! “The golden bed” By W ALLACE IRW IN. Prodtit rd its a Paramount Picture by Cecile B. I)f>liile From a Screen Adaptation by Jeanie Macpherson. (Copyrlsht, IK*) V._ (Continned from Saturday) 'Tessa Kennel." 3y now Admah had readied the point of intoxication where one imag ines one'* relf a being singled out by Bacchus to be immune from alco holic poisoning. Cool and sober, in ds own estimation, lie jolted through evening streets, philosophizing on •ho things that made him sick. Grand S.venue had turned Itself into a little shoddy Broadway, electric light signs blinking on and off or twisting round like illuminated garter snakes. All across the frou*. of a movie palace a scare-eyed Knrde In riding boots was guiding her fiery mustang in a eap from cliff to cliff. Goofer’s Ra iio Store was going full blast; some .ding with a howl and a twang in it ’ hat sounded, in passing, like, ‘Ba-a.-a.-by, I got the twitehy-itchy hoola bla-a-a!" An Electrical Wizard cad devoted his great mind to in oniing those ear-splitters and eye i! chcrs and brain-addlers. Well, they jollied people up. kept the poor old world from sticking in the mud. This last, thought was refreshing. Admah believed in advertising. Good thing, advertising. If he hadn't ad vertised, where would he be today? Where would lie be? With a jerk of the car around a sharp corner he came to sufficiently to ask himself: Where was he now? His wife gone, his credit gone. What was it Flora 'J,ee hail said about hts hands? She didn't like them to touch her. And that damned Frenchman—Sav—what was it—Savarac. . . • What sort of hands had he? Had Admah been like some terrible ape to her, annoying her with his caresses while she learned to smile like a doll? Like a doll? Like an angel! Something so shining, so far above him that he was flattered when she looked down on him to let him know that she felt his worship. . . . God! Why hadn’t he killed O'Neill the first time he saw him leering at her over a glass-topped table? The Ford stopped suddenly beside a deserted dock. iletween its gentle banks the River stole away, calm and melancholy be neath a sheet of stars. White mein had first coino downstream in canoes and rafts; like parasite* that dwell on leaves they had been swirled against that bank to fasten on the living herbage and to multiply and to de vour. Men had carved the River's banks to an ugly pattern of civiliza tion and cities had polluted its waters; yet under the stars as Admah Holtz crouched on the pier, lonely and de pressed, he cottld feel the divinity of the stream, its power and its glory. He had been the River's child almost. His first memory was of a ride behind oM John down to the ferry wharf on tH*s other bank. The other bank . . . just by that span of waters had his life been changed; he could see faint lights In 1 he trees and imagine that they came from the settlement where he was born. He might have remained to lm prove the sell and to marry one of the neighbor's girls. Would he have been happier? Pa Holtz hadn't been happy. Men who drink alone out of .. ■' ■ ,M V ■ New York -•Day by Day— -- By O. O. M’lNTYRE. New York. Feb. 8.—A page from l he diary of a modern Samuel Pepys; Early out and .to breakfast with Verne Porter and we ate but little In nir r.ea> to think out a silly word for a cross-word puzzle. A pity, too, for he paid the cheek. Home where came a l'os of avoea di»s from P.. Reeder in Miami and I at. my stint until William Boyd, the play actor, dropped in to talk Of this that and the other. In the late afternoon to walk with my wife and to fpo a brave picture in a gallery and I was for buying It. which would have made me trTore than bankrupt. To dinner with Bill Edrington and Irvin Cobb came down from the floor above and later came Earl Carroll and all in high humor at a story Cobb told about a mule skinner. So home and to bed. Along Broadway she Is known as “Rubberneck Rose.” She Is one of the many colorless creatures who sit in the lantern-hung sight seeing wagons as a decoy for other passengers. She sits for hours knitting or reading a hook and when the ’’yap wagon’’ fills she steps out and waits for It to come back for the next load. “Rubberneck Rose" ts paid 83 a day. Never does she feel the romance of exploring the Bowery, Chinatown sr.d Coney Island. Some they say have Interesting pasts. One a former chorus girl toast of the town. Another a dancer of repute. It is the drabbest of all occupations In Flash alley. They hear the barker megaphoning: “Fast car going right out! See the wickedness of China town, the slums of the Bowery! Fast car going right out!” And “Rubber neck Rose" only hears and goes no where. There are about i»l> “Rubberneck Roses’’ on Broadway and side streetH. They seem to be dreadfully wearied -with life—the most jaded of all those who fill the world of Broadway. This special delivery letter plops on my desk as I write: It is unsigned and reads: “Who cares what you tldnk about New York? You are the outstanding joke of the literary world, a pigheaded country lout who thinks wearing spats and a cane make a gentleman. Nobody will re member you n week after the Fool Killer does his duty.’’ The anonymous gentleman. is light in every particular save the “pig • headed.’’ 1 resent that. Those who know me best say the head Is of solid Ivory. Columbia students have s rollick ing lime on the subway trnvestlng yells of their school, One goes: Baseball! Feetbsl!!' Svlmmlng In de tanks! Ve're got money, but ve keep it In de banko. Collech! Collech, Ol, Ol! And here Is another: Hooray! Hooray! Ve vori! Ve con! . Vat? Ve lost? * - Dey chested! It is a shocking thing tn observe that Vivian Burnett, (he author's son, end tiis original of the famous char •utsr of Little Lord Fauntleroy, is 'bald-headed. Mr. Burnett la a dc jt“{ed patron of the Broadway thea ter. (Ue^i right, lim stone Jugs and deny God—possibly tor very fear of God’s wrath—weren't happy. Ko, that wasn't the solution. Toward a wharf downstream the little River Ferry was plying her way. An ugly thing by daylight, up. >ier the quiet stars she was a royal barge, lit for a festival. Her mast light twinkled daintily on high like the jeweled tip of a wand. Presently she bumped the wharf and began the noisy business of disgorging passen gers. Roustabouts shouted, crates hanged, hogsheads bumped, a woman laughed. Then along the planks came the klop-klop klop of a solitary horse. It might hpve been the sound of Old John's poor tired hoofs, blundering along with no more knowledge of life's meaning than dwelt in Admah Holts that night of his undoing. The fight ain’t over, not by r. long shot, he decided, and brought his hated fists dow n on the planking. My liquor’s dying in me, and I reckon that’s a good thing. I'll go back to town and get a room at the Hamilton. I've got a thing or two to say out in meetin’ tomorrow that'll put a crimp in th* Judas Iscariot club. Too bad, though, that Attcrbury saw me cornin' out of the Pickwick that way. But he can't do a thing without me. His hands are tied, and I'll show him just where. And Flora t.ec—pshaw, she’s had a tantrum, she'll be back. But I’m goin’ to shoot that man O'Neill. He had half scrambled to his feet and would have arisen had not an eery aspect of the water, directly un der the pier caught his eye and fas cinated him with superstitious con jectures. Under the stars it seemed animate, like a drowning man, tat tered and gray-haired, beating himself to death against the rough Umber. Admah had opened his dry mouth to call when he saw the true cause of his alarm. Just a wave fronfi the ferry boat, striking the piles. But it had given him a start, and with If an awful thought had come. Pa Holtz hadn't fallen into the river, just by accident, because he was drunk. He’d been drunk, all right, but the preacher who preached the sermon and the neighbors who had come to shake Ma by the hand hadn't told er right. Admah saw it clearly now; the steep hank with the eddy below and Pa Holtz, smoking his pipe, waiting for darkness. That's the way to clean the slate—when you can't make head or tail of ihe liguees, just rub ’em our. Fascinnted by this easy thought Admah crajvled on all fours to the very edge of the wharf and poised there an instant like a gar golye. . . . "Hey. mister!” jTJie challenge, thin and drawling, brought him nervously upright. Some thing twisted and shaggy like a scare crow approached him through the dimness. % "Mister, ef ye ain't keerful ye're liable to drap off." persisted the thin voice, which souflded ng though it came from a body without lungs. "I reckon so,” agreed Admah, guilt ily conscious that the Intruder had guessed his temptation. He saw a face, scabby and twisted as the body beneath it. "Ye don't belong on this yer wharf no mo’n I do," whined the specter. “But y’ ain't the kind that rides free like po' folks does. I got a free pass on the boat. Tee liee. Right smart of a boat, but dry.” His jaws seemed to crack with dryness. “Ain't got a chaw o' tobacker on yer clothes?” Admah found a cigar which he gave to the nun. "Seegur! Gushainighty!” He bit it In two ami chewed disgustingly. "It's a sho miff dry spell, ain't it, mister." "Where do you get your liquor?” asked Adntah thickly. II® recognized the man as one of the water rats w ho spend their summer in leaky huts along the flat? and are flooded out with the river-rise in Spring. "Y"aln't tollin'?” The water rat winker his little oozy eyes in Admah's face. They plunged ahead through a sort of alcoholic fog. Through coal yards, past warehouses, up on® alley, down another, round ridiculous white washed corners that smelt of open sewage; It was as though