do anything but eat? ” Squinty caught up his blue official cap and slipped out of the dooi. He had heard that debate before —many times. He went to the telegraph office in the railroad station, sat on a stool, waited, dozed. His mind wandered off into a world peopled by characters from the books he was so fond of reading. They were dashing fellow's, all of them, prodigiously tall, debonair, and handsome cavaliers, a hint of a sabre cut on theii tanned chins; soldiers of fortune, beloved of women, admired and feared of men, who ranged strange lands in search of adventure and came on it around every corner, and always, except only in their baths, they wore uniforms —the black and silver of the hussars, the scarlet and ' gold of the lancers, white-plumed shakos, gleaming spurs, swirling capes of vivid hues. A buzzing fly brought him back to the world of facts. With sad brain he measured the infinity between himself and his dream. His eyes surveyed his own uniform —glassy from long wear, voluminous. But the sight did not depress him long. At any rate it was a uniform, and he mused, it’s the man inside that really counts. The first six months he wore that uniform had not been an unmixed pleasure for Squinty Dubois. Often his duty took him down Market street and he had to pass Charley Roth’s pool room, where the young men with sporting proclivities and no employment daily congregated. He was the favourite target for their gibes. “Hey, Squinty! ” “ Pine Squint in the Mother Hubbard! ” , . ... “ Hey, pants, where you going with that boy? ” For all his twenty years, it seemed to him, people -had laughed at him.. But he never got used to it. He tried, to pass the jeerers with an aloof dignity, but it is. rather hard to be dignified when you measure sft 3in from the soles of your shabby shoes to the pink fuzz on "top of your head, and a set of crossed eyes do not greatly help. It was his earnest wish that he might charge them, scattering them right and left with potent fists, leaving them battered and cowed, but lie had learned when still quite young that little men do not attack bigger ones with, for the former, happy results, except in dreams and books. Whenever he had to run the gauntlet of their mockery the experience left sore spots on him. Although everybody knew him and called him Squinty, he had no close friends. Only his mother called him by his proper name, and he derived slight comfort from that, for he had been christened Alphonse.

However, in the seventh month of his service, during which he often had spells of acute loneliness, he found a friend. It was no less a person than Captain Stephen O’Dare, of the Foreign Legion. Captain O’Dare was a gentleman adventurer, tall, rather sinister of visage, hard as railroad spikes, and be-

decked with many ribbons, won by deeds of almost unbelievable gallantry on a hundred battlefields. Wherever Squinty Dubois went, delivering telegrams, Captain O’Dare accompanied him, striding silently by his side, for the captain was a man of action, not words. He accepted Squinty as a brother in arms, and to him Squinty talked as they walked along. “ Captain, remember the time you and I was w’ith the Cossacks? That was a grand horse you had—that big, black stallion. That white charger of mine wasn’t no cluck either. I’ll never forget the day we licked the stuffings out of them ten Bullshevicks. Lemme see, now—you got six and I got four of ’em, or was it the other way round ? ” The captain said nothing. He, too, seemed to be recalling that stirring day. They had turned into Market street and would soon pass the poolroom. Squinty did not scurry by now. He passed the jeerers with chin held out and disdain printed on his face. Passing it was an ordeal no longer. “ Captain,” he remarked, “ this reminds me of the time we quelled that mob in Cairo. Remember how we just sailed by ’em and gave ’em cool, hard looks and they slank away ? Them yapping eggs over there—-what are they but a lot of rabble anyhow ? Let’s ignore ’em.” To this plan the captain gave his silent support. They had passed the poolroom now. “ Well, captain, that’s the way for military men to treat scum. Say, do you remember the day we was dropping bums on the Riffs? ” When Squinty reached the house of his parents, before entering it to eat his supper, he always brought his heels smartly together and jerked up his hand to the vizor of his cap in a salute, and said: “ Good night, captain. See you tomorrow.” Neighbours spying him from their windows grinned at each other and tapped their temples with meaningful forefingers. At night, before he said his prayers and went to sleep, Squinty Dubois went through a ritual. He carefully brushed

