Glacier County chief., 1939-09-29
Maru Brown Buus B|ouseS

OuI WHY.
The gay little city by the bright blue
sea was distinctly en- fete A Bataille
des Fleurs was in progress and all
the shops were closed, including, of
, course, the one that had taken her
money but produced no blouse.
loose in the bosom of Mary Brown, and
tore the gentle sweetness of her ma
ture limb from limb. She was so wild
that she scarcely knew and certainly
did not care what she did. Almost it
seemed as though that thieving shop
keeper had organized the fete on pur-
How-how, could she get even with
him, and with the American navy, too?
For the two outrages had now COM
pletely merged as one and each were
indistinguishable from each other.
to get back to the bus-stop, she had
to pick her way through hundreds of
parked cars, past the Hotel de Paris
and past the casino. But suddenly she
stopped dead, and harsh little laugh
broke from her lips.
She had remembered something.
that afternoon when she was SO happy
ages ago, now, it seemed-she had
confided to Dick Chambers the sur
prising fact that she had never been
inside the casino, and what was more,
that description. She told him it was
against her principles, and he had
applauded her. He had said she went
up" in his estimation, that he wouldn't
like his sisters to gamble, even for
, fun, any more than he would like
them to form the cocktail drinking
habit.
Well, she could get even with Lieu
tenant Chambers now, and with that
thief of a shopkeeper, and in a way
that ought to make them both sick
! 20
what their duplicity had egged her on
to do. She would complete the destruc-
ton they had begun for her. She
would utterly ruin herself.
In spite of the Bataille DIES Fleurs,
crowds Of people were streaming into
swept her along with them.
once inside, however. even with the
tiger to back her up. her passion for
| Sef-deStructlon might have fiZZled out,
except for the fact that everybody else
seemed to be taking this dramatic ex-
perience as a matter of normal routine.
So she tagged along in the wake of
two Of her own countrywomen, who,
from their appearance, might have
been school teachers, and did as they
did. albeit with a wildly beating heart.
They went into the free sale where
all it cost was to show ones passport,
and thence to a caisse where you
handed over French banknotes and got
some plaques marked with their value
in return.
Ten minutes later, Mary Brown was
exciting some attention at one of the
roulette tables. She hadn't been able
to get seat, but she had reached
over and put all her plaques on black.
and she had left them there because
she didn't know any better
The wheel was spun SO quickly, the
croupier called out things she didn't
understand, raked in and paid out
faster than one could hardly think,
and then the wheel was set in motion
again. Although it had spun five. times
since first she threw down her plaques,
and each time black had come up
! Sixteen thousand francs now lay to
her credit on the green baize.
One of the women she had followed
said hoarsely to the other: THE girl
must be mad. Black simply can't come
up again"
Perhaps the croupier thought it was
unlikely, too. He glanced at Mary
Brown and smiled with uplifted eye
| brows and sort of spell was broken.
over and swept the lot into her hand
! bag.
It was perfectly true that with the
next spin of the wheel, red did come
up. But before that happened, Mary
Brown was well on her way to the
After that she was very nearly sick
in the ladies' cloakroom, but not too
overcome to stow away her ill-gotten
gains in the little pouch she wore I'M
der her skirt for the safe-keeping of
valuables
Sixteen thousand francs-all the way
| back to Nice she did feverish sums in
her mind, which came out as near as
not to the tidy sum OF 100 pounds.
1t was frightening, it was almost
horrible
But something else was frightening,
/ too. Here is was, nearly o'clock and
her train went at 5:55 There ought
to be plenty of time, but the return
bus suddenly began to develop that
species of engine trouble which al
lowed it merely to creep on its way,
with frequent changes of gear and
much blue smoke and language from
| the driver 1t was $50 before It rolled
down the hill into Nice, and there was
nothing for it now but taxi to the
| pension to collect her luggage and
| hope for the best. Thank heaven she
was all packed and the hotel bill paid.
OF the making of wonders there is
sometimes no end, but they were
crowding little bit too thick and fast
now.
There was already a taxi waiting
! before the pension when Mary Brown
arrived, taxi piled with someone else
| luggage and her own, and a young
man in naval uniform hopping around