An RGL First Edition, 2025
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
An RGL First Edition, 2025
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Adventure, October 1916, with "The Return"
WELLS was next thing to a tramp. You knew it just as soon as you saw him. You wouldn't doubt it unless you looked into his face, rather than at his shabby clothing. Then, if you were quite observant, you might perceive that his eyes didn't quite match up to the ne'er-do-weel type of man. There was a sort of vague trouble in those gray eyes, which spoke of a mind that refused to wholly approve of Danny's present course.
It was a course which had brought him by various stages to a place where he had a single quarter in his pocket, a couple of drinks of cheap whisky in his stomach, and no very definite knowledge as to where he was going or what for or why.
But Wells was not intoxicated, either by whisky or emotion this evening. In fact he was depressed. It had been a long time since he had been intoxicated, really. That was in the early days of his downward course, when he had money enough to pay for the oblivion brought by a rapid sequence of far better brands of alcoholics than he had tasted for a good many days.
In fact he had just left the saloon where he had spent the last two hours on the strength of a single paid-for drink, because the remaining quarter represented a night's lodging in certain localities of which he knew, with enough for a scanty breakfast in the morning, held out.
He half regretted his exit from the noisy shelter of the bar-room now. It was coming on to rain—a fine, drizzling rain, more chilling even than a heavier downpour would have seemed. He stepped under an awning and turned up the collar of a much-wrinkled coat.
"Move along now, you bum."
Danny recognized the voice of authority, even before he glimpsed the blue and brass of the bulky figure from which it came. He made no reply. He stepped out from the awning and went slowly along close to the shop-fronts as more protected than the farther width of the pavement, while the officer continued in the opposite direction, swinging his club.
In front of Danny a shop door opened. The lighted interior went dark. A woman's figure stepped forth and locked the door, then turned toward Wells.
And at that instant from beyond her, a man's figure came into view, shambling along the rain-darkened sidewalk in none too certain a way.
Danny noted that the man eyed the girl—for the woman seemed little more—as she turned from locking up the shop. He could see it all plainly in the glare of the lights. And then, as she would have passed on her way, the fellow stepped up and faced her with what he no doubt meant to prove an ingratiating smile.
She gave him a glance and turned her head with a quickening of her steps. The masher fell in at her side. Danny saw her gaze dart here and there as if seeking a means of escape or relief.
A hot and indignant little thrill ran through him. He had seen now certainly that she was merely a girl—young, clean-looking—the right sort of woman, even as the one who annoyed her was the wrong sort of man. The gray eyes under Wells' stained soft,hat sparked. He stepped forward quickly and intercepted the two. He touched the brim of his hat with the fingers of one hand.
"Lady—is this individual annoyin' you?" he asked.
"Aw! You go to—"
Smack! Danny struck quickly. The blow was wholly unguarded and very nicely aimed. The intruder lay down in the rain on the concrete pavement. His hat fell off. The rain still coming down beat resuscitatingly into his face. He blinked and sat up, then began scrambling to his feet.
"Go on now, lady," said Danny Wells. A hand fell on his arm as he doubled up his fist again and stood waiting.
"Here, youse! Didn't I tell you to move on? What'je tryin' to do? I'll run you in fer disturbin' th' peace." The officer had started back on his beat.
"He did it for me." Danny became aware that the girl had a soft contralto. "This—this man, accosted me, officer. The gentleman came to my help."
"Ah, ha, Miss Baynes, an' is it yerself that says so?"
The bluecoat turned toward the girl whom up till now he had apparently considered as having no real part in the affair. Then he spoke to the man Wells had knocked down, who was now retrieving his hat.
"Beat it, before I hand ye one over th' bean myself, ye fresh guy," he admonished, touched his helmet and sauntered on down the street.
DANNY found himself standing on the pavement with Miss Baynes. Suddenly he felt acutely embarrassed.
"Well—" he began in a stammer; it was in his mind to make his escape.
"Thank you." Again the contralto voice sounded in his ears.
Danny flushed. It was a long time since any voice, let alone a woman's, had thanked him for anything. He swallowed some of his embarrassment and forced himself to answer:
"I'm glad I was handy. That sort of fellow makes me tired. Can I do anything more for you, miss?"
"No. Not but you've done a very great deal. I was on my way home—just going to the corner to get my car."
Danny forgot all about his rain-sodden coat and his stained hat. The girl was really very pretty, brown-haired, blue-eyed, pink of lip and cheek.
"I'll—walk up there with you, if you like," he proffered, and paused, surprised at himself.
"Thank you," said Miss Baynes again.
