Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 176, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 December 1928 — Page 20

PAGE 20

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CHAPTER V—(Continued) Again Ashtoreth admired in all sincerity. A red brick floor, with a tea kettle and saucepans to match! And at the windows ruffly curtains, freckled with crimson dots. “Adorable!” she cried. “I never saw such a darling place in my life.” There were cigaret stubs in the sink and on the electric range. A dirty saucepan on the table and a percolator streaked with coffee. Soiled dishes were piled on one side, streaked with bleeding egg yolks, and cold, fat bacon. “It’s sort of messy,” apologized Sadie. “Look, dear, did you ever see an electric cocktail shaker? If I got any of that bum gin left we’ll have a little drink, and you can see how it works.” “Oh, no, thank you,” Ashtoreth protested hastily. “Honestly, I don’t care about cocktails. Besides, I have to go back to the office.” “One cocktail won’t hurt you.” “But I don’t like them, Sadie.” “Hey, be your age.” Sadie was cutting two oranges and a lemon. “Personally,” she said, “I'm just • about passing out. There's some anchovies in the ice chest, Ash. And some caviar. Get some crackers off the shelf there.” a a a BUT Ashtoreth had wandered into the living room. Books, she reflected, were conspicuously absent. Though there were magazines on the table behind the divan. Moving picture magazines and “confessions.” “I’m going to write my life story,” announced Sadies, coming in with goblets and a shaker on a tray. “And if I don’t make the rest Os them janes look like a bunch of pikers! Sit down, Ash. Here’s to fun, old dear!” But Ashtoreth scarcely touched her lips to the frosted glass. “Fun, Sadie!” she echoed. “Now for heaven’s sake, tell me about it.” Sadie took a carton of cigarettes from the table drawer. “Did you read,” she giggled, “about the movie actor who said his most embarrassing moment was when he took the blindfold test, and the guy forgot to kick him?” “Talk about embarrassing moments! My gosh, Ash, I never was so embararssed in my life as when I busted in on you and little pal, Holly.” She drained her glass and lit a cigarette. “What had he been telling you, dear? You musta vamped him.” Ashtoreth flushed. “It was strange.” “It was strange,” she confessed, “because honestly, Sadie, he never saw me until yesterday. I went in to take some letters and he happened to notice my ring. He’s interested in antiquities.” “ ‘Antiquities?’ ” cut in Sadie. “What’s that?” “Oh, old things—he’s awfully keen about archaeology.” “Arche—what?” “The study of old things,” explained Ashtoreth. “Ancient peoples and their customs and arts.” “Oh, And how long since you been studying this arche-business?” demanded Sadie suspiciously. Ashtoreth remembered her allnight session with Cleopatra and the last of the Pharaohs. "I don’t know much about it,” she confessed, with a maddening little air of superiority, so that Sadie could hardly have guessed Mow little she did know. “But my name, you see, is Egyptian, and I suppose it rather interested him. Did you know”—and Ashtoreth gloated just a little—“that mother named me for the moon goddess of Egypt? Mr. Hart seemed to think it was a beautiful idea.” “Yeah!” Sadie ' scoffed. “And what a joke that used to be before you got a boss awf’lly keen about archaeology.” There was a day, Miss Ritz, you didn’t have

THE NEW Saint-Sinner ByJhmeMustin 619284'NEASSVia.!NC.

"A Spanish or Mexican artist!” Cherry repeated. Then her musical laugh rang out delightedly. “You don’t mean to say you and Faith and Tony took that cock-and-bull story of Crystal’s serously? “Remember, Alan,” and Cherry whirled on the toe of a tiny gold slipper to face Beardsley, “I told you how this silly little cousin of Bob’s had made up a sort of glorified Valentino sweetie?” “What do you mean, Cherry?” Faith demanded, seizing her sister’s bare arm and shaking her impatiently. “What proof have you that Crystal ‘made up’ Pablo Valencio?” “Pablo Valencio!” Cherry cried, her golden eyes glittering with merriment. “Is that the label she pinned on him? Os course she made him up! She was at my house for tea —let’s see, it must have been early in September, for it was the day I got your telegram, Alan, saying you were coming to Stanton on business.” Alan Beardsley nodded his handsome, distinguished head. “The first Sunday in September that was.” He spoke as a man speaks of a date which has become sacred to him—a fact which Faith’s anxious heart did not miss. "Well, the first Sunday in September then,” Cherry began her story again. “Nils and I were taking a walk—he adores every foot of the earth and every prize cow and calf on his dairy farm—when I found Crystal sitting all alone under a tree, crying her eyes out over some sentimental novel she’d been reading. But would that girl admit it. Not Crystal! I took her home to tea and she spilled an outlandish story —obviously concocted to impress me —of having a date with a foreign artist —and of having refused to marry him on the grounds that she would hamper his career. “As if Crystal, man-crazy as she'is, would let a little thing like that stand in her way!”

