Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-25
ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES II.
HAMMON.


pick Bill Holderness. No good
would come of it, and yet
that is where Bill first saw Shan
WiSter and good Is largely
. matter of opinion, after all.
His yellow vanished hack wheeled around
o corner and gave Bill view of the harbor,
0 cruiser several destroyers and submarines
and out beyond great liner, pausing here
In her Spring Mediterranean cruise circuit TO
Algiers, Naples, Monte Carlo, Marseille and
out through Gibraltar again. Bill going
aboard only for the overnight to Algiers.
Bills attitude, the anti-climax of his too
stiff dose of war at too tender an age, was an
amusing diSparagement of everything and
especially OF business, love, marriage, golf,
horses, houses and all those things dear to
the Holderness tradition. You're all begged
mp in life he told his family, and felt sorry
for them although nobody felt sorry for him.
And So thanks to a small legacy from a
renegade aunt, he'd gone comfortably on his
black sheep, wandering way until he was
broke ITO DO as you like with" had been his
aunts stipulation, and Bill had done it. His
father the founder of Holderness World Wide
Travel Service, got him a job several jobs, in
fact. the last one with Pittsburgh steel COM
pany
Naturally the old gentleman had been sur
prised week ago to encounter his in the
race course stands at Longchamps
This is Paris, not Pittsburgh Bill" he had
said with extraordinary mildness. did you
lose your way? Or have you been fired again?"
mo, sir" said Bill buoyantly, Il was too
quick for them 1 quit with flags fly
ing. What do you think of Princessina for
the next race. sir?"
Old Man HolderneSs shrugged his heavy
stopped shoulders.
81 not thinking of the next race, Bill.
was thinking mostly Of the next generation"
DILL had glanced curiously at the Old Man
\ nd he Rrrk Ill kna~ ~ ~
ever seen in his adult life on the Old Mans
nose.
He said I'll come down to the Place Ven
dome ONCE tomorrow and go to work"
His father shook his hand away. You young
villain, are you daring to feel sorry for me?
I've got q cold, tell you. All right, you be
there. And you needn't hope to be fred. Or
come dine with me tonight, Bill. There's q
girl want you to know, the sort of girl you
ought to know"
The girl ash-blond pretty, and echoed
ones ideas very cleverly indeed. She would
look well in an opera box, hunter, at the
head of Holcerness dinner table. Her name
was not Shannon WiSter. 1t was Arlene Sea-
bury, but q week in Paris and the impulse of
Q taxicab smash-up in the Rue Castiglione
were enough to make her Bills fancee He
kissed her a couple of times and she started
talking about the relative residential merits Of
Long Island and Westchester.
When Bill started on his business trip, he
~
I'm telegraph at every stop on your list and
I'll be waiting when you end up at Nice" she
promised
Bill knew she would be as good as her word,
and no better. Still his old man ought to
have, life being what it was, the sort of q son
he wanted, at least.
The Old Man had pushed a bundle Of con-
tracts at him and said: You go South through
France and Spain, across to Algiers back to
Barcelona, and then east along the Pyrenees
and the sea to the Riviera. You'll have to
bargain, bluff, browbeat and cajole 1 want
every contract signed when we meet you at
Nice -
AS far as Gibraltar every contract was signed.
04ery Frenchman, Basque, Spaniard who had
q few suitable motor cars had been bluffed,
browbeaten, bargained with or cajoled. Bill
had received II kilograms from Arlene each
one reading: Love and success to my business
boy" The first nine were uniform anyway,
and after that he took it for granted without
opening them. Besides there was something
about business boy" that stuck in his esoph-
aguS.
And at Gibraltar he saw Shannon wister
Tor the very FIRST time.
A nat, open tender, already crowded with
happy sport-clad cruise passengers returning
30 the liner lay waiting for him ct the wharf.
Besides Bill the only other person aboard with
baggage was q girl. quiet self-contained girl
Who stood alone at the bow with her face turn
Cd away toward Africa and her slight, cloaked
nRure held erect with some apparent rigidity
Of purpose OF her own.
Bill paid no attention 10 the girl. Later on
be remembered having seen her, that's all. He
went aboard the liner, saw his things safely
Installed in cabin Csc and went on deck TO
enjoy the last of the afternoon sunlight. A
half hour remained before the last tender would
geturn TO shore. He settled himself comfort
ably IN one Of the long line of deck chairs
most of them empty just then.
Bill knew it was somebody else's deck chair
as attested by the name In the little card rack