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

1 118 GOING STRAIGHT "Come in," said the bigger man, quietly; "we were expecting you." It was Jimmie Briggs' hour. He preceded his host into the parlor and sat down opposite his wife. "Grace, yu' know me?" "Yes ; you're Jim Briggs." "Bright as two bits, young un, an' as pretty»as when yu' used to plant th' lays fer me an' Jack." Her radiant eyes widened with pain. "Oh, that's hit, huh?" he went on. "An' yu' dont forgit how yu' passed th' keys outer the winder, and me and Jack gunned th' kaley cove's house." ''Yes ; I'm going straight," she said, with spirit — "Jack and me." "Yu! are, huh" — the words ripped under the skin — "with me poundin' rock at San Ouent' an' youse givin' muh th' double-cross ! Not if I knows it," he cried, "an' I'll sing till I croak: 'Kick in — kick in.' " "Stop there ! You've gone far enough/*' cried Remington ; "you've bled me to the bone ; what else " "Yes, wot else?" sneered Briggs, savagely. "This else : I kin squeal on Grace and slough her to a farewell in the 'big house," where she " "Stop!" cried Remington. "What do you want?" Briggs leaned forward, and his knifethin face shivered with intensity. "I've spotted a lay on Nob Hill ; there's a safe to crack — a big haul ; I want yu'." Remington thought quickly. He was at the point of a moral revolver. Grace had been their accomplice in a robbery — "the inside worker" — and had escaped the law, while he and Briggs had served their time in the penitentiary. With his discharge he had gone straight, sought out Grace and married her. After that had come a child — little, tousled-headed Carmen — and their immurement in the suburbs with a clean slate and life to begin all over again. But Briggs had stayed outside the law and been caught again, and again sent up. With a family of little ones around them, and "going straight," Briggs was a grim ghost of the past. Then, suddenly, came the meeting at McGroarty's, the ruinous blackmail, and the attack on his weakest point — Grace, the girl who, crooked or straight, he had grown to love better than himself. Briggs waited for his answer. There was only one way out. "I'll tackle the job," said Remington. "Good," said Briggs, getting up; "yu' wont lamp muh ag'in till yu're needed." After that, with the strange way fate has, things went bad for Remington, and Grace was "taken up," in spite of herself, by a wealthy familv on Nob Hill. Little Carmen was the cause of their social advancement. She had giggled and lisped her way into the heart of a rich and childless old lady who patronized her Sunday-school, and nothing would do but that she must give Carmen a gorgeous, children's party, at which she would meet some of the little aristocrats of the city. Grace had promised to take the child and to spend the night at their benefactor's home. There was Remington to be considered, too, but he refused the invitation point-blank, and straightway sold his new mahogany office-desk and brought home the crisp bills, which were quickly turned into a perfect dream of a frock for the little, spoiled first-born. All this, with a white lie and a wide smile on his lips. He had told Grace he had put thru a profitable deal that day. Old Lady Bountiful didn't do things by halves, and on the eventful day sent her sumptuous car to bring her wondrous baby "find" and her young and charming mother up to the city. As for Remington, he came home to a silent house, and after sticking his nose into the bare dining-room, he tiptoed upstairs and peeked into the nursery. The two "smaller fry" were breathing deep, snuggled up to the ears in coverlets, and Remington went below to seek solace in a pipe behind the vines on the veranda. The pipe glowed restfully, and Remington put haggard care and Jimmie Briggs behind him for just once, in his bright vision of the party. Then the vines nestled in the wind, and Remington shivered. But there was no wind ; it was a hot, still night, and Remington set his jaw grimly.