such regard for your mother’s romantical nature. However, let bygones be bygones, as the poet says. Go on with the dirt.” “Well, he noticed my ring, and then he commented on my name. And pretty soon we were sort of chatting—you know how it is.” “Yes, I know,” agreed Sadie dryly. “And pretty soon he asked you had you a date for dinner.” “Oh, no!” Ashtoreth assured her hastily. “He gave me some letters, and that was all there was to it. Then this morning he called me in again—he’d just had your letter, Sadie—and it was natural enough, really—he was curious. He asked me what I thought of it.” “He read you my letter!” “Why, yes. You see, he didn’t imagine that we knew each other. It—well, truly, I hadn’t thought of it as unchivalrous or anything like that.” “No? Well, it wasn’t your letter,” observed Sadie. tt u n HER face was scarlet. She poured herself another cocktail, dropping her cigaret on the rug and twisting her toe on it angrily as she stood up. “The dirty bum!” “Honestly, Sadie,’ if it hadn’t just happened that the girl he showed it to was I, and the girl who wrote it was you, you’d never have thought a thing about it.” “Well, maybe I wouldn’t. Go on —what did he have to say? Told you I was blackmailing him, I suppose?” Ashtoreth coughed. “Well, weren’t you?” she demanded. CHAPTER VI SUDDENLY Sadie began to cry. “Y-y-you think I’m h-h----horrid, She sobbed. “Why, no, I don’t,” insisted Ashtoreth without a-great deal of conviction. “I’ve only heard one side of the story.” “Y-you’re trying to m-make a h-h-hit with him yourself,” accused Sadie. Ashtoreth had not thought of it before. At least, not such crude terms. Now—to herself—she admitted, “I suppose I am.”^ Aloud she said, “Don’t be silly, Sadie. Take another drink if it will make you stop crying. And for heaven’s sake, be rational.” She drained the shaker and handed the weeping girl a goblet. “You’re not having any yourself,” wailed Sadie. <‘You—you just think you’re too good.” "It’s not that.” explaind Ashtoreth. “I hate the stuff.” “I never had any myself till lately,” defended Sadie. “It’s got an awful kick—this bootleg gin. When it don’t make me laugh it makes me cry. “I’d leave it alone then,” advised Ashtoreth. “Yes, you would! Well, maybe you wouldn’t if you had all my troubles. I’m down to my last $50 — that’s what I am.” Ashtoreth laughed. “You can’t expect me to weep over that. I’m down to my last 50 cents. It’s nothing unusual either.” “But what am I going to do?” moaned Sadie. “Get yourself a job.” “How could Team enough to keep this shack? “Probably you couldn’t,” agreed Ashtoreth. “Why keep it?” Sadie tucked a pillow behind her back. “You wouldn’t understand,” she observed, “because you never had a layout like this, Ash. But now I ask you, suppose you got together a swell little cabin like this—would you walk out on it? Heaven may protect the working girl, like they say. But I never saw heaven pay no rent, nor buy the groceries. And, once you get used to refinement, Ash, it’s awful hard to give it up.”

“We don’t know that she has let it stan din her way,” Faith interrupted her vivacious sister’s torrent of words. “I myself think she has married him.” “Then you’re a darling, blessed idiot!” Cherry jibed fondly. “She intimated, very vaguely, that her handsome sheik of an artist lived or boarded in the neighborhood, and you can believe that little Cherry took pains to find that no such celebrity was being driven to Crystal Hathaway for entertainment!” “I can well believe that,” Bob agreed dryly. “Well—you’re sure that there’s no such person? “Wait a minute! ” Cherry wrinkled her pretty forehead in deep thought. “No—that’s too utterly absurd, of course—” “What is it, darling?” Faith insisted. “We can’t overlook any least little thing.” “We-ell,” Cherry went on, slowly, “at the time I didn’t think anything of it, but now—. The fact is that Nils made a wisecrack about the description of her mysterious suitor fitting a young Mexican laborer on the Grayson farm, next to us, you know. “Said that the young ‘greaser’ was good-looking all right, and that he was a that his masterpiece was the Grayson barn. Crystal flushed and looked ready to cry—” “I should think she would!” Tony flashed. “I think every one has been perfectly horrid to Crystal—except Faith—and I don’t blame her a bit for ducking out. Os course it hurt her feelings for you to think her Pablo was a Mexican farm hand—” “Wait a minute!” Bob interrupted. “You say that Nils described this young Mexican farm hand as good-looking?” Then, as Cherry nodded, wide-eyed, Bob announced firmly: “I don’t care if it is 2 o’clock in the morning. I’m going to put in a call for the Grayson farm!” (To Be Continued)