a corpse had arisen to guide Admah into some unclean mischief or to show him an other troll-dance as Peter Gynt wit nessed when he threw away his soul. At last the water rat stopped and put his hand on Admah s arm, caus ing to wince away. Suddenly he real lzed how Flora Bee must have felt when he touched her. He was aware of a crooked door with light shining through Its warped top, Rap-rap. and a terrifying voice spat out, "Who there?” "Jes Zeb, Molly. Me an’ a feller.” The door opened cautiously and a fat, evil old woman stood framed in sooty light against a background of discordant sounds; a hushed growling, as though her den contained wdld beasts that had been beaten and scared. “Come awn In an' shet the do'," she commanded. There were three cunningly con cealed steps in the dingy hall; Ad mah would have pitched forward on his face had not the big woman caught him by the coat tail. "Wanna bust yer fool neck?" she snarled “Now look yuh, boys. We ain't sellln’ likker." “Show yer money,” whispered the scarecrow. , Admah fished into his pocket and brought out a crumpled bill. The olJ woman held it under a leaky gas jet. and bemused though lie was. he saw that he had given her twenty dollars. "Come in yuh!" She pointed to a table in the lowbrowed, cluttered room. Before his eyes the picture wavered, fuzzily outlined like some badly printed engraving. Admah had taken a chair; then hazily he began to realize that half the men in the room were .negroes. . . . He saw a large hairy mole on the woman's goit ere-1 neck as she leaned down to slam a bottle on the table, mouthing some thing that sounded like. "Keel ole Cray Babel, mister. Xot much o' that stuff left!" Two tumblers, which she had been concealing under her apron, came down beside the bottle. * "He'll keep you ooinp'ny." she e>: plained with a ghastlj smile toward the specter named Zeb. Then, her attention turned to a quarrfel at the other end of the room, "live, you nig gabs! I tole you onct an' I ain't g^in’ tell you agin." Already Zeb had reached hungrily for the bottle. lie poured his tum bler full to the brim and was raising it to his hairy lips when Admah. spurned him like a blowfly. "Take it away! Over there!" He pointed to a vacant table in a remote corner. The scarecrow, creaking out a series of sounds that might have been either thanks or curses, van ished into the jumble. Admah laughed and took a drink that blazed its way down his gullet. The room seemed to be full of chuckles, tortured, dizzy, knowing chuckles. Old Gray Label, which Moll lmd proclaimed as rare, was common enough. There was a bottle on every table, and around each faces grim aced, doddered, blinked. Now and then one of the animals would let out a howl, to- be suppressed by a snarl from its keeper. Two negroes crouched on the floor, shooting craps, muttering short voodoo incantations with every throw. Several wharf rats—they might have been Zeb's own brothers—gathered around and wag erod small coins. 'Th. Gome a baby bloo!" “Xh. Lay an atg for you' momma!" "Ub. Hus’ ’em wide, boy!” An elderly negro, very drunk, with dirty ram's wool over Ills ears and shockingly ragged clothes, sat alone and preached in a melancholy sing song: "An'de Spcrrlt of de Lawd come to Jonah, an' lie say. What yo' done swallcred? What do' totin’ dah in side yu' Mmnmirlj? Heave up mah Prophet, Whale!’ An' de whale done hove up de Prophet, an’ de Spevrlt of de Lawd say, ‘Go an’ sin no mo’!’ ” Through^the haze Admah recalled Old Harris, whom he had seen drunk i ltd preaching at the Peake front door the day of the auction. Life had shaken him to a rag since then. . . . Presently he stopped ranting, threw hack Ills head and slid under the table. Nobody noticed it. A tight had started In another corner. A back door opened quietly and some body was thrown out. To Admail it was all a picture, or a scrap of some fascinating- nightmare to which he had hound himself by drinking with tlie Bud People. Hurrah: He didn't mind the liquor, after the second gulp. This was the life, thought lie. None of your high tuned clubs with critical eyes peer ing out to count your drinks and decide you weren't quite a gentleman. Who wanted to be quite a gentleman? What 'had it ever brought to Adniah Holtz except headaches and heart aches and cheap compliments from people who stuck out their tongues behind his back? But he’d show ’em again. What time was it? He found his watch and studied the dial, but couldn’t quite make out. Anyhow, it was getting late and he ought to go home. Wouldn't do to go into the Annual .Meeting with rum on his brealh. Atterbury would be there. Atterbury, the stiff-backed, clammy old fool. Never you mind, some day Adniah Holtz would be sitting in At terbury's chair up in the Principal ity Building. . . . The roonr was going round and round. . . . Wicked, interesting