—
Bellefonte, Pa., March 15, 1929.
ES
BIRTHDAY MOTTOES FOR 1929.
JANUARY.
By her who in this month is born
No gem save garnet should be worn;
They will insure her constancy,
True friendship and fidelity.
FEBRUARY.
The February born will find
Sincerity and peace of mind,
Freedom from passion and from care,
If they the amethyst will wear.
MARCH.
Who on this world of ours their eyes
In March first opel shall be wise;
In days of peril firm and brave,
And wear a bloodstone to their grave.
APRIL.
She who from April dates her years
Diamonds should wear, lest bitter tears
For vain repentance flow; this stone
Emblem of innocence is known.
MAY.
Who first beholds the light of day
In spring's sweet flowery month of May,
And wears an emerald all her life,
Shall be a loved and happy wife.
JUNE.
Who comes with summer to this earth,
And owes to June her day of birth,
With ring of agate on her hand,
Can health, wealth and long life command.
JULY.
The glowing ruby should adorn
Those who in warm July are born;
Then will they be exempt and free
From love's doubts and anxiety.
AUGUST.
Wear a sardonyx, or for thee
No conjugal felicity;
The August born, without this stone,
"Tis said, must live unloved and lone.
SEPTEMBER.
A maiden born when autumn leaves
Are rustling in September's breeze,—
A sapphire on her brow should bind—
"Twill cure diseases of the mind.
OCTOBER.
October's child is born for woe,
And lifes’ vicissitudes must know;
But lay an opal on her breast,
And hope will lull those words to rest.
+ NOVEMBER.
Who first comes to this world below
With dread November's fog and snow
Should prize the topaz amber hue—
Emblem of friends and lovers true.
DECEMBER.
If cold December gave you birth—
The month of snow and ice and mirth—
Place on your hand a turquoise blue;
Success will bless whate’er you do.
—————— eee
PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE.
Even though it may make her
sound absurdly abnormal, the truth
was that Penelope did not in the least
crave masculine society this Saturday
afternoon in August. On the con-
trary, she wanted to be alone, to loaf |
and invite her soul. That, in her
opinion, was a very nice soul—Pen-
elope was not troubled with any in-
feriority complex—but as secretary
to the general manager of one of the
factories operated by that more or
less soulless corporation known as
the Titan Tire Company, she got lit-
tle chance to cultivate it or enjoy it
save during week-ends.
This was why, as the canoe she was
paddling swung around a bend in the
fTven, her pretty mouth set mutinous-
y.
“Oh, darn!” she mourned inwardly,
as she saw that the ancient spring-
board which was to play its part in
her afternoon’s program was already
occupied.
He who monopolized it had ob-
viously been in the water, for his
black racing-suit gleamed in the sun-
light, as did the hard, brown mus-
cularity of his shoulders. He had, in
other words, already experienced the
swift impact of the plunge and the
swift uplift of spivit to which Pene-
lope had looked forward.
“Without,” said Penelope to Pene-
lope, “looking so darned uplifted.”
She recognized him at once. Don
Sturgis, of course—and, of course, he
wouldn't look happy. Penelope had
never been introduced to him, never
spoken two words to him. But she
suspected just what ailed him.
“Spoiled baby,” ran her thought.
At that moment the canoe's ad-
vance penetrated his preoccupation.
He glanced up swiftly and, if that
were possible, his grim young mouth
became a bit grimmer. Evidently he
considered her an intruder.
“And just for that,” Penelope in-
formed Penelope, “I've a good mind
to shove him off that spring-board
and swim anyway.”
This, however, was not the real
reason the canoe’s bow wavered. The
truth was that at that moment Don
Sturgis did not loom in her eyes as
the lithe and personable young six-
footer who had come to the Titan
plant direct from the college where
his athletic ability had made him one
of the campus gods.
To Penelope, absurdly enough, he
looked like a small boy who is be-
ing punished for just what he does
not know. Or, even more absurdly,
like a puppy who has just received
its first whipping.
That she should vision him so was,
to Penelope, a danger-signal. ‘The
trouble with me,” Penelope had more
than once informed Penelope, “is that
I have a strong maternal complex—
but who would believe it?”