his cap and uniform, and, with brass polish and' a bit of shirt-tail, rubbed ,Jiis buttons till they shone. Then he "hung up his coat on a chair and laid his trousers under the mattress in the hope, never fully realised, that this process wrnuld impart to them a crease and render their bagginess less offensive to the eyes of Captain O’Dare. For two years and a month Squinty Dubois had filled his place with satisfaction to his employers and to himself. The poolroom habitues, finding him indifferent to their catcalls, had pretty well abandoned that pastime. He liked his life now. He had ever added considerably to a secret fund to be devoted some day to the purchase of a new uniform. It was on a particularly black night that old man Kline pushed his green eye-shade up from his lobster-claw of a nose, silenced his clicking key, and barked: “ Squinty! Come here I ” His voice jerked Squinty back from the heart of Zululand, where, at the moment, he was wading knee-deep in blood by the side of Captain O’Dare. He bustled, businesslike, from his corner. “Yes, Mr Kline?” “ Here’s a very important telegram for Nick Morentz.” “ Oh,” said Squinty. “ Him ? ” “ Yes,” said Mr Kline, “ him.” “He’s on one of his benders,” said Squinty. i “So I heard. Well, bender or no i bender, rush means rush.” “ He knocked out six of Pudge Lang’s teeth last time he had a snootful,” said [ Squinty. } “ Well,” said Kline cheerfully, “ mebbe i he’ll only knock out five of yours. Hurry 1 along now.” L “ He’s no man to go near when he’s boiling drunk, Mr Kline.” f “ That’s no lie,” agreed Kline. “If 1 it was up to me, Squinty, I wouldn’t i send you there to-night. But rush means j rush.i We got to deliver that telegram i at once.” n “We? ” asked Squinty. f “ You,” said Kline. “ It’s your job, •- ain’t it? ”

“ Yes—but ” “You ain’t afraid of Nick, are you?” “ Oh, no,” said Squinty hastily. “ oh, no. Only—he’ll be all alone in that house of his—and it’s two miles up the hill—and its raining cats and dogs — and I got a blister on one of my heels —and I sort of thought to-morrow would be time enough “ This telegram,” said Kline impressively, “ is marked ‘ Rush.’ That don’t mean to-morrow. It means right\now.” “ It’s probably about that hooch he runs across the border,” said Squinty. “ Me, I’m a loyal citizen of the United States of America, and its going against the Government and the flag to deliver a message like that.” “ I don’t know what it’s about,” said Kline. “ It’s in code. But it don’t make no difference if it’s from the Sultan of Turkey asking Nick Morentz to sell him Washington, D.C., for lldol. We’re a public service corporation, we are, and we got to deliver all messages so long

as they don’t contain profanity. So you just hop on your bike, Squinty Dubois, and pedal out to Nick’s place, even if it’s raining billy goats ”

Squinty tucked the telegram inside his cap. “ If he gets gay with me,” he declared, “ I won’t be responsible for what I do to him, that’s all.” “ That’s the spirit,” said Kline. But Squinty did not go. “ It’s an awful bad night,” he observed from the doorway, “ and Nick will be wild from tlie liquor by now ” “ Say, listen,” said Kline. “ Are you wearing the company’s uniform or aren’t you? ” You’re like a soldier that’s got his orders. Are you going to carry them out or ain’t you ? ” The slight shoulders of Squinty Dubois squared. His face took on an approximation of a martial scowl. “ Mr Kline,” he said, “ I’ll deliver this here telegram, alive or dead.” He spun on his heels and went out into the rain, and Kline, chuckling to himself, bent over his chattering keys. Up the steep, winding road that led to Nick Morentz’s house,. through ' the dark and rain, Squinty’’ pumped his bicycle. He saw the lights of the house, like angry eyes, among the pine trees. It was a squat, ugly, middle-aged house, which exactly matched its owner. Squinty gripped the handles of his bicycle and pushed on, thinking, most unhappily, of Nick Morentz, Nobody liked Nick much. But people were afraid of him, and that suited him exactly. There were dark whisperings in the community about the source of his income, but no one ventured to meddle with his affairs. Men had learned not to meddle with Nick. He was a night animal who prowled alone, and people had found it wise to give him a wide berth at all times, but especially on those oeasions when he had embarked on one of his solitary orgies of drinking. When the word was spread through , the town, “Nick is starting in again,” peace-loving men stayed indoors. They

knew that, for a night at least, Nick would be as safe as a razor in the hands of an ape. So, by common consent, nobody went near him at such times. Outside the tumble-down stone wall, Squinty dismounted from his wheel and glanced tentatively up the weed-grown path which led to Nick Morentz’s house. A guttural blast of snarled song came through the dank inkiness of the might: “ Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest, “Yo, ho, and a bottle of rum!” In the house there was a shivering crash of glass as the neck of a bottle was knocked off against the stone fireplace. Squinty Dubois froze like a rabbit. His heart travelled due north in his thirteen-inch throat and crowded chokingly against his Adam’s apple. Outlined on the window shade he saw a shadowy, shaggy shape, twisted, ogrelike. He heard, in a hoarse, bass crescendo: “ Drink and the devil have done for the rest.