“Did Mr. Hart really give you SIO,OOO, Sadie?” “Yes, he did. a a a THE girl flared defiantly. “No strings, either. Cuckoo, that’s all. Why shouldn’t he, though? He’s got so much money he don’t know what to do with it. Endowing homes for cats and things! I guess he got a few laughs out of me. And that’s all a guy like him wants. He can afford to pay for his fun.” “But SIO,OOO, Sadie!” “What’s that to him? Just like 10 cents to you or me.” “Tell me about it!” implored Ashtoreth. But Sadie grew suddenly reticent. “How do I know what you got up your sleeve?” she wanted to know. “Maybe you’re after him yourself. And God knows I ain’t going to start no competition with you, Ash. “I’d be licked before I began. Why should I give you the low-down? If Holly Hart’s God’s swell gift to hungry wimmin, why shouldn’t I hang on, while the hanging’s good.” Astoreth may have been a snob. Most people are. She considered Sadie both cheap and common. And so she felt that the girl had insulted her, resenting the assumption that there could be any rivalry between them. “Don’t be vulgar, Sadie,” she cautioned, and shrugged distastefully. "And don’t you high hat me!” countered Sadie. “Coming out here to drink my gin and get an earful of dirt! And then putting on airs like you was somebody! Say, how do you get that way?” Ashtoreth realized that she had made a mistake. Without knowing exactly what might develop, she knew that she must van Sadie’s confidence in order to protect her own interests with Hart. She might even be able to act as an intermediary between the two. Thereby establishing a personal contact with Hart. Hart was wealthy and powerful. And interesting besides. Ashtoreth wanted very much to know him. Now she tried diplomacy on Sadie. “You don’t really care for him, do you?” she wheedled. Sadie removed her cigaret and blew a few insolent rings, spearing them with her stubby little fingers. She had tossed her hat off, her hai" was tousled, like Clara Bow’s. At least, it was supposed to be like Clara Bow’s. Careless and abandoned. She ran her fingers throught it and when she had spread it like a tawny little mane, she leaned back against a purple satin pillow. Then she began to hum. “He‘s my weakness now!” hummed Sadie, and looked provocatively at Ashtoreth. She sang the chorus through, improvising a bit as she w’ent along When she had finished she threw her feet in the air and clicked her merry red heels smartly. Then she laid her hand on Ashtoreth’s knee. “You’re a good kid.” she pronounced, and cocked her frowey head. “But you’re awful dumb. Ash ” “All right,” agreed Ashtoreth. “I’m anything you say. But let’s not quarrel any more.” a a a SiADIE jumped to her feet and ) walked restlessly up and down the room. “It’s no good,” she admitted, ‘ having a weakness if you ain’t your w’eakness’s weakness, if you know what I mean. And I ain’t Holly Hart’s weakness —not by a darn sight.” “Tell me abort, it,” besought Ashtoreth again. But Sadie was vague. “Same old story,” she mumbled. "I got in a jam. And the family kicked me out. Just like the movies. And the poor goil wandered the streets all night—and got a hell of a cold. Ended up in a hospital and dam near died. “When I got better I went back to the office—l’d been working there before. And Mason fired me. I guess I went sort of crazy. Anyhow I breezed into the boss’ office and turned on the weeps. He fell like a load of bricks. “Maybe you won’t believe me, Ash, but it’s the Gospel truth He made a speech about cats and when he got through he handed me $lO,000. just like it was car fare.” Ashtoreth laughed. “No wonder he’s your weakness now,” she reserved. “Yeah, Well, it don’t look like it was going to do me a flock of good. I spent that money, just like them drunken sailors you read about.” The girl rolled her eyes ecstatically. “A chiffon velvet negligee and a cloth of gold evening wrap, and lobster newburg every night for dinner,” she boasted. "Fourteen pairs of shoes and a radio to get Hawaii—oh, gee, Ash! “I rented the apartment and furnished it to the eyebrows. And pretty soon Holly got me a job singing over the radio. They canned me last week, but he don’t know that-yet. “Everything was hunky-dory, with Holly like an old Dutch uncle and not so much as kissing me good night. I used to pinch my self to see if it was true. Then, all of a sudden —blooey!” “What happened?” demanded Ashtoreth. “Well, you see ” Sadie leaned nearer. "Men are so damn mean, they don’t want to pay for anything they don’t get. Don’t make any difference how much money they got. Holly must of felt he was get ting cheated. And he hadn’t gut? enough to say so. So he just sort of eases out of the picture.” Ashtoreth was unconvinced. “What makes you think so” she asked. “They are all alike,” countered sadie wisely. "They got just one idea in their heads—men. See how Holly walked out on me. That’s what I get for being pure.” “Oh, Sadie, you’re wrong, dear I know you are. Mr. Hart isn’t that kind.” “They’re all alike, I tell you.” Sadie wagged her golden head. (To Be Continued)

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THE BOOK OP KNOWLEDGE

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OUT OUR WAY

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SKETCHES B 1 BESSET. SYNOPSIS BY BRAE CHER

DEC. 13,1928

—By Williams

-Bv Martin

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By Small

By Cowan