Penelope's mirror was the answer
to that. No one! She did not look
maternal. Nevertheless, for all her
customary cool insouciance of man-
ner and the two malicious little devils
—dimples, so called—that danced at
either corner of her mouth, Penelope
had her Achilles heel. She could see
a stray dog, a hungry cat or a dis-
couraged human without feeling a
perfectly absurd tug at her heart-
strings. And that was why the ca-
noe’'s bow wavered.
“You,” she sternly admonished her-
self at that point, “keep right on
paddling your own canoe.”
This, she knew, was wiser. Ex-
perience—or perhaps the word should
be experiments—had made her wary
of the other man who went from
terpret a girl's motives. For in-
stance, the Good Samaritan, being
male himself, could go to the rescue
of the other man who went from
Jerusalem to Jericho and there fell
among thieves, render first aid and
take compassion upon him, all with-
out running the slightest danger of
being misunderstood.
But suppose the Good Samaritan
had been feminine, with a tiptilted
nose, a natural wave in her hair and
a permanent wave in her disposition.
What would have happened then?
Ask Penelope. She knew. From
experience—or experiments.
“The gentleman from Jerusalem
would have known that it was his ir-
resistible self that had attracted the
lady’s attention,” Penelope would
have retorted feelingly. “And when
it became necessary to assure him
that it had all been pure altruiSm he
would bitterly have accused the lady
of having led him on.”
This had happened to Penelope sev-
eral times. And she had made up
her mind it would never, never hap-
pen again.
Besides which she had other plans
for this afternoon. A blazing after-
_| noon that back in the ugly little fac-
tory town enveloped one in an at-
mosphere of dessicating heat, with
dust underfoot and burnished bowl
of sky overhead. But here, on the
river, there were golden dappled
shadows and the subtle perfume of
the earth, and from either bank came
the intermittent madrigals of the
birds and the cicadas’ ceaseless mid-
summer serenade.
“No, I'm not going to the game
this afternoon,” Penelope had assured
one of the girls in the office. “I work
for the Titan Tire Company five and
a half days a week as it is. If I've
got to go out and root for this ball
team on an afternoon like this I want
time-and-a-half overtime.”
“What are you going to do?” the
girl in the office—baptized Mabel but
known as Mabe—had persisted.
“Fill the tub with cold water and
sit in it all afternoon,” Penelope had
replied at random.
But she had lied through her pretty
teeth. Because Penelope, for all al-
truism, could be selfish in small
things. She preferred to enjoy cer-
tain pleasures alone—the canoe, the
river, the volume of verse that lay
among the cushions.
“Good grief!” Mabe would have
gasped. “What did you want to bring
a book for?”
Mabe might have sensed the lure
of the river, even invited herself to
share it, ball game or no ball game.
But she never would have savored the
exquisite joy one can find in solitude.
Or in silence and a book idly read or
lazily dropped. Or realize that a
sunset not only requires no comment
but absolutely forbids it.
In brief, there were times when
Penelope preferred to be alone and at
such times the river was one of her
particular joys.
The current here was a gentle,
slumbrous thing; one paddled leisure-
ly upstream to the ancient spring-
board from which one could dive un-
til, wearied yet renewed, one sat in
the slanting August sunshine and let
its golden touch caress.
After that another mile upstream
and then, with the canoe’s nose in the i
bank under an overhanking bow, one
read or dreamed and, after a time,
munched sandwiches.
Such was Penelope's program for
this August afternoon. And she was
not going to let Don Sturgis spoil it
by a surrender to that infernal com-
plex of hers. Or, for that matter,
abridge it either.
This was an afterthought that
turned the canoe shoreward.
“If,” she announced crisply, “you're
through with that spring-board, I'd
like to use it.”
His eyes met hers. “You mean—
you want to swim?” he asked uncer-
tainly.
The question was not unnatural.
At the moment Penelope was not at-
tired for swimming. She wore a
coat sweater, silk stockings as sheer
as gossamer and trim pumps. Under
the sweater was her bathing-suit but
that he could not know, so was not
as stupid as he seemed—or as Pene-
lope, who could be very feminine
when not absurdly altruistic, chose
to impute.
“What else would TI want a spring-
board for?” she retorted satirically.
And giving the canoe a final im-
pulse that thrust its nose into the
bank, she rose and nonchalantly re-
moved her sweater, revealing slim
shoulders sweetly molded and deli-
: cately tanned.
He eyed her uncertainly and then
dived, as she bent to remove her slip-
pers. He was trudgening upstream,
traveling like a torpedo, before she,
a slim and boyish—but not too boyish
—figure in her bathing-suit, pulled
a rubber cap down over her charming
ears.