She glanced up into Danny's thin face and moved tentatively forward. Danny fell in at her side. On the way to the corner he learned that she owned the small book-shop and news-stand, the door of which he had seen her lock. She was a business woman. In return for the information, he rather shamefacedly confessed that he was "doing nothing—just now." He neglected to state that he had done nothing worth while for a considerable time.
The girl frowned, scanning his lean length.
"If you'd care to drop into the shop tomorrow," she said slowly. "You're out of work?"
"Yes, ma'am." Danny nodded.
Then the car came along and he put her aboard, giving the conductor a nickel out of his quarter for her fare in rather a quixotic fashion. The act was a sort of flash from those days when he had once done things like that. He rather regretted it, when he stood alone once more under the thin rain. He shrugged and turned away.
NEVER mind where Danny spent that night. There are stray corners in a city, where the homeless may crouch if not rest. He had a cup of coffee and three "sinkers" for breakfast, and a dime still left, when it was time to drop into the shop.
But he was of two minds about that. He wanted to and he didn't. It seemed to Danny almost like trading on fortuitous circumstance to do it, and yet he rather wanted to see the girl.
For two years he had been a rolling stone, and it had seemed long since any one had treated him like the gentleman he had once been at heart. Most people had judged him by his clothes. As a result the judgment had been bad. No place or position had held Danny long during the last twenty-four months. His wardrobe showed the effects.
In the end, however, he went. He came into the little place where the girl had her business, in a half-hesitant sort of way. He let the door swing shut behind him and glanced about in unobtrusive fashion, because there was a man ahead of him, looking over the magazines and papers spread out on a counter-shelf.
It wasn't much of a place, Danny decided. Someway it didn't impress him just as it ought. It lacked something, or everything which ought to go with such an enterprise he felt. And yet he didn't quite know what it did lack, either. It was neat as a pin. Books, magazines, papers, were stacked primly in their places. Everything was orderly, as orderly as a—a graveyard. The comparison occurred to his mind and he nodded. That was it exactly. Everything was too orderly. It made the place seem dead.
The man before him spoke in a rather petulant fashion. He asked for a certain sporting weekly, known as well by its color as its name.
"I'm sorry, but I don't carry—that," said Miss Baynes.
It struck Danny that her voice sounded listless, tired this morning, as she spoke.
The potential customer grunted and turned toward the door. And something popped all at once in Danny's brain. He had heard the man's request. He had heard the girl's answer and its manner and tone. In a flash came comprehension.
"Just a minute," he interrupted the other man's departure. "If you want that regular, we'll arrange to have it for you. We'd be glad to do it, if you like."
The disappointed one paused. He barely glanced at Danny, for which Wells was glad. He knew he didn't look like the proprietor of a shop.
"Why—ye-e-s," the assent came slowly. "I'll be going by at noon. If you could—"
"Sure!" Danny put a world of heartiness into his tone. "We'll have it ready for you all right—and every week after this."
"Thanks. I'll stop."
The man went out and left Wells facing Miss Baynes. Neither seemed to know just exactly what to say. Danny was conscious that he had taken a remarkable liberty, and to judge by her expression, Miss Baynes was aware of it also, yet hardly capable of meeting the situation. Wells, from his greater experience, rallied first.
"That was awfully cheeky, I know," he said, flushing a trifle under the regard of the blue eyes; "but I wanted to save you a sale and a customer if I could."
"I suppose you did," Miss Baynes returned, accepting his explanation, "but I don't carry that paper, and I don't want to. It isn't a nice publication at all. I—I don't like it—or people who read such things as that." The color flooded swiftly into her cheeks.
"Good Lord!" gasped Danny and paused. "What's that got to do with it?" he went on. "It ain't what you like, you've got to keep in a shop, Miss Baynes, but what other people want. A fellow has to study his trade, find out what they want and then—give it to them, without thinkin' whether he likes the same things himself or not. That's business, Miss Baynes. Did you see how he fell for my suggestion? You got to make folks feel your interest. That gets theirs. Why, the only way to sell anything and make good is to have what the trade which passes your doors wants. Now that man will be back here at noon. Where can I get him the copy I told him we'd have?"
"Oh, you can get it at the News Company's office of course," said the girl, and sighed. "But—I don't believe it's any use. I guess they know I'm not making good, too, or something. This morning they only sent me half of my regular order on everything which came out today."
Something surprisingly like moisture came momentarily across the blue eyes.
"I think it's mean. They charge me just as much for delivery as on the full order, because I asked the man, and then only send me half. And anyway—they are the only people in business, I guess, who charge for delivering the goods they sell!" A spiteful little ring of trampled spirit crept into her tone at the last.