Yo, ho, and a bottle of rum!” He knew well the legends about Nick. He was bad at all stages of his spree, but most savage when he sang. Squinty’s knees became castanets. His heart knocked like an old motor on a long hill. From the corner of his mouth he quavered in a whisper:

“ Well, Captain O’Dare, it looks like you and me are in a nasty, fix. We’re sort of outnumbered. But I guess we been in tighter places than this, eh, captain? Anyhow, we got our orders. When we was troopin’ in the North, western Mounted we always got our man. So let’s go.” Squinty took a couple of steps along the path. A gorilla-like roar came from the house. Squinty stopped. “ Captain,” he whispered, “ I wonder if it wouldn t be obeyin’ orders if we snuck round to the back door, stuck the message under it and beat a quick retreat?” To this the captain did not seem to agree. “I s’pose you’re right,” said Squinty. “ It ain’t very soldier-like to go creepin’ round to back doors. We got to respect our uniforms. We got to march right up to that door and deliver the message, come what may. If it means fight, then, by golly, Nick Morentz better have a care! Forward—hup!” Squinty sucked in his breath and started up the path again with spasmodic steps. The path seemed a mile long. He had three yards to go before he would reach the sagging porch, when he heard a jangle of bolts and the front ; door was flung open and Nick Morentz’s burly body blackened the doorway, and, as he combed the night with bloodshot eyes, he growled: What dirty son of a hog is out there? Who’s that? ” . In a very faint voice Squinty Dubois squeaked: “ Nobody.” Then he did what he had promised himself he would not do, what he di<' not want to do, but what something stronger than his will made him do. he turned and ran. He ran, without being aware that he was running, down the path as instinctively as a hare flees from the hounds. He ran blindly until he banged his shins against the stone wall and tumbled over it. He got tangled in his bicycle, untangled, himself, jumped on it, and shot down the hill towards the town. Rain and tears, neither of which

he could stop, dimmed his vision, but Im did not slacken his speed till he had whisked round the corner of Graham street and had pulled up in front of thelittle yellow house where he lived. He was trembling as he closed the door of his bedroom and his fingers shook as he fumbled out of his clothes. He saw, by the gas light, that there were two jagged holes in the knees of his trousers, made when he plunged over the wall. His coat was torn, too. That his knees were cut he did not notice at all. That night, for the first time since he had donned it, he did not brush and hang up his uniform, and let it lie where it had fallen from him, a soggy huddle on the floor. He got into bed and buried his face in the pillow. It was a long time before he ceased to tremble. By morning the rain had stopped. Old man Kline looked up from under his eye-shade. “ Hey, Squinty,” he said, “ what’s the idea? You’re late, and you ain’t in uniform.”

Squinty Dubois held out a package wrapped in newspapers. “ Here’s your uniform,” he said. “What’s the matter? Quittin’?” “Yes, Mr Kline.” “ What’s eatin’ you ? Want more dough ? ” “No, Mr Kline. It ain’t a question of dough.” “Got a better job?” “No, I ain’t got any job.” “Then what’s bitin’ you. Squinty? “It’s this way, Mr Kline,” said Squinty. “ I ain’t fit to wear that uniform no more. I’ve—well, I’ve gone and disgraced it, that’s what I’ve gone and done.”

Old man Kline puckered an uncomprehending brow. “You’ve done what?” he asked. “ I laid down on my job,” said Squinty dully. “ I ran away. I . seen my duty plain enough and I didn’t d 7 it.”

“ Say, what the devil are you talking about?” demanded Kline. “ That telegram for Nick Morentz,” said Squinty. “I didn’t deliver it last night.” “Oh, so that’s it! Well, what did you do with it? ”*Mr Kline showed no great emotion of any sort at the news. “ I snuck up this morning while he was asleep and left it at his back door with the milk.” “ Mmmmmm,” said Kline. “ Scared of the old crocodile, eh? Well,<as I said, rush means rush, but we’ll overlook it this time. Here, now —hop up to the Grand Hotel and deliver this telegram to Mr H. Van Ballicom.” But Squintv Dubois shook his head. “No, Mr "Kline,” he said. “It’s mighty nice of you to be willing to let me keep my job, but I can’t stay—now.” “Oh, you’re full of red ants!” said Kline. “ You don’t look at it like I do, Mr Kline,” said Squinty. “Well, how do you look at it?” Squinty fastened his gaze on tlie toe of his left shoe.

