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76        Abbott's Monthly

"Why, yes, it hasn't been touched since I put it in the chest in the basement." She handed him the key.

It had been a long time, but the thought of his dead pals came back to him, as he was walking down the steps with the key in his hand. He was mostly thinking of what Stiff said: "If I am caught and you all ain't, don't stay in town, please, 'cause I wants to carry everybody to the pen wid me when I goes." Stiff believed that there is no such a thing as a "good guy" from the underworld standpoint — that the ones thus called are just fools in that summer only bigger fools than others. Candy didn't agree, neither did Steve, but Stiff always had his points.

"If I sees a man on a stick-up job, knows him, and dey 'rests me, for me ter be a 'good guy' I mussin say nary a word, eh?" Stiff shot a comical but serious glands out of the corner of his eye, and continued: "Don't fool yurself, big boy!" These words of the past rang in Steve's ear.

But this is a new day, Steve thought, and he easily erased Stiff's proclamation from his mind.


With a smile, Steve unlocked the chest, but when his eyes fell upon the bolt of cloth chosen by Stiff, his smile suddenly vanished.

"Poor old Stiff," he murmured to himself.

Slowly he unwrapped the cloth and presently he saw another small bundle tightly wrapped. His fingers pulled desperately at the knot. It finally gave way. Bursting over the cloth, as if seeking freedom from prolonged concealment, fluttered many greenback notes.

It was money — thirty thousand dollars!

"The gang said it was only forty-one hundred dollars, and I believe them," said Steve.

"Candy had an argument about Stiff being so long in getting to the taxi. But the poor boy was just trying to wedge it tight in the bolt of cloth," Steve continued to talk the matter over to himself.

Suddenly he looked up, as though he had been talking too loudly, and in a whisper, concluded: "Bien, gracias, señor, bein, gracias."

Tragedies of the Polar Dash — (Continued from page 32)
Pole awaiting the arrival of his commander, Admiral Robert Edwin Peary. Peary came up, after overcoming the quarter of a mile lead between himself and Henson, and severely reprimanded the latter for his disobedience. He never spoke to Matt for five years after this eventful day at the top of the world.

Henson told me that he was the only nurse for Admiral Peary's wife when her baby was born in the Arctic region; that he had been the baby servant for many years and in addition to this had warmed Peary's body and feet against his own body when the Admiral was cold, and he felt that he was due just that much credit or homage in that final dash.


When the ship Roosevelt returned to civilization with its crew and docked at New York, the Shubert Brothers engaged Henson for a lecture in the then largest theatre in the world, the New York Hippodrome. Admiral Peary had Matt's pictures confiscated, but the Shuberts got them released. I will never forget, modest as he is, how Henson spoke — clear and concise — on the stage. Flanked in the background on the platform with him that night were some of the world's most noted scientists. Henson never used the word "I." It was always "the commander" or "we." He went over in grand style as there was quite a controversy at that time over the claim of Dr. Frederick Cook, who offered proof that he had reached the pole before Peary.

It is estimated that thousands of Caucasians have tried at various periods to reach the North Pole or the Northwest passage. About half of them perished. Some, like Greeley, suffered severe hardships but fought their way back to civilization. It seems indeed strange that the hardy Norsemen, whose toys were snowballs and icicles, could not stand the cold in the far North.

The Duke of Abruzzi's Alpine Italians, in fact the pick of Europe's heartiest physical manhood, all turned back with cold feet — not of fear — but of frost. Science tells us that the black man's hair became matted to resist the heat many generations ago. But the black race can point with pride to a modest little man, born in the semi-tropical Charles county, Maryland, who is now 64 years old, and looks to be 40, as an example of proof that this matted hair was also constructed to withstand the rigors of the coldest climate.


If future historians will read facts with their eyes and not with their prejudices Matthew Henson's name will go down in schoolbooks, along with Admiral Peary's; also those of Columbus, Magellan, Stanley and Livingstone, as an explorer who has contributed something worthwhile to science, and lifted the eyes of the world in respect to his own people.

Next Month} SHARK MEAT
Two Men Fight a Desperate Hand-to-Hand Battle in a Little Boat in Shark Infested Waters


for May, 1931     77

JOKES

[[Image – woman sits on man's lap – a shining ring is seen on her finger]]
[[caption] Sheba — well, I'm sure glad to see you back on your feet again.
Tommy — Yeah! So was the finance company when they took my car for me. [[/caption]

SERIOUSLY STRAINED

George: gee, but you sure do talk awfully hoarse, Harry."
Harry: "Yes — you see I was talking through a screen door last night, and strained my voice."

The new car models are appearing on the market so fast that a woman scarcely has time to dry her eyes before she's got to begin weeping again.

Remember Einstein flunked in math.

It may be difference of opinion that makes horse races, but difference of opinion is what kills off the human race.
— College Humor


MATTER OF SUPPORT
Physics Prof.: "Can anyone tell me what keeps the sun in space?"
Bright Pupil: "The beams, sir."
— Ralph Patton

MATTER OF FEELING
If you go in an electrical store to buy your wife a present the same day that you had a fight with her, you may content yourself by buying her an electric lamp, we are in reality you felt more like giving her an electric chair.

CHECKING THE LAW
Agnes: "That Judge Sommers gives some long sentences at the Court House, doesn't he? He seems to be a regular old bear."
George: "Well, he might say long sentences at the Court House — but he sure has a heck of a time getting in a word edgewise at home."

A Frenchman and an Englishmen were having quite an argument at a trading post in Canada.
"Well," said the Englishman, "you don't ever see any half-breed English."
"The squaws had to draw the line somewhere," replied the Frenchman.
— Kansas Sour Owl.

Ned: "I can't give you anything but love."
Sue: "Well, hurry up, let's have it."
— Missouri Outlaw.

If it cannot be transmitted through a vacuum it cannot be the noises in your head that keeps you awake at nights.

Mother (watching the children digging in the sand on the seashore): "Digging for pretty pebbles?"
One of the Kids: "No, mom, we can't find where we buried daddy."

He: "While rambling through the library I found a lot of dope on Chaucer."
She: "Cocaine or Morphine?"

He: "It never has failed to follow a snowstorm."
She: "What's that?"
He: "A snow-plough."

LAST WHIM
"I love you that way,"
She cried.
And so I immediately
Closed my eyes
And died
That way.
— Orange Peel.

"I hear you came home from the dance with powder all over your tux lapels — tsk-tsk!"
"Oh, that was just so much idle talc."

INDEED, CUT-OFF
Dramatic Writer: "Heavens, but I do wish that I could find someplace where I could be entirely cut away from the whole world."
Cynical Friend: "Why don't you go into a telephone booth?"