“He,” thought Penelope, “is rather
exclusive himself.” :
To which she would have added
that she was darned glad of it. Only
she wasn’t, wholly.
Then, poised for the dive, she for-
got him.
Later, as she sat at the tip of the
spring-board with her bright hair re-
leased from the confines of the rub-
ber cap, he came back to mind again.
“Oh, good Lord!” her chief had
groaned one morning back in June.
“See who they've wished on me now.”
The letter he had tossed to her was
from the president of the Titan Com-
pany, written to inform Penelope's
chief that Donald Sturgis was being
sent to him for preliminary training
in the art of tire-making.
Penelope had puckered her brows
over the name. “Isn't he something
to do with football?” she had haz-
arded.
“He is,” her chief had replied bit-
terly. “And crew and swimming and,
A hao That's
heavens knows what else. ?
why J. T. picked him, of course.”
J. T. was the Titan's president. A
big man, undeniably, but like all big
a A he
men apt to suffer from hallucinations.
| One of these—so viewed at least by
' his immediate and long-suffering sub-
| ordinates—was his idea that among
college graduates of current vintage
might be discovered j;annually, just
‘the sort of new blood that the com-
‘pany should be infused with.
i The managers of the various Titan
factories, to whom the delicate ope-
‘ ration of infusion was intrusted, felt
, otherwise.
“I feel,” J. T. had explained, “that
‘the man who has made his mark in
athletics and other student activities
has revealed a capacity for leadership
‘ that should prove invaluable to us.’
The managers felt otherwise. J.
T's not very original idea was to start
j his proteges at the bottom of the lad-
‘der and rush them through an in-
tensive course of training.
“And,” Penelope's chief had com-
mented, “how these pampered cam-
pus pets love the bottom of the lad-
der.
He had glowered, briefly. Then:
“Well, we'll put him at work unload-
ing freight-cars. If he sticks long
enough to reach the vulcanizing pits
he'll be well baked, instead of just
half baked, by the time he. decides
that his talents are wasted here.”
The actual arrival of J. T.’s latest,
one morning late in June, had found
Penelope busy typing the morning's
i less, achieved an impression of him—
'a personable youngster, built as a
varsity end should be and competent-
ly, if causally, tailored.
That he did not lack self-assur-
ance had been apparent to her. But
then all J. T.s contributions were
that way and Sturgis, at least, was
saved from insufferableness by a nice
smile—it had flashed at the other girl
in the office when he had asked for
the manager—and what Penelope had
construed as an obvious desire to
please as well as be pleased.
At noon the next day, Penelope had
seen Sturgis again. He was no long-
er competently tailored. He wore,
above khaki trousers, only a sleeve-
less jersey that revealed the play and
ripple of his bronzed shoulders. The
day was hot and so was he. He was
one of a gang of unskilled laborers
who were removing bales of crude
rubber—a spongy, gray-colored mass
—from freight-cars.
“He’s getting his
lope had thought.
doesn’t like them.”
Sturgis hadn’t particularly. He
had been warned that his beginnings
would be unpleasant and had merely
grinned.
“We have found,” the Titan rep-
resentative had persisted, “that the
average college graduate seems to
‘lack stamina. We can’t afford to
waste time except on exceptional
men.”
Sturgis’ grin had widened. “Well,
I'm certainly exceptional in one way.
I'm one of the few men in my class
who aren't going to sell bonds.’
The sort of man, it seemed, that J.
T. had in mind. So J. T.’s representa-
tive had decided, if not too optimisti-
cally.
the crew and a forward on the hock-
|ey team. President of the student
j council and voted by his classmates
| the most popular man on the cam-
pus.
| Such was Sturgis’ record. And with
'it to recommend him, he had spent
the first day of his apprenticeship
| handling crude rubber under a broil-
ing June sun.
! It had struck him as funny then,
| because he had a sense of humor. Yet
it had proved a day of unpalatable re-
‘adjustments and it had galled him
| that he should be so tired at five
: o'clock.
| “There's a trick to handling this
i stuff that I haven't caught yet,” was
| the way he had comforted himself,
! instinctively.
| ~ But that was only partly true. The
| basic truth was that he was a spe-
| cialized athlete and, as such, no
! more fitted for steady, unimaginative
drudgery than a race-horse is fitted
| for dragging an ice cart.