“ I guess I couldn’t make you understand, mebbe,” he said. “ I guess, mebbe, I look at some things in a funny sort of way. But, anyways, after what I done last night I wouldn’t feel right going round wearing that uniform. I can’t ever wear it again unless—” “Unless what?”

“ Oh, never mind. Mebbe I am full of red ants, like you say. Well, Mr Kline, I’ll be going. I’ll stop by and tell Joe Niles I’m quittin’. He’ll be glad to get the job. Goodbye.” Squinty had to pass the pdolroom to get to his home. He did not go by it with his head up. He scuttled along, hoping they 'would not see him. But they saw him. “ Hey, Squintv, where’s your uniform ? ”

“ Come here, Squint; I want to send a telegram to Nick Morentz.” So they knew. The story had spread already. They’d never let him forget it. Squinty did not turn to Captain O’Dare with words of amused contempt. Captain O’Dare no longer walked by his side. He and the captain had parted company the night before as "he fled down the path of Nick’s house, and Squinty knew that he had lost the respect and friendship of the captain for ever. After supper that night he made his announcement. “ Mom, I’m going away.” “ Away, Alphonse ? Where ? “I dunno. Far away. P’r’aps to the Klondike. P’r’aps to the South Seas.” “ Lost your job, eh ? ’.’ said his father, who was still performing feats of strength and endurance with his knife and fork.. “ I resigned,” said Squinty. “ Ddwn ■ to Charley Roth’s they was sayin’ you were fired for not deliverin’ a telegram to Nick Morentz,” said Dubois senior. “ Let ’em say what they please.” “ Afraid of him, eh ? ” said his father. “A son of mine afraid! ” “ Silence, camel! ” put in his mother. “You have been afraid of work all your days.” She addressed her son. “ I understand, Alphonse,” she said. “You are young. There is little here for you.” “He could get a job down to the bottle works,” said his father. “He shall go away if he wants to,” his mother said. “He has the ambition. Come, Alphonse, I will help you get your clotlies ready.” So in the morning, on a very early 1 train, with no one to see him go, Squinty Dubois left Grand City with a lump in his throat,- a straw suitcase

fn his hand, a five-year-old brown suit on his back, and in his pocket the little store of money he had been saving up for the purchase of a new uniform. His mother had kissed him and given him a shoe box containing two hard-boiled eggs, a banana, and three lamb sandwiches. He went to Plattsburg, for in his mind he had a definite plan, which he had often discussed with Captain O'Dare before their ways parted. In a room on the post office building he found the man he was seeking, a chesty man with a red leather face, and before him Squinty stood as erect as he could, and looked at him as straight as he could, which was not Very straight. “ Sergeant, I want to enlist in the marines,” said Squinty. ‘ The leather face broke into a hundred small wrinkles. “ Can’t take you, son,” the sergeant said, trying to be gruff. “What’s wrong with me?” faltered Squinty. “ It’s your—your elbows,” said the sergeant gravely. “ What's the matter with ’em ? ” “ Nothin’—only they ain’t marine elbows, that’s all.” “ But, sergeant ” “ Look here now, son. There’s no use arguin’. Either a guy’s got marine elbow’s or he ain’t. I been in the corps twenty-seven years—and I know a marine elbow when I see one. I’d like to take you, but I can’t break the rules and regulations, now, can I ? ” “ I s’ppose not,” said Squinty dolefully. At the door Squinty turned. “Say, sergeant, do you think they might take me in the reg’lar army? ” “ They might. They do a lot of things in the reg’lars we don’t do in the marines,” said the sergeant. In another room Squinty found a plump recruiting officer of the regular army, who looked him over quizzically. “ No chance,” said the officer. “Why not?” said Squinty. “You need men. The poster says so.” “Physically Unfit,” said the officer “ I ain't big, but I’m wiry,” said Squinty. “ Here—feel my muscle.” “It isn’t a question of muscle. If you were shooting at a target you'd probably hit a general. Now run along. I’m busy.” “But listen, lieutenant; do you think mebbe they’d take me in the navy? ” “ Anything’s possible in the navy,” the officer said loftily. “ But in your ease you’d be wasting your time trying to get in. I'm sure of that. Good day.” Squinty stumbled down the stairs, and sat on a curbstone and stared blackly into the gutter. Presently he shrugged his shoulders and made for the railroad station. He got off the train in Montreal. He presented himself to a second son of a second son of an earl, spruce in a red uniform. “Well,” said Squinty breezily, “here I am.”