faces. . . . Scraps of song like rags torn from cheap garment's. . . . Walpurgis Night when corpses of hanged men came up from the ground to dance with warlocks, trolls, vampires, night hags and those soul-sick, unclassified devils with swollen bodies, pig snouts and the scaly legs of unclean birds. '. . . This was the life' . . . The change ling who appeared where Admail Holtz had sat arose boisterously and addressed his companion devils. . . . He wanted all men to be free and equal, or something like. that. . . . No snobs or high-toned swells to sneer til your face, but just gooit fel lows. . . . “Slict up or git out!" old Moll was baw ling at him. having swum into his ken out of nothingness. "I reckon I'll git out." agreed Ad mah in an instaht of quiet. As the sky shows momentarily through a storm's blackness lie looked through his drurtkenness and saw clear light O'Neill. He couldn't bo far away. Asleep or awake, he'd find him. . . . Moll gave him a shove from behind and he stumbled on the inf' rnal steps leading to the exit. She helped him up. and an instant later he was out in the alley, a sodden wind blowing across his face. He clutched at a post to save himself from another fall: then out of the shadows blatrk shapes began to move. Slowly, stealthily they closed in. Was it part of ills wickgtl dream'.’ A great hand gripped Ilfs shoulder. It was all so dreadfully quiet. Admali had opened his mouth to shout, hut no sound came. He struck out blindly, felt his knuckles cracking against flesh and bone. Then they were on him and lie went down and was blot ted out. . . . . . . How hard and hot the pillow felt against his ear! Without open ing hLs eyes he turned over, clicked his fuzzy tongue and readied for the thermos lvottle which always stood mi lit* hells'-* table. But the table wasn't there. He toughed, caressing his fore head which seemed to beat with a thousand hammers, making a n^ise like the T. & P. shops going full hi. st. > The T. & P. . . . He opened one eye and looked pain fully across the room. Queer. Every thing was turne^ around. He didn't remember tliht funny little door in bis bedroom, or that dog eared art calen dar, showing a bold-eyed virgin with a white kitten. And what had hap pened to t lit* walls? They had been unaccountably covered with some smudgy looking paper that had cracked In places. He opened both eyes and tried to sit up, but sick near overcome him. . . . Then liu ought methodically to re trace his steps, much as the lost huntsman counts the trees, hoping thereby to recover his trail. In tin lirsi place, tills wasn't any room lit had ever been In before. Nor anv room In the Hamilton. He began i> remember jumbled noises in a terribh place up mi alley; a negro man lum been pror-'hing about Jonah; an old woman with a goiter had sold him something she esllsy whisky—Oiu Gray l«ibvl. On the way home foinc. hotly, or something, had jumped at him out of the dark. What time was it? Painfully turn ing his be;ul he descried a tgvisted pib of bills, Ills knife and some small change ori a cracked marble bureau. No sign of his watch. "Hey!" lie moaned, closing his eyes. "What's the game hPre? lie; !” Prom somewhere a door opened, foni si el's approached. "Well, t.ldn’ a brace, y? 1 asked a pleasant voice with a pronounced Yankee accent. “Her#, try tills bro inon, old son.” A blue sleeve with a ! strip, so bold that it hurt the invalid's eyes, was passed across the bed and a white hand, luxuriously ringed, held a fizzy glaJis. Admah drank thirst ily, and dozen again. Then he awoke and sat lx.lt upright? The details of the shoddy little room were quite dear now, but clearest of all he saw the assertively fashionable person who stood grinning at the foot of hi? bed. He had on p blue collar and * barber's pole tie. ' In the splendor oi his attire and the cleanliness of his pei-.sou lie was quite a different inui vidua! from one whom Admah car last **een some years before. But he was recognizable as Elmer Hem ingway, usher, lunch-wagon promot ere. socialist and gentleman adven j tuver. • What the " btgun Admah pleas [ antly. • •“That's j* i what I says last night,” grinned Elhicr “f come down the alley with nothin' on my mind but my hat. and win -Ida I Admah R. Holtz. president of the First National i-tnnU, or whatever it is. moused to the gills and bein’ frisked for his watch l.i\ .1 pair o' river-bout coons When did jou lake to drinkin your champagne at old Molly’s?'' • What were you doing there?" asked Admah thickly, unsure that Elmer was not a continuation of hife dream. “Business," said Eimer. and winked a wicked eye. “1 old old Moll the line o' hooch that knocked you cold. rfo It#* < ontiniiffl Tomorrow.1 THE NEBBS RUDY—WELL! WELL! WELL! Directed for TheChnah. Bee by Sol He.. 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