They had not kept him on the
| freight-cars long. As a next step he
was moved indoors to where the
bales of rubber were put into vats of
hot water to soften. Then along with
| the flow of the raw products he had
‘progressed to the breakers—powerful
machines which crushed the lumps
| between large corrugated rollers—
{and after that to the washing and
sheet-machines.
So from one stage to another he
had advanced until with the begin-
ning of the hottest August in history
he had come to the vulcanizing pits.
No one had asked him this August
day if he intended to go to the ball
game, The most popular man in his
class was not popular with his fellows
here. Why should he be? He was
one of J. Ts pets, getting shoved
through toward a good job—a much
bumps,” Pene-
“And I'll bet he
worked with ever could hope for.
“Hey, you big boob,” the foreman
had bellowed at him that morning,
“watch that crane—watch that
crane—watch that crane!”
An overwhelming desire to plant
his fist right spang on the foreman’s
nose had all but mastered him for a
moment. Instead, he had set his lips
and watched the crane.
“To a place even hotter than the
vulcanizing pit with your ball game!”
had anybody asked if he intended to
lend his support to the Titan: nine
that afternoon.
All he had been waiting for was
him respite for forty-two hours—and
perhaps more. He wantéd to think
that out. He had, that morning, re-
ceived a letter from Sam Bellows, his
roommate at college. :
Sam was selling bonds—or trying
to anyway.
New York is hotter than the hinges
(Sam had written), and bonds seem
to be what most people prefer to hear
nothing about these days! But even
so, life has its compensations.
I ran into Tommy Somers the oth-
er day and snagged a weekend bid
out of him. Went down to Port Wash-
ington on his old man's twin-screw
commuter—one of those forty-mile-
sheaf of dictation. She had, none the
Varsity end, number four on .
better job than most of the men he
he would have snapped at that minute |
an hour birds with a Filipino steward
and plenty of prewar stuff aboard—
and lived like a millionaire generally
from Friday to Monday.
Say, do you remember Tommy's
sister Nan? You ought to. She ask-
ed about you particularly and wanted
to know why a man of your talents
and parts chose to bury himself in the
Goths and Vandals learning to make
tires, when there certainly should be
something nicer you could do. 1
agreed with her perfectly and said I
would tell you so. She said to give
you her love and three kisses.
On the level, Don, what you've
landed yourself in doesn’t sound to
me like any bed of roses and are you
so sure that all this talk about a swell
future isn't hooey? Anyway, life is
short and youth is fleeting. Why not
chuck it and come down to New
York? I'd be glad to halve my ex-
penses and double my joys by sharing
an apartment with you and you
wouldn't have any trouble landing
something good.
There's a lot of old grads who are
full of old college spirit and always
ready to give a fellow a hand. I
think at that New York is the only
place for a lad who wants a real fu-
ture and—well, it is preeminently
the place to get the most out of life.
Think it over, yau crab, and write or
wire when you're coming.
This letter was not in Don’s pocket
as he swam upstream, bathing-suits
not being so equipped. It was, how-
ever, in the pocket of the suit that he
had left, along with more intimate
garments, on the bank upstream.
There he was headed. Arriving, he
produced cigarets and matches and,
still in his bathing-suit reread the
letter.
Of course—he grinned now—he re-
membered Nan Somers. She had
rushed him at the Senior Prom the
way girls frankly rush men nowa-
days.
“Let’s not talk about the weather,”
she had suggested coolly, as they sat
on a rail under the stars between
dances. “Let's talk about sex.”
They hadn't, of course, talked
about sex. That was just her line.
Instead:
“Coming down to New York after
you graduate ?”” she had asked.
“I haven't decided,” he had replied.
“You'd better,” she had advised.
“You'd get along swell in New York.”
Don, with all due modesty, had sus-
pected that. Other men had done it—
Sam was even then planning to be-
stow himself on New York.
“Get a job with some brokerage
house or bank that will give you so-
cial connections and you can’ go any-
where, marry anybody you choose,”
was Sam's definitely stated explana-
ion.
Nor was he overstating it. In New
York nowadays a young man may
come from nowhere but if he is per-
sonable and a bachelor he is invited
everywhere. As one of a group he
is, whenever he may choose, some
girl's guest at dinner, at the theater
or the opera, and itis the woman
who pays—or rather her father.
The modern deb, in short needs
men in her business.