The second son eyed him with some surprise. “Bless my soul, so you are! ” he said. “ But why ? ” “ To join the Northwestern Mounted Police.” “Bless my soul! What as? ” “Trooper. Where do I sign?” The second son blinked. He surveyed the figure before him. Then he said: “ I say, you know, I'm frightfully sorry, but I'm afraid we can’t use you. We’re full up.” “ I heard you wanted troopers,” said Squinty. “ Look here. I’d get my man every time.” The second son plucked a handkerchief out of his sleeve and coughed into it. “No doubt, no doubt,” he said. “Never say die. Bulldog breed and all that. But I’m afraid it’s no go. Perhaps later. Will you leave your name ” “I want to be a trooper—now! ” said Squinty firmly. “Ah.” said the second son. “Quite so. Well, I'll see if you’re qualified. Do you ride a horse ? ” “ I can ride any critter with legs,” lied Squinty. He was quoting from one of the books. The second son rubbed his chin. “ We have a lot to do with the Eskimos,” he said. “You speak Eskimo, I suppose?” “ Sure.” said Squinty. “My old man was an Eskimo.” “ I’ll have to test your fluency,” the second son said. “ Test anything I got,” said Squinty. The second son frowned thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said: “ Was wollen Sie, mein Herr—Bier und Pumpernickel oder Schnapps und Schmierkase? ” - Squinty wrinkled his brow. “Ug,” he said. The second son shook his head. “ I’m afraid,” he. said, “ your Eskimo, is weak.” “I could learn,” cried Squinty. “ Very well. Go and learn. Then come back. Good day.” Squinty went out and walked the streets, wrapped in gloom. His hands explored his pockets, and he was rendered no happier by the discovery that his capital had dwindled to 4.32d01« He must get a job—and soon. He invested in a newspaper and sat combing the “ Help. Wanted—Mules.” An advertisement leaped to his eye. Wanted—Forty husky men, ex-soldiers, . for supers. Apply Mr Cross, stage door, Avon Theatre, 11 a.m., Monday.

“•Husky!” groaned Squinty. But nevertheless he ran all the way to the theatre and wedged himself in the alley which led to the stage door, along with a crowd of old men, middle-aged men, not-too-sober men, little men, big men, and kids. Two dapper men with sharp black eyes passed through the crowd. “ You’ll do,” said Cross, tapping one six-footer on the shoulder. “You’ll do.” He tapped another. “Stand over on the other side of the alley. How many we got, Syd ? ” “ Twenty-one so far,” the other man answered. “ Make it snappy, Ike, or we’ll never get ’em rehearsed.” Squinty pushed himself forward, under Mr Cross's nose. Mr Cross looked at him for a fleeting second. “Outside—you!” he said, and jerked his thumb toward the alley’s exit. Biting his chagrined lips, Squinty started to leave. As he reached the street he heard two of the applicants talking. “What's the racket?” one, a newcomer, was asking. “ They want soldiers for the Foreign Legion in this show,” said the other. Squinty turned back. Ike Cross was rapidly separating the sheep from the goats. The accepted job-seekers were lined up on the right side of the alley. Squinty sidled along. He waited for a propitious moment when Ike Cross and bis assistant were not watching. Then he boldly joined th': line of successful candidates oil the right

“ Ah, let him stay, Ike,” said' Syd. We haven’t time to fuss about details. The army looks like a mob of clamdiggers, anyhow. Besides, he may be good for a laugh, and Heaven knows we need laughs in this show.” So Squinty Dubois marched and charged with the legion when “ Morocco Love ” opened in Montreal. As nearly every one has seen it by now, it is perhaps unnecessary to recall the fact that it was a big and noisy operetta, all about a New York society girl who is travelling in Morocco and is captured by bandits and disguises herself as a native dancing girl and is wooed by a Captain of the Foreign Legion (the tenor). <

“ Broadway is lapping up the Foreign Legion stuff just now,” was the verdict of Messrs Sakman, producers, after the first night in Montreal, “so this show should wow’em. Comedy is something fierce, but we’ll get some new gags before we hit New York. The only funny thing in the show now is that little cock-eyed supe that takes himself so serious. Keep him.” Thus it was that Squinty Dubois was still a legionnaire in “ Morocco Love ” when it opened in the magnificent Sakman-Ibsen Theatre on Broadway, where it stayed for nearly a year. Night after night he played his part. Indeed, he lived it. No need for the stage manager to enjoin him to look ferocious. He glowered viciously at the Arabs. He charged them earnestly and

