Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

72 MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE "It's not what I call living, anyhow," sniffed Taylor. He reached out for one of the packets of bank-bills before him, . and fingered the thin, green leaves thoughtfully. "You're not married, that's the trouble with you, ' ' laughed Richards. He wiped his pen carefully on a bit of felt, closed his books and clambered stiffly down from his stool, laying a friendly hand on the natty serge shoulder beside him. "Wait 'til you've got a kiddie like mine to plan for, Bill," he said, his voice suddenly turning very tender; "then you'll be so taken up with trying to make a name for yourself and a home for her that you'll forget that your own hair is growing grey." ' ' Marriage ! Youngsters ! No, thank you," Taylor sneered lightly. "Time enough to settle down by thirty-five. I'm twenty-nine and I want my whack at the world. And what sort of a whack can a feller get on twenty a week?" He touched the wad of bills in his hand slyly. "Now, if I had this I'd be rich — I could wear real clothes, eat real food. If you had it you could buy your wife the gewgaws every woman wants, and educate your kid. And, by heck, Richards, it's ours as much as it's any one's. The fat old geezers in the sealskin coats and buzz wagons, who leave it here dont need it, wont ever spend it, wouldn't miss it." "Taylor!" the paying-teller of the Battery Bank looked palely at his assistant, his jaw agape with horror. The younger man laughed harshly, and tossed the bills into their tray with nonchalant fingers. The furtive eyes, hidden under puffy, white Hds, were baffled. "Huh! I was just kiddin'!" he said. "Got your goat, eh? A feller's got a constitutional right to his little joke ; hasn't he? Just th' same, I wish I was outer this and in on a real man-size job." Jack Richards relaxed. He lifted the trays of coin and bills and plodded across to the safe, where he stowed them carefully. Then he fumbled into his old overcoat and derby, pausing at the door with a swan song of advice. " It 's dangerous business, son, looking at money as money," he smiled, whimsically; "call it potatoes, now, or turnips and you wont get to 'coveting.' Turn off the lights when you come, will you ? S 'long ! ' ' Six o'clock met him in sonorous Trinity chimes, as he hurried out into the thinning streets. He turned down Dey and plunged into the clamor of the Hudson tunnels, his eager anticipation outrunning the train to the little scrap of New Jersey which was his own. But tonight the thought of Nan-girl and May did not, as usual, come deliciously between him and the small print of his newspaper. The remembrance of Taylor's reckless speech and action worried his thin brows into a frown. "Tut, tut," he said to himself — and later, again, "tut, tut; upon my word I hope the youngster isn't living beyond his pay envelope. ' ' An hour later, watching his child rolling on the floor in friendly tussle wTith a bull pup, the father looked suddenly across the home-litter of the table at his wife, serene and sweet above her mending. The pitiless gaslight pointed out a greying hair or two, the prophecy of a line across the smooth forehead, a worn place on the shoulder of her dress. Looking at her as his once-sweetheart instead of as his wife, he noticed many things, and a big lump rose in his lean throat. "May!" he cried; "May o' mine!" It was a sweetheart name. She flushed in strange embarrassment, looking at him curiously. There was appeal, almost terror in the face he turned to her. "May, are you" — he paused diffidently— "are you sorry you married me?" "Jack!" "I mean, maybe you could have done better!" She was on his knee, laying her fingers across his lips. "I cant give you the gewgaws that women like. I wish I'd made as good as I meant to, honey-girl. ' ' "Hush, Jack," she was laughing