“Why, one girl,’ Sam had enlarged,
“sent a special train up to Yale on
the day of her debut and brought
down most of the senior class. It’s
the old law of supply and demand and
the pickings are darn good. Why
stick your nose to the old grindstone
when you can have the time of your
life in New York?”
Don felt differently about it— and
said so.
“The old Horatio Alger stuff—from
rags to riches,” Sam had commented
disgustedly. “Well, live and learn,
my lad !”
They had gone their separate ways
and— well, there was Sam, weekend-
ing at Port Washington while he, Don
Sturgis—
Don did not bother to finish that.
He merely flicked away the stub of
his cigaret and it was as if he had
flicked the Titan organization with it.
Sam was right—New York was the
place for a man.
Not that he meant to try to achieve
a reputation as the debs’ delight. It
was just that he was beginning to
suspect that there was a lot of hooey
about this future stuff with the Titan
organization. It wasn’t that he hated
the town—so he assured himself—or
was fed up with hard work; it was
simply that he now realized that he
hadn’t pinned the Titan representa-
tive down to anything definite,
“The Titan organization is a big
one,” J. T's emissary had said, “and
you know what the tire industry is
these days. Your future is all up to
you.”
To Don, sitting in the study he and
Sam had shared, that had seemed
persuasive enough. He had felt that
he was capable of something bigger
—and more original—in the way of
a career than the selling of bonds.
In brief, the Titan opening had
' seemed to him the more adventurous,
more dramatic thing. But—well, just
what was that future?
{ “Four or five thou a year in the
field service,” he informed himself,
this August afternoon; “ten or fifteen
if I get up to the general manager-
ship of a plant like this. The egg
that has the job will never see fort:
again; he’s slaved for the job—TI’ll bet
he’s not as keen about his future as
he might be.”
This, he felt, was the way to
at it. He was now only doing what
'he should have done before—consid-
{ering the thing from all angles.
“I will have a heart-to-heart talk
the noon whistle which would give with the manager Monday morning,” |
he promised himself.
: He did not add, “And that bimbo
i will have to go home to convince me
i that there is any sense in hanging
around here,” but that was the way
he felt.
This much settled, he
thoughts turn toward Sam—and New
York. He did not precisely picture
himself seated beside Sam on some
rich man’s commuter, ministered to
by a Filipino steward, but he did re-
'flect reminiscently, that Sam would
get away with that sort of stuff.
“And,” he enlarged generously, “I
wouldn't be surprised if Sam clean-
‘ed up, too.” Something more, that
is, than fifteen thousand a year, at
forty. He did not add, to himself,
that if Sam could, so could he, but
he did have that feeling.
As for Nan Somers and her mes-
sage—that didn’t count.
“She’d send the same message to
Sam through me if the case were re-
versed,” he acknowledged—and knew
that was the truth.
"Nevertheless, he was only twenty-
four and no monk and the prospect
of association with Nan and her sort
after his sojourn here uplifted him
still more.
In brief, he was no longer grim of
lip when Penelope and her canoe
again came into sight. She was still
in her bathing-suit and, everything
considered, was so fashioned and, at
the moment, so presented, as to
evoke a second glance from also any
masculine eye.
The second glance he gave her was
prolonged. Of that fact Penelope was
not unconscious.
“His second plunge seems to have
improved his disposition,” she
thought. This while she kept her
eyes straight ahead, superbly un-
aware of his existence. Yet he puz-
zled her. He no longer looked like
a spanked boy or a spanked puppy.
He looked——
“I'll bet,” guessed Penelope, at that
point, he’s decided to quit!”
This was none of her business in
one way. Yet just the same she
knew that if Don Sturgis quit there
would be ructions. Naturally J. T.
himself never made an error in judg-
ment. His ideas were always sound;
when anything went wrong with
them it was obviously the fault of
the subordinates.
Penelope had a sudden premonition
that J. T. was going to be particu-
larly nastly and sarcastic this time.
Quite unconsciously her pace slack-
ened a bit. And at that Don grin-
ned. “Enjoy your swim?” he sug-
gested experimentally.
Penelope glanced toward him, her
eyes cool, collected and disdainful.
“What Mabe would call giving him
the eye,” she would have explained.
Except that Mabe, she realized,
never would have given this young
six-footer just that sort of eye. Mabe
would have been interested and, had
Penelope ignored the overture, irri-
tated.