side of the alley. “ How many we got now, Syd? ” Cross called. “ Thirty-seven.” “And three makes forty,” said Cross. “March into the theatre, you! Get your uniforms downstairs. The pay is one buck a performance. The rest of you—beat it!” With the others Squinty filed into the theatre. A perspiring property man dealt them uniforms from a pile, guessing whether they would fit. Mostly they didn’t. Squinty took his and could hardly get it on, so excited he was. He had just tightened the cartridge-belt about his waist and set his cap at a rakish angle when a voice bellowed: “ Up on the stage, you Foreign Legion eggs! Look sharp and do as you’re told!” . Squinty shouldered his imitation gun, and marched on the great bare stage. “Listen close!” Ike Cross shouted through a megaphone. “ You march across the stage, and you halt here. When Mr Forbes—that’s the fellow with the gold braid on his cap—shouts, ‘ Heavens above, the Arabs are upon us! Up and at them, my brave legionnaires! ’ you turn and charge the bunch of Arabs that enter left. Put lots of pep into it, see, but don’t be too rough. You drive ’em back anyhow, it’s in the plot. All set? Tony, play ‘ The Marching Song of the Devil-inay-cares. Hey, stop! ” His eye had fallen on Squinty Dubois. It was a severe, accusing eye, “ Say, who let you in ? " he -demanded. Squinty was numb with panic. Then he said: “ Well, here I am anyhow.” Mr Cross grew red and seemed about to explode.

lunged at them savagely with his thin bayonet. The Arabs complained. “Hey, half-pint,” their leader hissed during the heat of the combat, “ take it easy! Not so rough with the bayonet! This fight’s in the bag. Pull your punches, Beau Pest! ” It was by this name that the company' knew him during the run of the show in New York. When the Messrs Sakman decided to send a company to London, Squinty Dubois applied to Mr Cross to be taken along. “ We’re only taking the principals, said Mr Cross. “Aw, please let me go too, Mr Cross,” Squinty pleaded. “ Nothing doing.” Half an hour later Squinty was back. “I’ll help carry the baggage—free,” he said. “ Beat it! ” said Mr Cross. ’ For a week, before the performance and after it, Squinty approached the manager with his petition. “ Please, Mr Cross, take me to London with the show.” “I’ll murder you if you don’t stop 'bothering me! ” said Mr Cross. “ I’ll take a cut in salary,” Squinty said. Sir Cross laughed. “That’s the first time in thirty years in the show business I ever heard an actor make a crack like that,” he said. “ What are you so set on going, to London for, Beau Pest ? ” “I got a reason,” said Squinty. “Please, Mr Cross, take me along.” “ Oh, well,” said Mr Cross wearily, “ I suppose I’ll have to take you or kill you. Now help yourself to the air. I’ve* got’ an earache from listening to you.”

In London “'Morocco Love” ran tluce months.

“ You rate a ticket back home,” the manager told Squinty on the last night. “ Give me the money instead,” said Squinty. “ I’m stayin’ over here.” “ Going to play Hamlet in a bathing suit, Beau Pest?” “ I got a job to do,” said Squinty. The next afternoon he was crossing the Channel and was extremely ill in the process. But he reached Paris. With the aid of the catch-as-catch-can French he had learned from his mother Squinty located the office of Major Pasquet, and he found the Major embedded in black whiskers. So you want to enter the Foreign Legion? ” said the major. ° “ Yes, major.” “You understand the conditions?” “Yes, major,” said Squinty. “Hard life. Strict discipline. Bum food. Service in foreign parts. And I get shot if I desert.” “ And, perhaps, even if you do not,” said the major. “Your experience?” “ A year and three months of active service,” answered Squinty promptly. “ Good,” said the major. He did not ask what army. In the legion they do not ask too many questions; and they can always use men, even small men, with eyes a bit askew. The major rang a bell. A grizzled sergeant, bent over by his medals, appeared.

“ Take this one to Dr Lerceteux,” the major ordered. A sleepy doctor made Squinty strip, and gave him a quick, perfunctory examination. “Stand across the room. Head that chart,” the doctor directed. “L X P Z O E M,” read Squinty, who, while the doctor had been pounding -his chest a foot from the chart, had memorised the smallest line. “ Good,” said the doctor. He wrote something on a card. “ Report back to the major.” “You still wish to enlist?” the major asked? “ Yes, major.” “ It is your affair,” said the major. “What is your name?” For a moment Squinty Dubois hesitated. Then he said loudly and clearly: “ Stephen O’Dare.” “ Sign this paper.” Squinty signed. “Now, Private O’Dare,” the major said, “ you are a private in the Foreign Legion, and Heaven help you!” It was a long, uncomfortable ride, third class, from Paris to the Legion barracks near Marseilles, but Squinty did not notice either the discomfort or the scenery. He sat erect and military, and, under his uniform, his heart tingled. It was gruelling work, those first four months of training. The hot, dusty days were crowded with drilling and long marches under heavy packs, anil always, at Squinty’s elbow, was a vinegar-tempered sergeant with a whiplash tongue. At night he lay in his bunk, bullied, tired, beset by aches and blisters, and sincerely wished he was dead, or, at any rate, back in his cot in Grand City. Then they sent him with a batch of other recruits to join battalion D, stationed in Marrakesh, deep in Morocco, in the heart of the Berber country. “Will we see action?” Squinty ventured to ask a sergeant. “Yes, plenty of action,” the sergeant answered. “ With pick and shovel.” And this, indeed, was the case. Soldiering in Marrakesh was not exactly thrilling. Squinty dug ditches, watered mules, peeled mountains of potatoes. Marrakesh is peaceful now. The natives have lost most of the martial ardour which once was theirs. Mostly they sit in. the sun, pldcidly contemplating infinity with dark, thoughtful eyes.