Danny Wells looked straight into the clouded visage and smiled. Something took hold of Danny. Last night he had thought this girl one well to do. Now he found her a fellow creature in distress, fast drifting toward the rocks of business misfortune, to judge by her words and tone. It was a bond of sympathy—something in common. A new expression came into his face, his eyes. It was something like resolve.
"Say," he burst out; "tell me where their place is. I'll go get that old guy's paper for him and ask them straight out about your order. A man can talk to them better'n you, I guess."
"Oh, will you?" Relief rang in the words. "I—I was hating to, myself, because, you see, I know I'm not doing very well. And—please don't think me selfish. I asked you here this morning. I thought we could talk about you and find some way to help you get a job or something. And now—I've just talked about myself."
"Never mind that," Danny told her. "How do I go where I can get that old boy his pink 'un? Put me wise."
She gave the necessary directions and saw him depart. In half an hour he was back. He had three of the particular issue under his arm as he entered.
"I found out all about your orders," he announced as he spread the pink sheets out on the shelf in plain sight.
"Yes?" Miss Baynes paused.
"Yes. The manager down there and a fellow he called the 'promotion man'—guy that runs around giving dealers tips and taking orders and things like that—uncorked a lot of lingo I finally managed to understand. It seems when a stand has an extra large lot of numbers left unsold—numbers they have to send back—what they call 'returns' as I made it out, why, they just sort of automatically cut that stand's order down. That's a rule of their house all over the country. As for the delivery charge, why, the manager said everybody charged for delivery, only people didn't get next to it mostly, because most of 'em do it by adding the charge into the price of the goods. I don't know but he's right."
"Oh," said Miss Baynes in a tone of relieved comprehension. "I was afraid something was wrong. I didn't know they just did it, like that."
"Well—they do." Danny turned to face her. "You been sending a lot of these 'returns' back?"
"Ye-e-e-s," Miss Baynes confessed.
"Your business ain't good?"
"No-o—not very."
"And yet," Danny pressed out of a keen sympathy of understanding, "I reckon this little place means a whole lot to you?"
For a moment the girl's lips quivered.
"It means everything in the world—just about," she said slowly, at last.
"And what did you know about this game before you started?"
"Nothing." The word exploded suddenly. "But—I thought anybody could sell magazines and books."
Danny perched on the counter-shelf, where he had laid down the pink edition.
"Sit down," he said, waving his hand to a chair he judged Miss Baynes sometimes occupied, because there was a piece of fancy-work half finished, lying on its seat. "Say, suppose you tell me all about it, if you will."
The girl sat down. She eyed Danny for a space of seconds, and then all at once, almost as if glad to do it, she began.
It was just a plain little story, of a father who had run this small shop and died—of an only child, herself, and a semi-invalided mother, and a little house. She had taken over the shop and was trying to run it, to make a living, but she had been the housekeeper before her father's death. She knew little of business and had been forced to learn each step as she went along, and, well, it looked as if she were going to fail.
Danny heard her through with a sober mien. Some way the story took hold of him immensely for all its commonplace. There were as many tragedies in real life, everyday business, he thought as she spoke, as in the pages of the books and magazines she was failing to sell. There was tragedy and humor and pathos. Here was this girl battling for her mother and herself, and here was—he. His life had been a sort of tragedy, too, if you looked at it in a certain way. Well, he wasn't talking about that. But the girl needed help. Why shouldn't he help her? He had nothing else to do, and in his younger life, he had been accredited with having a rather facile and original brain. Why shouldn't he put it to work on waking up this sleepy, neat, almost prim little shop and gaining trade—success—a living for this girl whose face had taken on so wistful an appeal as she talked? If she'd only listen to advice, accept help—
He stood up.
"What you need is business education," he announced. "You've overlooked a lot of bets. One of them I've mentioned already. You must study your trade, learn its likes and then have what they want. I —well, once I held a position—and made good in it too—where a lot depended on my knowing what the public wanted. If you're willing to let me help you out a bit, I believe I can straighten all this out."
He waved a hand about the place in an embracive way.
"Why," he grinned, "we've made a right start already. We've got that chap's pink 'un for him when he comes along at noon."
He paused. A peculiar expression had come into the girl's face. She was sitting wide-eyed, like one seeing something within, rather than any object without. A slow, uncertain smile crept across her lips.
"Where are you stopping, Mr. Wells?" she inquired.
"Anywhere I get a chance," Danny grinned. "Any old place I can hang my hat is home, sweet home, to me."
"You haven't much money, have you?" She flushed as she asked the personal question.
"Ten cents," Danny declared.