“Say, what was the sense of be-
ing so standoffish?” Mabe would
have demanded subsequently—Pene-
lope could just hear her.
And if Mabe were alone . . .
Penelope smiled. Not at Don—al-
though that was his impression—but
at a suggestion her nimble processes
had presented her with. “Why,”
this was, “not pretend to be Mabe
this afternoon?”
The idea intrigued her. Mabe
would let him pick her up in a mo-
ment—and Penelope knew Mabe's °
line. Mabe always said anything that
came into her head; she had no ret-
icences. At the moment there was
something Penelope ached to say to
Don Sturgis. To the end that he at
least would know what one person
thought of his quitting.
The ‘still brilliance of the afternoon
encompassed her as she held her pad-
dle poised. She could carry it through
that way, beautifully.
“Say, Mister Freshy!” she plunged.
“When were you ever introduced to
me?”
Exactly as Mabe would have said
it. Not as an ultimatum but as one
who, having posed a question as to
the proprieties, is willing to forego
them if properly pressed and persuad-
ed.
And that was the idea Don got.
His grin widened. He was, as has
been said, no monk.
“I thought we met down the river.
Didn't the spring-board introduce
us?”
“If it did,” retorted Penelope, now
definitely cast in the role of Mabe, “I
didn’t exactly hear you say ‘pleased
to meetcha.”
“I am very shy and easily scared,”
he retorted. “You looked as if you
might push me off the spring-board
if I didn’t move fast—and so I did!”
“I'll say you did,” she affirmed.
They had reached a rubicon. Pene-
lope sensed the slackening in his in-
terest, a slackening that she felt—
not being overmodest about it—would
not have been there had she not step-
ped out of character.
The next move was hers. She
twisted her paddle in the water, bent
her sun-burnished head. Just as
Mabe would have.
“Hot, ain't it?” she experimented.
“It’s a lot cooler in here,” he re-
plied.
Penelope pretended to hesitate.
Then, “Can you prove it?” she de-
manded archly.
“Come in and give me a chance,”
he invited—as almost any male ex-
cept a monk must have.
“Well,” conceded Penelope, par-
taking of Mabe's presumed liberal-
ity on that point, “we both work for
the Titan Company and I know a lot
| about you anyway.”
| Penelope saw that he quickened at
that, as men usually do. His curios-
ity was aroused as he sprang to as-
sist her to the bank, but she did not
at once appease it.
Mabe, she felt sure, would first
' make it clear that she was a lady.
{ “I don’t do this sort of thing usu-
| ally,” she informed him in Mabe's be-
low is a gentleman and won't take
. too much for granted.”
“I understand perfectly,” Don as-
sured her. “Won't you sit down?”
He spoke with lazy assurance but
{ Mabe, certainly, would have taken no
exception to that.
ever, knew that he had appraised her,
found her beautiful but presumably
dumb and was prepared to find an af-
ternoon’s diversion in approving her
let his 'sweet eyebrows while damning her “Eo hoo biotested, “I didnt say
| that.” Didn't I say this was an awful
intelligence—and feminine subter-
fuges.
evertheless, she
i slim ankles crossed,
sat down, her
the suppleness
and flow of her seanymph body mar- |
velously accentuated by the severity
of her black bathing-suit.
“Besides,” she went on, as persis-
tent to the point as Mabe would have
! been—though working in an opposite |
|
go half, “only you can tell when a fel-!
Penelope, how- |
I
direction, “I do the office filing and
I filed your card. So even if you .
don’t exactly know me I know you
almost as well as your mother does.”
Mabe did work in the filing depart-
ment and had, in Penelope's presenc2,
commented on the card giving the
record of Penelope’s companion. For
the rest, Penelope felt that she prob-
ably did know him better than his
mother, in some ways, at that.
At the moment, for instance, it
was apparent tc her that he felt that
anybody who knew about him and his
record might be expected to approve
of both. He made no comment, mere-
ly helped himself to a cigaret and
then, as an afterthought, offered her
one.
“No, thanks; I don’t smoke,” she
said.
“You needn't take it to heart,” he:
grinned. “I know a lot of really nice:
girls who don’t.”
He placed the cigaret between his.
lips, furrowed his brows over the:
lighting of it. And in spite of her-
self, something feminine in her ap-
proved of him. He had clear eyes:
and a clean mouth and there was:
about him the suggestion of an ex-:
tremely nice warmth.
