The Coolidge examiner., 1932-07-08
The
Beginners
Il Nopel by
Henry Kitchen
Webster
copyright by The Bobbs- Merrill Company
(v.N. U. ssrviee)
CHAPTER VIl-contlnued

uNe miles DeyOnQ Lnelr own SIduOn.
HI" Bert said. There was a
twinkle In his eye, though, and the
ice broke with crash. ''D-n you,
Ned !" he went on, "were you going
TO Milwaukee before you said any
thing? How are things going with
you?"
"All right" Edward told him. II
suppose I've stuck because the first
think l had to say was that I'd
been d-n fool, and l don't really
believe 1t yet. At least, If l was.
I'm glad Of II. I've got rid of the
choke, though. I'll tell you all about
it."
"Getter get off here first" Bert
suggested. "We don't want to ride
another five miles on this d-n
train. We can drive over to the
golf club and have dinner Tell our
wives that's what we meant to do
all along. No use looking sillier
than necessary"
1t wasn't until they'd washed up
and sat down to dinner that Ed
ward began his story-the story of
the inadvertent sale to Jake Cor
man of a NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
life insurance contract.
''It wasn't what you meant to do
when you went after himT Bert
asked.
"No," Edward told him. 'T'm sure
It wasn't, and yet / don't think ]
meant to ask him to put his money
into the choke. / don't think !
could have asked him. You'd con-
cinced me, as far as my mind went,
that I'd be a crook If / persuaded
anybody TO invest In that.
Down inside, there must have
been somebody else in charge all
the time. Not somebody else, real
ly; myself, only l didn't know 1t.
It's queer the way man can live
10 be forty-six years old without
ever making his own acquaintance;
NAS ms " iA'C uP W oh iNCh VI "hol
he is, what he can do and what he
can't, fooling himself and making
himself miserable at the same time"
Bert wasn't In the mood for gen.
eralities. "All right" he said, "only
go ahead. Tell me the rest Of It."
There isn't great deal to tell.
] went back and saw Vane the next
morning. Told him ! wanted a desk
and a chance at a few big fish that
had proved hard to land. I've been
having the time of my life the last
two weeks. I've got two or three
Of them already. Can you under
stand how / could see that game GO
ing on under my nose for twenty
years and never want to play it?"
II always thought you knew too
much about it." Bert said.
Perhaps l thought ] did" Ed.
ward conceded obviously. Then he
laughed. Tt was selling a thing l
didn't know anything about that
walked me up, anyhow" he went on.
He told Bert about Steinfeldt and
the sale of the first carton Of two
dozen chokes.
"You haven't told me yet how
you got out of It," Bert reminded
him. II thought you were coming
back to me, If you decided to do
that
Il would have" Edward said,
and added, with a grin, If I'd had
10, but 1 found a certain satisfac-
ton in getting by without doing Ii.
I've a feeling that I'm a bit Of a
crook, but-well, there's a sort of
satisfaction in that, too. This is
what happened! l got letter-oh,
a couple of weeks, perhaps, before
the smash-it was while you were
down at Asheville-from a firm of
patent lawyers in town. A client of
theirs was interested in the Mariner
patent, they said, and would con-
slider buying it.
after the smash, when ] was fig
uring up my debt and what / could
pay them with, 1t struck me that l
might as well get what I could on
the patent. So I told the people
that If they wanted to make seri-
Gus proposition, I'd consider 1t.
"Just about then / got a letter
from Mariner. The choke wasn't
any good, he pointed out, and If /
got q chance to sell 1t, he thought
I'd better take 1t. Well, put two
and two together, / could just see
him out there in Los Angeles, talk
ing to another boob exactly as he'd
talked to me-somebody who hadn't
liked his vaporizer very well and
was taken with his choke. / knew
how he'd tell his story; the thing
was going in a small way, but had
fallen into the hands of a piker
who had neither put any real money
into it nor allowed him to make
the Improvements in design that he
wanted to make. But if he could
persuade me to sell it out cheap,
there was a fortune in it.
Il never had any doubt from the
moment l thought of it that that
was the explanation. l figured up