"Then—" all at once she began speaking very quickly—"this all seems so strange but—there's a back room here and a cot— where father used to lie down when he wasn't well. You could sleep there and—I couldn't pay you much at first, but you could live on it, I guess, till you got something else to do; and—1 would so much like to try and make the shop pay."
A roof, a bed, food assured at least. Danny felt a grip come into his throat, and—he would be helping the girl. His eyes felt someway suddenly moist, but his grin belied his other feelings.
"Sure!" he made hearty acceptance. "I'm on the job already. Now the first thing is to get started right."
Miss Baynes nodded. Her face brightened with fresh hope. They were both young, easily buoyed as yet, man and girl. She got up.
"All right. It seems almost as though Fate had brought us together, doesn't it, Mr. Wells? What do we do?"
"The first thing is for me to put you next to the rudiments of the selling game, and then help you to put them into practise," said Dan. "Now—why don't you put something into your show-window besides junk?"
"Junk?" The girl's voice was uncertain.
"Sure—pencils, pen-holders, rubber-erasers, scratch-pads, ink? Everybody knows a place like this carries them. We'll get 'em out and load up with a genuine display of the latest fiction, instead. That will make 'em take notice a bit."
Miss Baynes looked doubtful and he went on.
"Display is the key-note of the selling game, Miss Baynes. The fellow who said it paid to advertise knew a whole lot, all right. Advertising is the life of business, and it don't make any difference whether you do it in a show-window or on a street corner or in a daily paper. You've got to make a loud noise nowadays to let folks know you're alive. If you want to sell a thing—show it to the crowd. Display it. Let 'em see it's there."
Once more he waved a hand about the shop.
"Now—you've got all your books and magazines piled up as systematically and precisely as though this was a storage stockroom, which it is—not. See?"
Miss Baynes nodded quickly.
"Yes—they look so much neater that way."
Danny paused and regarded her smiling. His grin came back across his lean features.
"That's the woman of it, but it ain't business," he rejoined.
"Business is selling something somebody wants, to that somebody when he wants it—plus making him want it. Advertising makes him want it. That's the whole thing, except that, as I've said, you must get wise to what people will want as nearly as you can. You've got to study the individual trade, get next to it, and—supply it. That man this morning is an example. He'll be back and we've got what he wants. Maybe he'll want something else when he comes. That brings me back to the magazines, I guess. Display 'em in the window—outside your door—get a little counter outside and put some of 'em out there on display. People will see 'em and remember they meant to get one, and had forgot all about it till they saw yours."
"They might walk off with them, don't you think?" said Miss Baynes.
"Not while I stick around here they won't." Danny's grin altered a bit.
"We-11," his companion assented, "all right. We can try it at least."
THEY set to work cleaning out the mass of sundries from the window. That done Wells got into the window and built pyramids and castles and fortifications of the latest issue of a popular magazine which had issued that day, buttressing the general scheme of his decoration with stacks of fifty-cent books.
The morning's delivery of magazines had just been unwrapped when he had arrived, and among the wrappings on his trips to and from the window, he discovered a number of single-sheet facsimiles of the magazine cover, many of them of an enlarged size. He held one up and eyed it with appreciation.
"What's this?" he inquired.
"A poster," said Miss Baynes. "They send them out now with a lot of the magazines, each issue. Throw it away."
"What for?" Danny turned his regard from the picture to her. "Say—I rather guess not. A poster is a poster. They stick 'em on bill-boards to advertise things to sell, or—shows. Why not use 'em to sell magazines? Oh, fine! Say, you got any little metal clips around this joint?"
Miss Baynes nodded. She produced what he required. Danny took them.
"And some string. All right! Never mind."
He pulled a piece from a ball of wrapping cord, went back to the window and fastened it across the sash, near the upper half. Then he came back, took up all the posters he could find, returned and hung them from the clips, pendent from the string.
"We'll use our posters after this," he announced. "Let the other fellows throw 'em away. We won't. They're the bill-boards of the magazine trade all right. I see why they put 'em out. We'll make 'em pull trade. Wait till I get my sidewalk display boxes fixed and we'll trim them all up with the posters from week to week. Why—the publishers are tryin' to help you folks sell the books by making these poster-sheets attractive. Throw 'em away—well I guess not! We'll hang 'em up."
He paused and wiped his face with a kerchief none too clean and grinned.
"Now I'm going out and get a sandwich. It's almost noon. When that guy comes back, sell him his pink sheet and tell him again you'll have it for him every week. Make him feel your interest and want his trade. That's part of the selling game too. I see there's a table counter in that back room. This afternoon we'll get it out in the middle of the floor here and build a display of popular books, right down where everybody who comes in can see 'em at a glance."
He put on his coat, picked up his hat and went out.
