THE FIEND
"Continued from Page-9),
"Now, Esten here to me," went)
Crenshaw. "I've brought you some books you're going to road. It's arranged that you get no bocksĮ Car papers except what I bring you”)
As a beginning, Crenshaw hadi brought half a dozen books which tin vagarions curiosity hnd collecl-] od over as many years. They com prised a German doctor's thouszed; FANC histories of sexua). abnor mality-cases with no cures, a Slopes, no prognosex, cases listed rold; a series of sermons by a Ney Bugland divine of the Great Revival which pictured the tortures of the damned in hell; a collection of horror stories; and a volume erotic picces from each of which the last two pages, "containing the ensummations,' had been torn oul; and a volume of defective stories matilated in the sunic manner. A tome of the Newgate calendar com pleted the batch. These. Crenshaw hatided through the burg chu Fiend took them and put them on his iron cot
of
the
This was the first of Crenshaw's long series of fortnightly visits.. Always he brought with him some thing sombre and menacing to say, something dark and terrible' tol read-save that once when Flend had had nothing to read for a long time he brought him four inspiringly titled books-that proved to have nothing but blank paper inside.
Another time, pretending to con- eoda a point, he promised to bring] cwspapers-lie brought ten cupies of the yellowed journal that had re- ported the crime and the arrest. Sometimes he obtained medicul books that showed in colour the red. and blue and green ravages of leprosy and skin disease, the mounds of shattered cells, the vers minus tissue and brown corrupted
Jood:
And there was no sewer of the Bublabing world from which he did not obtain, records of all that was groan and vile in man.
frewshaw could not keep this ip indefinitely, both because of the ex pense and breases of the exhausti bility of sur book When five year had passed he leaned towards anther form of tortury. He built ftp' false hopes in the Fiend with protests of his own change of heart) and bioquvres for a pardon, and the dashed the hopes to pieces.
Or else he pretended to have a pital with hirs, or an inflammatory substance that would make the cell a raging inferno and consume the Fiend in two minates-Offen he threw a duty bottle into the cell and listened in delight to the screams as the Fiend ran back and forth waiting for the explosion. »
At other times he would pretend grily that the legislature had passed a net law which provided that the. Piend would be exveuled in a few hours.
A decade paared. Crenshaw was ey at forty--he was while at fifty, when alternation routine of his fortnightly visits to the graves of his loved ones. and tu the penitently had become the only part of his the long days at Radamacher's were only a weary dream
» Sometimes he went and sat out- side the Fiend's esll, with no word said during the half-hour he was allowed to be there. The Fiend too had grown white in twenty years. He was very respectable locking with his horn-rimmed glasser and his white hair. He seemed to have a great respect for Crenshaw, and even when the latter, in a reniwal of diminishing viality, promised him one day that on his very next visit he was going to bring a volver and end the matter, he nodded gravely as if in agreement, said, "I suppose so; yes, I suppose you're perfectly right." and did not mention the matter to the guards.
re-
On the occasion of the next visit he was waiting with his hands on the bars of the cell, looking at Crenshaw both hopefully and de- sperately. At certain tensions and strains death takes on, indeed, the! quality of a great adventure, as any soldier can testify.
Year passed. Crenshaw was promoted to floor manager at Rada- machora-there were new genera- flons now that did not know of his. tragedy, and regarded him as an austere nonentity. He came into a little legacy, and bought new stones for the graven of his wife and son. He knew he would soon be retired, and while a third decade lapsed through the white winters, the short, sweet, smoky summers, it be-. came more and more plain to him that the time had come to put an (Continued on Page 18),
GREAT HEAVENS' I'M UP IN THE AIR:
STOP! HELP
THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1935
Bringing Up Father
THAT SIG DAF! I TOLD HIM TO BE HOME AS WE ARE TO... DINE OUT AND GO TO THE OPERA-I'LL BET HE STOPPED. TO TALK TO THE MEN AT WORKİ ON THAT NEW BUILDING-I'LL GO THERE AND SEE IF I'LL
CATCH HIM RED-HANDED
HELLO, DOYLE-YOU KNCW ME WIFE - DID YOU HAPPEN TO SEE HER?
ROSIE'S
BEAU
GEOM MANUS
Pied & FO
FER GOODNESS SAKE! WHERE IS MAGGIE? IT'S SEVEN O'CLOCK-IM ALL DRESSED·
I KNOW HER, BUT I DON'T WANT TO SEE HER- WH.
UP?
0 0 0
THE WORKMEN
HAVE ALL GONE, AND I'M UP SO HIGH NO ONE CAN HEAR ME-
BADDY- I'M WORRIED WHERE DO YOU THINK MOTHER IS? SHE NEVER DID THIS BEFORE:
OH.DEAR! OH DEAR! IT'S SO DARK NOW NO ONE CAN. SEE ME-
HE MAY BE DOWN IN THE CELLAR HE LIKES TALKING)
TO, THOSE.
HOD- CARRIERS-
HUH HES NOT, DOWN THERE.
THE MEN ARE JUST QUITTING WORK IT MUST BE
SIX
O CLOCK-
SHE'S STEALIN' MY STÜFF-IT'S FUNNY SHE DOESN'T PHONE!
1935, King Fixtures Syndicate, Inc., Great Britain rights reserved.
4-14
WHY, ARCHIE! THIS IS.GREAT FOR
YOU TO GET THIS ORDER. AND FROM A MAN WHO HATES ME,TOO. YOU ARE A REAL SALESMAN"
I MUST CALL UP MY ROSIE AND TELL HER THE GOOD NEWS.. AND I MUST EXPLÄIN
WHY PHADY, TO HANG UP THE PHONE ON HER-
YES. SIR-
Í NEVER WANT YOU' TO SPEAK TO ME EVER- I THINK YOU ARE JUST HORRID YOU THINK
·MORE OF YOUR OLD BUSINESS THAN YOU DO OF ME GOOD-BYE-
I DON'T KNOW WHERE- MOTHER 15×1 JUST CAME IN-1 KNOW SHE INTENDS TO
HAVE YOU TAKE HER TO THE OPERA
I THINK YOU HAD BETTER PHONE.
THE POLICE- THIS IS
SERIOUS!
1 BELIEVE' I SEE JIGGS DOWN THERE BY THAT LAMP-
I'M GOING TO THINK ABOUT GIVING YOU A RAISE- REMEMBER I SAIDI
WAS GOING TO
THINK ABOUT IT-
YES,
'SIR-
ROSIE! ROSIE! GEE! SHE HUNG UP ON ME!!!
-
ME TAKE HER! YOU MEAN, I'VE GOT TO GO, SO I'MIGHT JUST A AS WELL CIT DRESSED-
NO- I'LL GO OUT AN' LOOK FER.HER
SHE MAY BE OVER AT THE › HAIR-DRESSERS-
CONTINUED-
HOW TO KEEP FROM GETTING OLD
FOR GOODNESS SAKE! WHAT IS ALL
MY SON MIXED THREE JIG-SAW
PUZZLES TO-GETHER AN I'M GONNA TRY TO SEPARATE
THEM-
(MANUS
1911, King Features byndi
ights reserved