The Girl from Farris's - Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Mr. Farris, while, on the other hand, he was possessed of a large family to whom his monthly pay check was an item of considerable importance. So to Mr. Farris, he was affable courtesy personified.

      Thus it was that the defendant went free, while the injured one remained behind prison bars.

      Farris's first act was to obtain permission to see the girl who had sworn to the complaint against him. As he approached her cell he assumed a jocular suavity that he was far from feeling.

      "What you doin' here, Maggie?" he asked, by way of an opening.

      "Ask Doarty."

      "Didn't you know that you'd get the worst of it if you went to buckin' me?" queried Farris.

      "I didn't want to do it," replied the girl; " though that's not sayin' that some one hadn't ought to do it to you good an' proper--you got it comin' to you, all right."

      "It won't get you nothin', Maggie."

      "Maybe it'll get me my clothes--that's all I want."

      "Why didn't you say so in the first place, then, and not go stirrin' up a lot of hell this way?" asked Farris in an injured tone. "Ain't I always been on the square with you?"

      "Sure! You been as straight as a corkscrew with me."

      "Didn't I keep the bulls from guessin' that you was the only girl in the place that had any real reason for wantin' to croak old--the old guy?" continued Mr. Farris, ignoring the reverse English on the girl's last statement.

      A little shiver ran through the girl at mention of the tragedy that was still fresh in her memory--her own life tragedy in which the death of the old man in the hallway at Farris's had been but a minor incident.

      "What you goin' to tell the judge?" asked Farris after a moment's pause.

      "The truth--that you kept me there against my will by locking my clothes up where I couldn't get 'em," she replied.

      "I was only kiddin--you could 'a' had 'em any old time. Anyways, there wasn't no call for your doin' this."

      "You got a funny way of kiddin'; but even at that, I didn't have any idea of peachin' on you--he made me," said the girl.

      "Who? Doarty?"

      The girl nodded. "Sure--who else? He's got it in for you."

      Farris turned away much relieved, and an hour later a colored man delivered a package at the station for Maggie Lynch. It contained the girl's clothes, and an envelope in which were five germ-laden but perfectly good, ten-dollar bills.

      The matron smiled as she opened the envelope.

      "Some fox," she said.

      "Some fox, is right," replied the girl.

      Chapter II: And Wires are Pulled

       Table of Contents

      THE Rev. Theodore Pursen sat at breakfast. With his right hand he dallied with iced cantaloup. The season was young for cucumis melo; but who would desire a lean shepherd for a fat flock? Certainly not the Rev. Theodore Pursen. A slender, well-manicured left hand supported an early edition of the "Monarch of the Mornings," a sheet which quite made up in volume of sound and in color for any lack of similarity in other respects to the lion of poetry and romance.

      On the table in his study were the two morning papers which the Rev. Pursen read and quoted in public--the Monarch was for the privacy of his breakfast table.

      Across from the divine sat his young assistant, who shared the far more than comfortable bachelor apartments of his superior.

      The Rev. Pursen laid down the paper with a sigh.

      "Ah me," he said.

      His assistant looked up in polite interrogation.

      "This is, indeed, an ungrateful world," continued Mr. Pursen, scooping a delicious mouthful from the melon's heart.

      "Here is an interview with an assistant State attorney in which he mentions impractical reformers seeking free advertising and cheap notoriety. In view of the talk I had with him yesterday I cannot but believe that he refers directly to me

      "It is a sad commentary upon the moral perspective of the type of rising young men of to-day, which this person so truly represents, that ulterior motives should be ascribed to every noble and unselfish act. To what, indeed, are we coming?"

      "Yes," agreed the assistant, "whither are we drifting?"

      "But was it not ever thus? Have not we of the cloth been ever martyrs to the cause of truth and righteousness?"

      "Too true," sighed the assistant, "we have, indeed."

      "Yet, on the other hand," continued Mr. Pursen, "there is an occasional note of encouragement that makes the fighting of the battle worth while."

      "For example?" suggested the assistant.

      Mr. Pursen turned again to the "Monarch of the Mornings."

      "Here is a quarter of a column devoted to an interview with me on the result of my investigation of conditions in supposedly respectable residence districts. The article has been given much greater prominence than that accorded to the misleading statements of the assistant State attorney. I am sure that thousands of people in this great city are even this minute reading this noticeable heading--let us hope that it will bear fruit, however much one may decry the unpleasant notoriety entailed."

      Mr. Pursen held up the newspaper toward his assistant, who read, in type half an inch high:

      ''PURSEN PILLORIES POLICE.''

      "The ointment surrounding the fly, as it were," suggested the assistant. Mr. Pursen looked quickly at the young man, but discovering no sign of levity in his expression, handed the paper across the table to him and resumed his attack upon the cantaloup. A moment later the telephone-bell sounded from the extension at Mr. Pursen's elbow.

      "Yes?" inquired Mr. Pursen.

      "Hello. Dr. Pursen?"

      "Yes."

      "This is Doarty."

      "Oh, yes; good morning, officer," greeted Mr. Pursen.

      Mr. Doarty came right to the point. He knew when to beat about the bush and when not to.

      "You been tryin' to close up Farris's place for six months; but you ain't never been able to get the goods on him. I got 'em for you, now."

      "Good," exclaimed Mr. Pursen. " Tell me about it."

      Mr. Doarty unburdened himself.

      "The girl will be in court this morning to appear against Farris," he concluded. "You'd better get to her quick, before they do, and stick until she's called. She'll need bolstering."

      "I'll come down right away," replied Mr. Pursen. "Good-by, and thank you."

      "And say," said Doarty, "you can give it out that you tipped me off to the whole thing--I'd just as soon not appear in it any more than I can help."

      "Just so," replied Mr. Pursen, and hung up the receiver.

      As he turned back his assistant eyed him questioningly.

      "My friend Mr. Doarty has started something which be is experiencing difficulty in terminating," guessed Mr. Pursen shrewdly.

      At a quarter before ten the clergyman entered the court-room. He had no difficulty in locating the girl he sought, though the room was well filled with witnesses, friends, and relatives of the various prisoners who were to have their preliminary hearings, and the idle curious.

      "I am the Rev. Mr. Pursen," he said with smiling lips as he took her hand.

      The girl looked him squarely in the eyes.

      "I come as a friend," continued Mr. Pursen. "I wish

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