He came back. The only pink thing about the shop was the girl's face.
"Did he come back?" Danny questioned as he took off his hat.
Miss Baynes nodded. "Yes and—I sold the others too. And that first man bought three other magazines to take home to his wife—he said."
"Sure he did," Danny assented. "Your getting his paper for him pleased him. He wanted to reciprocate. That's human nature—man nature at least. Now you've got him started, he'll keep on. Get their interest, make 'em feel yours. That builds trade. How'd he come to buy 'em?"
"Why, I—I asked him if he'd read a story I'm a good deal interested in myself," Miss Baynes confessed. "And that led up to a discussion of that and other stories and books and papers."
Danny grinned and nodded.
"Good girl. Any time you know some mag's got a fine yarn, or one by a popular author, or one you get stuck on yourself, why—tell it. Slam it up against everybody who comes in to buy any old publication. That way you get behind your stock and push. A dealer can boost any certain publication like that to beat the band, and double his sales and his profits at the same time. You're catching. on. Ask 'em if they've read this and that, by thus and so. Do that and fix up your stand so that no matter what a man's thinking about when he comes along, he can't fail to see what you've got before he gets away. That's display again. I'll tend to that."
SO it began. Danny kept his word. He made a lot of changes. He built the sidewalk counter and displayed the latest issues upon it and a metal frame he had built across the entire front of the shop. He put other rods across the interior and displayed other magazines and posters, and art supplements and pages on those. He kept his window changed every few days.
And Danny changed too, with the shop. After a few days, Miss Baynes made a tentative offer, in rather embarrassed fashion, of a suit her father had worn. Danny accepted it frankly in the spirit it was given.
With clean clothing, something long latent in the man seemed to reassert itself all at once. Out of his first week's wages he bought clean collars and a new tie and hat. A new expression crept into his eyes, a new timbre into his voice, a new quality into his bearing. He was doing something, at last. He had now a definite object. And though he did not at first really know it, he was rebuilding a failing business no more than he was rebuilding the failing character of himself. Only, he knew he felt better than he had for years, happier, more contented, more the man.
And business did improve under his supervision to a considerable extent. Then one day as Miss Baynes came in he was primed with news.
"I had a long talk with that 'promotion man' of the General News Company, this morning," he began.
"Yes?" Miss Baynes unpinned her hat. "What about?"
"'Returns' mostly and things like that. We've been making them too soon."
"Too soon?" Miss Baynes fixed her blue eyes more widely upon him. "Why—how could we do that?"
"What gets my goat," said Danny grinning, "is why I didn't get hep to the thing myself. I must have been asleep. Didn't you ever have any one stop and ask for a number you'd just sent back?"
"Ye-es," said Miss Baynes slowly. She smiled. "Why, we—we could—"
"Sure we could," Dan agreed. "We got a month's limit on most of the weeklies, and from sixty to ninety days on the monthlies. Why don't we use it? Keep a few a while. Then if somebody comes along and wants one, we'll have it, and maybe a new customer who might not come back if he had to go somewhere else for his stuff. D'ye get that? That fellow told me of a man who does it right along. It's got so well known around the city that they've got a saying about it: 'If Chepp don't have it, it ain't in town.'"
Miss Baynes sat down.
"I've lost a lot of sales like that," she confessed.
Wells nodded his head.
"We won't let our stock run out after this. That fellow gave me a lot of tips. No matter how many we order, if we sell out we get some more. They keep a few to meet that sort of a situation, he says. In a place like this where we can get to 'em almost at once, we can get more and probably sell all of 'em or most. We'll watch our trade of course and get a definite idea of how many we can sell of any publication, and make that the basis of our order, and then if we sell out, get more, but we won't ever get clear out of stock."
Miss Baynes nodded assent.
"It seems awfully simple when it's explained like that, but—you know there are magazines which don't allow any return credits—some of them the best sellers too. Your plan wouldn't work very well with them. What can we do about those?"
"Sell 'em," said Danny with conviction. "That chap told me a whole ear-full this morning. I just went after information for fair. He touched on that very point too. We buy a few at first, feel our trade, get our order number estimated. That's the answer. If we sell out, we get two or three more. We work it the same way on publications which only give half credits—these women's papers and things like that."
"You think of everything, don't you?" The blue eyes regarded him in something like admiration.
Danny grinned.
"Well, we were both thinking this morning, and what I didn't ask, that guy handed out. We went over it pretty well. Now I got one kick to make about you yourself. Outside that we're doing real well. You got to display yourself a little bit more."
"Display myself!" Miss Baynes appeared actually startled. "Why—what do you mean?"
