Kid Scanlan Part 14

"I know," says the Kid. "I barely got through Yale!" He lays his arm on this guy's shoulder. "Are you on the level with this fight thing?"

he asks him.

"I was never more in earnest in my life!" says the knife-thrower.

"Or nearer Heaven!" grins the Kid. "All right!" he goes on. "I'm game, if you are, only there's just one question I'd like to ask before the slaughter begins; don't _I_ get no say about the tools we're gonna use?"

This guy thinks for a minute and then nods his head.

"Very well!" he says. "I'll make the concession--an unheard-of thing in the code. What is your choice?"

"Pinochle!" yells the Kid. "I'll stake you to a hundred aces and beat you from here to Denver!"

"Ugh!" snorts the other guy--and castin' a sneer at both of us, he pa.s.ses in the gate.

We went in after him, and the Kid tells me how he come to flatten this baby, which, from the card he give us, was J. Harold Cuthbert. The Kid says Harold stopped him outside the portals of Film City and asked him why no auto had met him at the train. Scanlan says he didn't know, but he had seen the mayor and two bra.s.s bands goin' down and hadn't Harold met 'em? Harold says he had not and he was gonna file a complaint about it, because he was the greatest movie actor that ever bawled out a director. With that, says the Kid, he reeled off the names of the pictures he had been featured in, and from the list he give out the only thing he wasn't featured in was "Microbes at Play," a educational film tore off by the company last year. The Kid asks him if he ever heard of Kid Scanlan, the shop girls' delight, who was bein' starred in a five-reeler called "Lay Off, MacDuff." Harold throwed out his chest and says he wrote it and practically made Scanlan by directin' it. At that the Kid tells him that he may be a movie star, but he looks like a liar to him. Harold makes a pa.s.s at him, and Scanlan hit him to see would he bounce. He didn't, and he was just comin' around when I blowed on the scene.

When we got to Genaro's office, Harold was tellin' Eddie Duke the reason he was bunged up was because he had fell off the train comin'

out, and Eddie says that was tough and it was time Congress got after them railroads, but the thing he'd like to know was why Harold had come out at all. They had looked up the files and there was nothin' to show who had ordered this guy s.h.i.+pped on.

Harold looks over the bunch in the office for a minute, registers "I-am-thinking-deeply," and then snaps his fingers.

"Oh!" he says. "I had a letter of introduction from Mr. Potts, but I suppose it's in my gray morning suit which will arrive with my trunks in a day or so. Mr. Potts and myself are old friends," he winks at Genaro confidentially. "I really think my father owns a slew of the company's stock, but then Dad is connected with so many vast enterprises that--"

"Joosta wan minoote!" interrupts Genaro, turnin' a cold eye on Harold.

"Joosta wan minoote! We're very busy joosta now, sometime nex' week everybody she'sa listen about your father. What we wanna know is what Meester Potts he'sa senda you out here to do?"

"Yeh!" says Duke. "That's the idea--what's your act?"

"Why, I intend to play romantic leads," pipes Harold, "and I have an idea that--"

"Ha, ha!" laughs the Kid. "That's fair enough. All Edison had was a idea, and look at him now!"

Harold frowns at him and walks over to Miss Vincent.

"How do you do, Miss Vincent," he says, takin' off his hat and presentin' her with a bow. "I knew you at once from your photographs.

I have a remarkable memory, inherited from my father. The late J. P.

Morgan once said of him, during the course of a gigantic stock deal, that--but enough of personalities. I saw you in the 'Escapades of Eva.'"

"Did you like me?" smiles Miss Vincent.

"Very much!" Harold tells her. "Although the mediocre support and execrable direction spoiled most of your opportunities. Now if _I_ had directed that picture, you would have been a great deal--"

"Joosta wan minoote!" b.u.t.ts in Genaro, gettin' red in the face. "I, Genaro, directed that picture!"

Harold looks over at him and lights a cigarette.

"Well," he says, flickin' the ash in Genaro's drinkin' gla.s.s, "I daresay you did your best! But had _I_ been there when the picture was being produced, I would have suggested a great many things that would have greatly improved it. I remember calling Belasco's attention to a detail one time and Dave said to me--"

"Enough!" snaps Genaro, glarin' at him. "You will report to Meester Duke. He'sa tella you what to do. Or maybe," he snorts, "maybe _you_ tella heem!"

And he stamps out of the office.

"What a quaint little man!" says Harold, sittin' down in Genaro's chair and glancin' with interest over some letters that was on his desk.

"How do those chaps ever get into the movies?"

"Ow!" whispers Duke. "If the quaint little man had only heard that!"

He turns, to Harold. "I don't know where I can place you right away,"

he says. "How are you on Shakespeare? We're putting on a seven reeler of 'As You Like It' with Betty Vincent as Rosalind. Do you think you could do Orlando?"

Harold throws out his chest and sneers.

"What a question!" he remarks. "I could eat it up!"

"I don't want you to eat it," says Duke, gettin' sore. "If you can play it, I'll be satisfied! You had better go over and register at the hotel now, and, when you come back, we'll go over the thing."

Harold gets up, yawns and looks at Miss Vincent.

"I'll show you an entirely new interpretation of Rosalind, Miss Vincent," he tells her. "Of course, Shakespeare was clever after a fas.h.i.+on, but _I_--however," he breaks off and holds out his arm.

"Would you care to walk about the grounds here a bit, so that I may ill.u.s.trate some of the salient points in my version?"

"No!" cuts in the Kid, before she can answer. "On your way!" he says.

"Miss Vincent's got a date with me to find out is it true you can make ninety miles an hour in a 1921 Automatic!"

"But--but, my dear sir--" splutters Harold. "I--you--"

"Listen, Stupid," says the Kid. "I can't be bouncin' you all day, but if you don't canter along, I'll make you hard to catch!"

Miss Vincent smiles and grabs the Kid by the arm.

"Let us have no violence!" she says. "You can tell me all about Rosalind when I return, Mr. Cuthbert."

"Yeh," adds the Kid. "I'll be willin' to stand for a earful of it myself, then."

And they breeze out of the office.

"Heavens, what an uncouth ruffian!" pipes Harold, lookin' after 'em.

"I wonder Miss Vincent trusts herself in his company."

"She's a whole lot safer with him than you'd be, old top!" I says.

"And if I was you, I'd lay off that uncouth ruffian stuff around the Kid. Don't keep temptin' him, because he's liable to get sore, and when Scanlan gets mad you want to be in the next county!"

"Huh!" sneers Harold. "What does he do, pray?"

"Well," I says, "I'll tell you. I don't get that dewpray thing of yours, but the last time the Kid got peeved he won the welterweight t.i.tle! Is that good enough?"

"He had better look to his laurels," remarks Harold, "for if he insults me again, he'll lose them! I'm rather a master of boxing, and at home I won several medals as an amateur heavy--"

"I suppose," I b.u.t.ts in, "I suppose you left them medals in one of them gray mornin' suits of yours, eh? You didn't have 'em on when the Kid flattened you, did you?"