The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-07-24
? John AinSleK
Master Thief
Copyright 1914 NEA Service Inc
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BEGIN HERE TODAY

John Ainsley, man of education
and breeding, WHOSE war wounds
left him unfit for manual labor, re.
turns hungry to his shabby lodging
house. To pay, his landlady the
weeks rent for his room--one do!
lar--he is compelled to pawn an
ivory miniature of his mother. Al
the pawnshop he is puzzled at the
sight of a prosperous 10 oking, fur
collared man dickering with the
broker.
After leaving the shop, Ainsley
hurries to little restaurant to get
food. He is stopped in the entrance
by the fur-collared individual, is
taken to the mans home and is
revived with hot soup. As he eats,
Ainsley tries to take stock of his
host and his surroundings.
NOW GO ON WITH TINE STORY
The man unquestionably was not
q gentleman. His clothing was too
garish, his jewelry too blatant! His
speech too, was coarse and sloven.
and he used phrases that betokened
an unfamiliarity with polite speech.
His apartment, moreover, was fur
nished badly. The pictures on the
walls FLASHED violently with the fur.
nishings. l would have set him
down Immediately as q parvenu, pos
sibly one of the recent species of
profiteers, but for a furtivehess of
manner. Moreover, l had first seen
him in a pawnshop.
Why had he followed me-? What
was he? Well, could wait for the
answer. And so, forcing myself to
be slow, to chew each morsel care
fully, waited for him to direct the
conversation, for l said practically
nothing. He delivered monologue,
based for the most part on places he
had visited, events, mostly of a sport
ing nature, which he had witnessed
began to think that he was proba-
bly, a gambler, perhaps follower of
the race-track.
Then, having decided that had
eaten all that it was we'll for me to
take at this time, l followed his ex-
ample and walked with him into the
next room.
:"Smoke?" he asked.
Perhaps | had suffered almost as
much through the abstinence from
tobacco as through the lack Of food.
Certainly his question aroused men,
cries of sufferings that had seemed
unbearable. With the first dizzying
inhalation Of the cigaret he gave me
! felt my own man once more. had
been the sport of circumstances, bit
of flotsam on the city's tide. Sudden
ly l felt master of my own destiny
Drink? Cocktail? Highball?
Champagne 2" he asked.
I shook my head. "Never touch
it." l said. "And / thought in these
days no one but millionaires had
such variety"
"Who said l amt a millionaire ?"
he demanded.
II beg your pardon" said |, mar
yelling at the queer vanity Of him.
"It's. all right" he said. IL sup
pose, having seen me talking to
Weinberg you thought was busted"
II didn't think anything about it,"
l replied.
He laughed in a peculiarly harsh,
joyless tone. II guess you were be-
yond thinking about anything.
took look at you, and says l to
"This baby's about due for
the morgue." "a
l felt myself color. 81 do look
pretty badly" l admitted. "And on
top of what Weinberg had been tell
ing you about me. it was easy to
guess that l wasn't millionaire"
His eyes, hard blue, narrowed
"You see things don't you? Tumbled
right off to Weinberg wishing me. up
about you, Ell? Well, l knew right
off that you were no boob, l thought
yNu were the lad needed; now
Know it. Like little Dough-"
I laughed. Odd, how a few ounces
of food change the whole world
"What do you Think" l countered.
"Id say that you were ready to do
to make a stake" he said.
almost anything" l amended.
"Fussy?" he asked.
"1'm a gentleman" told him. The
words sounded grandiloquent, alb
surd.
eyes, / suspected as much" said
my host. starvation hurts a gentle
mans insides just like it does an
ordinary roughneck's, don't it? Are
you proud?" -
Suppose you explain" l suggest
ed.
snake it snappy, Ell? All right, /
will. take it you have no friends in
You wouldn't be starving
if you had. Am / right?"
go on" I said:
IF you got chance to make
money, real money, important mon
ey, you'd jump at it. Am l right ?"
go on some more. You interest
me-" smiled.
"There's a lot of money Tying
around this town waiting for a good
m ON r. ninl, .o:l