"Just that," said Wells. "Don't be mad, but—you're an awfully pretty girl you know. You're too much inclined to be just coolly formal with your trade. You're boss here of course, but I'm giving it to you straight. You want to be more cordial—friendly. Get to know your customers so you can call 'em by name. That fellow told me today of a man with a stand in a poor location, who does that right along. It's his main business asset, and it's a good one all right. You go into his place and the first thing you know, you've told him your name. The next time he knows you. Try it. Talk to folks. Give 'em a smile. Get to know your man—what he likes and dislikes. Get him to feel that you value the patronage he gives."
"But a girl can't be friendly with—just everybody like that," protested Miss Baynes.
"A girl?" said Dan. "Miss Baynes get that girl stuff out of your mind. You ain't a girl. You're a business woman, and business ain't social convention. It's selling something and making a profit. You don't need a formal introduction to pull a smile and a pleasant word to a man while he buys something you have to sell. And he'll be a lot more apt to come back again, if you sell it to him like that. Try it and see if I ain't right."
Miss Baynes sighed.
"You've been right about everything else," she admitted. "I'll—I'll try."
Danny nodded approval and grinned.
"If you're out of practise on smiling at folks," he suggested, "why, you can work up the habit on me."
He got a rather spontaneous example which flashed across his companion's lips at his words.
"Fine!" he accepted quickly. "Give one of those with each purchase and sales ought to pick up."
IN a way he was a prophet. Six months went by. Trade did improve— "returns" were less, sales larger, profits more. On several occasions the "promotion man" of the General News, dropping in, complimented Danny and Miss Baynes on their improved showing. Wells developed until he appeared quite the small business man himself. There was a confidence about him, a clearer skin, a keener eye, a firmer, more elastic quality to his step.
He still slept in the little room at the back of the shop, but he had lived for six months on good, wholesome food, drunk practically no alcoholics, read a lot of good literature and worked toward a high and almost altruistic motive, aside from making his own meager wage and living thereon the while.
Danny Wells had a new view-point of life and a good many of its details at the end of six months, up to and on the day and evening, when Miss Baynes left him in charge of the shop, saying merely that she was invited to attend a theater that night.
Danny was glad she had the chance to enjoy an evening out. He did a good business until he closed at nine. Then he went back and read for an hour and retired.
He awoke some time after with the sound of shouting in his ears, a smell of smoke in his nostrils and a vague realization that something was very much wrong.
Scrambling out of his bed, he dressed in a hurry, found his way into the shop and gazed into a street filled with fire-fighting apparatus, and beyond that, the usual gawping crowd. He turned back, gained the rear door and stepped into the alley, strangely lighted now by a dull red glare.
He glanced up. The three-story building next to the one-story front which housed the shop was spouting flame and smoke. That explained the situation fully to Dan. He went on up the alley and around to the front.
Fire lines blocked his further progress. He halted and watched the conflagration. The fire was on the side of the building next the shop. He thought briefly of going back and collecting his few remaining belongings, but gave it up. The fire had made great progress and it looked very much as if the wall of the larger building might momentarily fall. He stood and waited for the crash, leaning against the rope, his eyes turned up to the licking sheets of fire.
A hoarse bellow roused him. He turned toward the sound. And his glance fell on a figure inside the ropes and running toward the front of the little shop where he had labored for six months. It was a woman's figure. It was familiar. Danny's heart leaped into his throat. It was Madge Baynes, returned from the theater to find her place of business threatened, seeking to get into it despite the ropes and the police, one of whom had bawled to her an order to come back. Even while realization of so much came, she had covered the short distance and was fumbling with the shop-door lock. Then it was open. She had darted inside.
A policeman swore. Danny came to life. There was that wall. It would fall any minute now. It was an old thing. He had noted it often in the last six months. If it fell before Madge came out—if it fell she had gone to her death, unless—
In a swift duck he was under the rope and running. Behind him he heard another hoarse shout of command. But he gave it no heed. The girl was inside, under the menace of the fire-eaten wall, her life a thing of seconds perhaps. He flung himself ahead in a mad rush to reach her and drag her forth to safety, gained the door she had unlocked and flung himself through.
"Madge!" his voice rose in a short gasping shout.
He had thought of her as Madge for months, though he had never addressed her save as Miss Baynes. He was unconscious of the use of her given name now. It was^a purely involuntary, subconscious outburst of feeling, anxiety spurred.
"Dan!" her voice came in the darkness.
A match sputtered briefly. Shading it, the girl moved toward a little safe back at the end of the store.
As Wells sprang forward, she knelt and began twirling the combination.
"Strike another match, won't you, Dan?" she panted. Oddly enough, she too used the man's first name.