But up in the mountains there are a few wild tribes left. They stay beyond the fingers of French law. They are outlaw bands really, who lurk beyond the snow-laden ridges of the Atlas Mountains, sixty miles and more from Marrakesh. The most famous and feared of these bands was led by Said-el-Kanza, and /there was a price on his

head, 50,000 francs, ami his headwas worth the price, for he was a superior man, crafty and bold, who now and then swept down on some unprotected mountain village and ravaged it, or waylaid the caravan of a wealthy merchant, and held him for ransom. To find him in the mountains was a task comparable to locating a particular minnow in the Pacific Ocean. For some months the legion had waited hopefully for news of his activities, but Said-el-Kanza had not shown his head. So Squinty Dubois and his comrades dug ditches and watered mules under the almost perpendicular rays of the African sun.

On an utterly cloudless day in early May there arrived in Marrakesh a plumb, energetic man with a silken spike of beard, who proved to he M. Leon Archille Perron, Senator of France, and student of colonial affairs. He visited the eel-like alleys of the souks, and saw the native workmen in their tiny shops sewing purple flowers on henna-coloured slippers, or hammering strips of silver into bracelets, and these evidences of peace and industry gratified him. He came out of the souks damp and warm, and he remembered the cool, inviting hills he had seen from the balcony of the Mamounia. He decided to drive toward the mountains, along the military road, to cool off. So he got into his car and was soon speedin" Noward the hills. There was no traffic, only a few donkeys and camels, and the big machine throbbed along. M. Perron grew cooler, and a pleasant tranquillity enfolded him. On a winding road in the foot-hills he found his progress halted by a band of natives on scrubby horses. He saluted them politely. They did not part to let hi' ll fi ass ‘ they clustered about his car. ho are you ? ” asked their leader, a tall, grave man in a blue burnoose. He spoke good French. I am Monsieur Leon Achille Perron, a Senator of France,” he said. Excellent. said the tall, grave man. “I am Said-el-Kanza, bandit, of the Atlas Mountains.” Then M. Perron understood what was happening, and what was goin" to happen. °

“ Name of -a name!” exclaimed the resident general, who was sippin" his coffee, in the cool gardens of° the Bahia palace. “They ask a ransom of a million francs for this Senator! And they give us three days to produce the money. It’s a monstrous affair. If we pay we will be mocked at. If w<‘ don't—l know this Said-el-Kanza He fears nothing. Affairs will not be at ail well for poor M. Perron.” So he sent, post haste, for the commandant of the 4th battalion, and an hour later 200 legionnaires, jammed m cannons, were bumping alon" th" road to the mountains, and Squinty Dubois was at one moment pleasantly excited and at the next very cold and distressed m the pit of-his stomach. They didn t take Squinty with them when they started, in parties of twenty, to scour, not too optimistically, the n»>uvtains They left him wkh a hanutul of others at a rough eamp they had pitched. They left him peeling potatoes. 1

