"I'll have another."
As he reached into his pocket for his case, his hand encountered a
paper-covered volume. and he drew it out in some perplexity.
"Now, how in the wide world did that book come in my pocket?" he
muttered, frowning. "What have I been carrying it around for?
I've forgotten. I declare I have."
"What book is it?"
"Hey? book?...h'm," he murmured, staring.
Travis pounded on the table. "Wake up, Condy, I'm talking to
you," she called.
"It's 'Life's Handicap,'" he answered, with a start; "but why and
but why have I--"
"What's it about? I never heard of it," she declared.
"You never heard of 'Life's Handicap'?" he shouted; "you never
heard--you never--you mean to say you never heard--but here, this
won't do. Sit right still, and I'll read you one of these yarns
before you're another minute older. Any one of them--open the
book at random. Here we are--'The Strange Ride of Morrowbie
Jukes'; and it's a stem-winder, too."
And then for the first time in her life, there in that airy,
golden Chinese restaurant, in the city from which he hasted to
flee, Travis Bessemer fell under the charm of the little
spectacled colonial, to whose song we all must listen and to whose
pipe we all must dance.
There was one "point" in the story of Jukes' strange ride that
Condy prided himself upon having discovered. So far as he knew,
all critics had overlooked it. It is where Jukes is describing
the man-trap of the City of the Dead who are alive, and mentions
that the slope of the inclosing sandhills was "about forty-five
degrees.
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