"No time!" Wells snapped even as he complied. "You've got to get out. We'll be crushed by that wall next door any minute. Come on—Madge!"
"In a minute," she said. "I've got to get in here first. There's money, Dan—and papers—my insurance policy on the shop. Hold the match closer, I can't— there!"
The door of the safe swung open. She darted in her hands and pulled out a drawer, seized its contents and thrust it into the throat of her dress, picked up a small metal box of money, rose and swung shut the door of the safe.
"I—looked for you, first," she began, "but you—"
"Come!" Wells seized her by an arm. "Madge!"
Cra-a-a-a-sh!
A thunderous roar beat in on Danny's ears, far away as it seemed, but growing louder with an incredible swiftness which blotted out all conception of time. Above his head, and the head of the girl who suddenly clung to him in the pitchy darkness it came down like the bolt of an unseen doom.
The little structure where they stood seemed to quiver in an insensate dread of the falling blow, and then to rock and sway beneath it as it fell. Caught in a maelstrom of released force, it shook and shattered, its frail roof bursting beneath the cascade of brick and mortar and flaming wood which poured down as the burned-out wall toppled and plunged below.
Danny acted from no set purpose, but wholly by instinct, rather. He swept Madge from her feet and forced her, voiceless in her sudden terror, back and down against the safe, and crouched there above her, shielding her body with his own.
Suddenly he knew he was buffeted by blows, struck and bruised by falling bricks and timbers. His breath choked back into his throat in a strangle of hot dust and smoke. He began to cough and kept on coughing beyond his volition, for what seemed a long, long time, and was in reality but a matter of seconds.
Then he caught a great inhalation, cooler, fresher, into his lungs. There was a vent somewhere for the gases, and the admission of the outer air of night.
"Madge," he called softly and gained no answer.
A tongue of flame licked out in the dusk behind him from a fallen and still burning brand. It showed him that he knelt in a tiny space, provided by the wall of the partition between the shop and the room where he had slept, and against which the safe had stood. That frail barrier had kept them both from death—or had it?
"Madge," he called again.
Still no answer. Danny moved in a painful way to let the light of the burning timber fall on her face. It showed pallid and streaked by something which trickled down across its whiteness as he watched. He understood sickly. She had been struck. His body had not fended her wholly. She was unconscious. Despite the pain of his bruises, he gritted his teeth in a savage resistance of this newer trick of fate and gazed around and up.
Tangled timbers met his view, and beyond them—stars. There was a possible way out then, through the shattered roof above their heads. He did not wait. He stooped and with sore flesh crying protest, lifted the form of the girl, and after unbelievable effort as it seemed managed to clamber on top of the safe.
He could reach to some of the timbers from there. Could he carry Madge up and through their tangled maze? He essayed the task. There was another one-story building next door. If he could gain that, they would escape.
Afterward he had no very clear recollection of his acts. He knew that he struggled, and climbed, and tugged, and lifted at the inanimate body of the girl, now dragging her by the arms, now shoving her limply, with his arms gripped about her hips and thighs, but gaining, always gaining, while he dripped sweat from his efforts and the little space below him which had offered the first refuge, became a pool of flame, from where tongues of lapping heat reached up to drag him back.
Then he stood on a shattered wall with the girl on his arms, across his breast, hanging a limp weight. And he stepped over upon a debris-littered roof which was still intact.
He knew he staggered to the street-front of that roof. There was a shout. Then, while he stood dizzy and swaying, with the cool air playing about him and his burden, a ladder shot up, a helmet appeared. Its wearer seized Madge, and his arms felt suddenly as light as his head, which insisted on spinning around like a top. He fought back the sick qualms which tried to engulf him and followed the fireman and Madge down to the street.
He stood there in the center of a crowd and shivered, as the night air dried his sweat-soaked body. A clanging gong hammered in his ears and split the crowd. A police machine backed up to the curb and a man asked him for Madge's address. He gave it and got into the ambulance with her and rode away, and became conscious of the weight of the little metal cash-box in a pocket of his coat, yet did not remember putting it there.
Then his mind cleared. He went with the ambulance men when they carried Madge in to a little cottage, and explained it all to a white-faced woman with anxious blue eyes a good deal like those Madge had so often turned on him. He even telephoned for a doctor at her request, and after that he waited through the night while the doctor worked and spoke vaguely about a possible fracture of the skull from the brick which had struck the girl on the head.
He sat stiffly in the little parlor most of the time, speaking now and then a word of encouragement to the white-faced little mother. She made him think of his own mother, somehow. She made his throat ache a bit too, because she was very quiet and firm of lip, and brave.