He had dared to protest a little to Seigeant Bazan, on any part of whose anatomy, including his heart, accordmg to a saying in the legion, coconuts could be cracked. “ Silence, Private O'Dare! You have your orders! ” the sergeant growled “You are only fit to fight potatoesspecies of a Punch and Judy show! ” When they had marched away Squinty resigned himself to his lot. Maybe, he mused, it was more healthy peeling potatoes. At noon more soldiers of the legion reached the camp from Marrakesh. Here! ’ the lieutenant in charge beckoned Squinty. Hexput down a potato and stood at attention. Captain Sartaine’s party has gone to search the deserted village of Kasba-el-Raffi. six kilometers from here. Take this message to him. Follow that path and keep bearing to the left. Hurry. It is important.” Squinty put the message inside his cap. He felt on more familiar ground now. At a dog-trot he started along the path. He slung his rifle over hit shoulder, and his manner was the important manner of a man with a mission. There was no sound in the mountains as he huried along. The path -twisted like a wounded snake. Otliei lesser paths crossed it. On he went. He felt he must have covered at least six kilometers, and still he had not come to the village, which had been a prosperous place until Said-el-Kanza had sacked it a year before. His pace, and his heart-beat increased. Could l he be lost? No. He wasn’t. Rounding a sharp turn, he saw the village, a cluster of mud huts about a square. It lay below him across a small valley, perhaps 200 yards wide. He had taken the wrong turn, but it didn’t matter. -It would be easy to scramble down over the rocks and gain the village. He started forward, then stopped abruptly and flattened himself behind a jutting boulder. Those things his imperfect sight had told him were rocks were not rocks at all! Some of them were rocks, to be sure, but the rest were men, darkfaced men, crouching there in dirtcoloured burnooses. They could not be seen from the village, but they could see it very well. They could see—and so could Squinty—the heads of Captain

Sartaine and his men. There were about twenty of those brownish lumps which were .men, and by the side of each lay a carbine. One volley from that position and they could sweep the village square clean. Squinty saw, lying behind a rock, a tall man in a bine burnoose, who was signalling orders to the others. Squinty was glued behind his boulder by a power which turned his legs to marble. He could just turn his head and glance back along the path. A click made him turn again to the scene before him. The brown men were getting their short-nosed carbines ready for that one lethal volley. Squinty could barely breathe now. ■ 4 1 got to deliver that message,” lie said inside himself, “ but that don’t mean I’ve got to go in the front way, docs it? If I went track along the path, and found the lower path which leads around the back of the village wall, and took that, I'd be obeyin’ orders, wouldn’t I? I could go back. Nobody would know—nobody but me ” He saw the men levelling their guns. They were taking their time. The men in the square were easy targets. “ I could go back,” Squinty said. ‘ Nobody would know ” Across the valley came the crisp command of Captain Sartaine. “Attention! ” The legionnaires lined up in the square. Squinty was so near the brown men that he could see an amused look on the face of their leader. It would be impossible to miss the legion soldiers now. ' Then a curious thing happened to Squinty Dubois. He ceased being friglite ed. He ceased being real. The hills and rocks about him ceased being' real. They Itecame a painted stage-set. He was back in “ Morocco Love.” The Berbers before him ceased being real, too. They were just a lot of actors in grease-paint. They were the same gang he had charged night after night. It was his job to charge them now. So he did. Like a goat he bounded among them. Tight into the middle of the brown lumps—swift-moving lumps now. He flourished his bayonet just as he had done , in “ Morocco Love.” He scowled and glowered just as he had done on the stage. The surprised brown men forgot about the soldiers in the square for the moment. They turned to meet this attack from the rear. Squinty rushed right at the man in blue, lunged at him. The chief fell back with a most realistic groan. Squinty’s head was perfectly clear now. He could hear Captain Sartaine ordering his men to cover. He could hear their rifles begin to crack. Then, suddenly, he could hear, or see, or feel nothing. “ Fall back! To the mountain path! ” Said-el-Kanza ordered his men. Despite bis wound, he reached out and caught the arm of one of them who had drawn out his curved knofe and was bending over Squinty’ Dubois. “ Stop, Ali! ” the chief said with sharp authority. “Do not mutilate him. He was an unbeliever—but he was a gallant soldier! ” That night in the mountain camp of the 4th Battalion there were three chief centres of interest. One was Al. Leon Achille Perron, senator of France, recaptured with every hair of his beard intact. Ono was Said-el-Kanza. badlywounded. The third was a small figure which lay on a stretcher. By the side of the stretcher sat Sergeant Bazan. Ho was chewing the ends of his moustache. Again and again he said: “Me? I am the sort of pig-like imbecile who called this little one a species of Punch and Judy show and said he was only fit to fight potatoes.” If you ever have to go to Grand City you will no doubt stop at the Grand Hotel. The only reason for doing this is that there is no other hotel there. Since there isn’t much else to do in Grand City, you’d better send a telegram to your wife or sweetheart or mother or somebody. Ring for a messenger, and presently you will see one coming down Market street, walking as if he owned it. You will see him pass the poolroom a few doors from the hotel with a lordly nod. < As -he draws nearer .you will see that he is wearing a nearly new, perfectly

fitting uniform; and, as he draws still nearer, you will notice that on the lapel of his uniform he is wearing a bit of red ribbon and that he has crossed eyes.