Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-02-01

hundred dollars and selling it few years later for
fifty thousand He had we'll developed magma
ton; wonderful were the lucky strikes he made in
these day dreams marvellous the financial returns.
He a very Napoleon OF finance when he was dOZ-
ing. Many are
The girl across the aisle also seemed to be immersed
in day dreams. Her Sevres blue eyes had become
vague; her listless little hands lay in her lap un-
stirring. She was pleasant to look at
After an hour so it was plain to White that she
had had enough of her dreams. She sighed very
gently, Strengthened up in her chair looked at the
rain-swept roof patted yawn into modest suppress
sion and gazed about her with speculative and en-
gaging eyes
Then as though driven to desperation, she turned,
looked into the glass case beside her for few min
utes and then, fitting her key to the door, opened it,
selected volume at hazard, and composed herself
to read
For a while White watched her lazly, but pres
emily with more interest as her features gradually
grew more animated and her attention seemed to be
concentrated on the book
AS the minutes passed it became plain to White
that the girl found the dngy little volume exceedingly
interesting. And after while she appeared to be
completely absorbed in it. her blue eyes were riveted
the pages; her face flushed her sensitive lips
expressive of that seemed to be possessing
her more and more.
White wondered what this book might be which
she found SO breathlessly interesting. 1t was SMALL
dngy, bound in warped covers of old leather and
anything but beautiful And by and by he caught
glimpse of the title-"The Journal of Pedro
Valdez"
The title, somehow, seemed to be familiar to him;
he glanced into his case, and after few min
utes searching he caught sight of another copy of the
same book, dingy, soiled leather bound, unlovely.
He looked over his private list until he found it.
And this is what he read concerning it:
Valdez, Pedro-Jownd of. Translated by
Thomas Bwg of PHILADELPHIA in 200. With map.
Too cobies much and damaged by 7vater. Se0-
eyal pages missing from each book
PEDRO Valdez soldier of fortune serving
with Cortez in Mexico and with De Soto in Florida.
Nothing more is known of him, except that he per-
ished somewhere in the semi-tropica forests Of
America.
Thomas Byng, an Englishman pretended to
have discovered and translated the journal kept by
Valdez After the journal had been translated =
it, indeed, such document ever really existed =
Byng pretended that it was accidentally destroyed
"Byng's translation and map are considered to be
works OF pure imagination. They were published
from manuscript after the death of the author
Byng died in st. Augustine of yellow fever, about
I76o6I, while preparing for exploring expedition
into the Florida Wilderness"
Mildly edited, White glanced again at the girl
across the AISLE and surprised to see how her in
terest in the volume had altered her features Tense
breathess, utterly absorbed in the book, she bent
over the faded print, leaning close for the sicky
light that filtered through the glass roof scarcely
lumined the yellow pages at ALL
The curiosity of White was now aroused; he
opened the glass beside him, shed out his copy
of the book, opened it, and began to read.
For the first few minutes his interest was anything
but deep: he read the wel-known pages where Byng
recounts how he discovered the journal of Valdez
and it sounded exceedingly fishy-a rather poorly
written fairv-tale done nv man with little inven