Then he dozed a bit after a time, and waked as the doctor was leaving with a promise to call again, later, and went out with him to his machine. He asked him frankly for his opinion. The man shook his head. Danny understood, and suddenly dashed a hand across his eyes, and gazed into a morning of brilliant sunshine, which seemed strangely hazed.
WEEKS passed wherein Madge Baynes lay in the borderland of death. And many things happened during those weeks. The insurance on her stock in trade was paid. The little shop was rebuilt. Danny stayed now at the Baynes' home at night. He had become a sort of son to the little white-faced mother, on whom she leaned for comfort, courage and strength.
Then Danny reopened the shop in the rebuilt structure, with a new plate-glass window he had induced the owner to install in place of the former divided glass. And he started out to surpass himself in winning for the two women, who now held a place in his life.
His first notion concerning "returns" took a new angle in his mind. He began to make a feature of carrying back numbers as well. He discovered he could gain them very cheaply from a great many sources. He sorted them and sold them singly or in bunches at a reduced price, which brought him a good profit none the less. He had more than one talk with the "promotion man" of the General News, with whom he had now made friends.
And Madge was to live. Once more she was herself. Every night Danny reported the day's business to her now, while she sat propped in a chair and listened—a pale, drawn-faced Madge—gaining a little each day. She heard him and thanked him each evening for his work of the day, even as on the first time she knew him, or her mother or anything at all, she had faltered forth a broken appreciation of his great service in saving her from death. Sometimes, too, after his report was ended, she chatted with him for an hour. At such times strange thoughts and fancies filled the mind of Danny Wells.
Then opportunity knocked at his door. The "promotion man" came to see him with a proposition. He was going away—to a better position. He had watched Danny's work. He could get him into his place when he gave it up. Danny could be "promotion man" for the General News at a good salary if he liked.
"Anybody who could make a 'come -back' in a joint like this was, is the sort of man we need," he said.
Danny told him he would see. That night he told Madge all about it, after he had finished the day's report.
She heard him in silence to the end.
"Danny!" she cried then; "that's splendid, and of course you must take it, and I'm glad—really—only—
She caught her breath and paused.
"Only what?" said Dan.
"Oh, it's awfully selfish, Danny dear," Madge faltered, flushing a trifle and looking down; "but—I was just thinking about the shop."
Danny grinned. He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. He had expected she would feel that way about it, and he had planned for this very moment, all day. He had even rehearsed just what he was going to say and how he was going to say it; and now he found himself acutely embarrassed, with a slow red creeping into his cheeks to match that in the face of the girl, making them tingle. And his collar felt suddenly tight.
"Selfish nothing!" he burst out at last in a sort of desperation. "I'd be a fine fellow, I guess, to leave you all up in the air with the shop. But you see I've got that all thought out. I—I—well maybe I'd better tell you something about myself."
Madge's blue eyes questioned him mutely, and he stumbled doggedly on:
"I was a man in a good position once, but I—got in with a pretty swift set. I lost my job and got into debt, and the people I thought were my friends when I was making good turned me down. So after a while I just said I didn't care for anything at all, and I went clear to the bow-wows like I was when you saw me first. But that's the worst of it Madge. I never did anything to anybody, worse than I did to myself. And the other night, when I held you there in my arms after we'd got out of the wreck of the shop, why, I knew—that—there was something in the world I cared for after all —something I cared more for than I did for all the world; and afterward, when the doc said you might die, why, I said to somebody—or something—maybe to God—that if only you could get well, and I could come back—climb up out of the gutter far enough to—well far enough so that you might—might not be afraid or ashamed to—Oh, Madge girl, can't you understand?"
"Danny," she whispered softly. "Oh, Danny—Danny dear." There was a great light in her face.
Danny nodded.
"That's it. I want to have you always where I can hear you say it—just like that. I, well the promotion man says I made the shop come back, and now I want to make my own come-back next, and then I want—just you, Madge—you."
She laughed, a sound between joy and tears.
She put out a thin white hand, which lost itself in Wells'. Danny rattled on:
"And I'll take this job, and we'll sell the shop—we can now it's making money—and I'll take care of you and the little mother."
He drew the hand toward him, transferred it to his other palm, and slipped an arm which trembled the least bit in the world about her waist.
She yielded to him. She lifted her face to the eager appeal of his.
"Danny," she called him, with the world-old call of her kind; "Danny, my Danny, dear."
He held her—just held her—his one thing for which he really cared.
"Happy dear?" she whispered after the course of uncounted minutes.
Wells laughed.
"Happy?" he repeated. "Happy? Say—trot out the fatted calf. The Prodigal has returned."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.