He puffed the cigaret to a glow"
and then, disposing, of the match,.
glanced up and met her eyes.
Neither spoke for an instant. She-
had been taken unawares and he was,.
she realized, appraising her anew.
Thinking, she felt—and hoped—how
little she looked like the kind of girl
she sounded.
Nevertheless, she snapped the spell.
Swiftly, “I should think,” she advanc-
ed, “that a swell athlete like you:
would be playing on the ball team
this afternoon. How come you ain’t ?”’
He stiffened perceptibly, then
achieved a crooked smile. ‘“Nobody-
asked me to,” he informed her. And’
added, “But this is much better, don’t
you think?”
Penelope tried
would have.
“Oh, I'll bet,” she said, “that that’s:
the sort of stuff you tell every girl.
I know what you college fellows are
like . . . Anyway, playing on a small-
time team like the Titan's wouldn't
seem much to you after playing for-
a college.”
“I can play baseball after a fashion:
but football was more my specialty"
—when it came to balls,” he explain-
ed. “But”—he smiled at her—“I got
an idea that my services weren't ex-
actly being clamored for—not here.”
“Oh, that,” said she, grasping the:
‘awaited opening, “is because they're
all jealous of you. They know you
are one of J. T.s pets and will be:
pushed ahead and all that— if you
don’t quit. That's what they're all’
trying to make you do.”
“Quit?” he echoed, a bit uncertain-
ly—yet indignantly.
. Penelope ignored that. “I don’t
suppose I ought to talk to you this
way’’—Mabe's favorite preface to
bold indiscretion, that—‘“but some--
body ought to tip you off. They're
.all betting you'll quit any day now.
Why, even the manager said he’d bet
you'd not last until the middle of"
August.” Lai. -
He flushed under his tan and,.
“That,” Penelope ‘nformed Penelope, .
“hit home.”
Nevertheless, she continued to re-
gard him as Mabe might have. “And,”"
she added, “if I was you I would quit
right now and leave them flat.”
He looked his surprise. “What do-
you mean?” he asked.
“It would serve them right,” she:
assured him with the same feminine
logic she knew Mabe would display—
Mabe worked for the Titan Company -
but it was her proud boast that it
didn’t own her. “They don't appre-
ciate you.”
“I will say they don’t,” he inter--
posed.
He did grin, however, and that was-
to his credit. Nevertheless:
“Or,” she went on, “the favor you:
are doing them in coming here.”
“Oh, I don’t know as I'd call it.
that,” he protested hastily. “—”
“Anybody who could get a job
.anywhere else would be doing the
company a big favor coming to this:
hole,” she argued. “And a fellow"
who's been a big athlete and has a
swell record like your filing-cards
shows must have lots of friends who-
would just jump to give him a job
,almost anywhere.”
He gave her a swift glance, as if’
suspecting satire. But her eyes met
his openly. Cleopatra, greeting An-
tony as the world’s greatest conquer-
or—and using exactly the same line-
she had used with Caesar—could not
have looked more innocent or sincere.
“Why, I'll bet,” announced Pene-
lope, “you could go right down to
New York and get a job this minute"
if you wanted to.”
He did not deny that—only looked’
surprised that she should realize it.
“And that,” thought Penelope, “is:
just what he plans to do!”
Well, pursuing her devious way,
she’d give him something to think"
of. So: ;
“And you'd be with your own sort
there,” she enlarged. “People who
appreciate you. I'll bet—she endeav-
ored to look as much like Mabe as
to look as Mahe
, possible—¢“you know ‘a lot of girls
down there. Girls with rich fathers,
i too. You could probably marry one.”
| “No, thanks,” he said, with sudden
violence.
The perplexity in his eyes as they
searched hers was more pronounced’
than ever.
“What,” he added abruptly, “makes
them all so sure that I'll quit?”
© He did not, Penelope saw, at all’
relish the word.
“Because all J. T.'s prize beauties:
—that’s what they call you college
fellows—always do. They say you're
all quitters because—"
' “IT don't agree,” he interrupted
heatedly.
hole to work in? "I hafta, but be-
lieve me, if I was a man I'd get out.”
‘This apparently, suggested no com-
ment to him: So:
“And I don't see why they call you:
a spoiled baby just because you are
used to lots of attention,” she ad-
(Continued on page 7, Col, 1.)