Jump to content

Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/227

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
I WALK INTO A PARLOR
215

I had to bring her those plates and give them to her; but she had to give me a chance to argue her out of using them.

Lying in bed, many a good way of putting my point of view came to me. I got up several times and jotted them down; some I just talked over with myself. I made rather a night of it; never was more earnest over anything in: my life. I looked to my talk with that girl as a sort of turning point in her life, and for me, if I could simply make her see matters straight. I was crazy over her; you've gathered that; and trusted her, too, or would trust her with anything but a counterfeit steel plate which her father had engraved. I figured I could make it so I could trust her with that, too.

About mid-morning, I got another wire; from Jersey City this: "Seven three chess omnivorus noose."

No signature again; but the system, which Doris taught me in that vestibule, gave me the place and the time. Up five from seven made twelve; down three from three, zero. Up five from chess, first syllable "cher" down three from omnivorous, "on"; up one from noose, "noon."