Kid Scanlan Part 4

I pulls on my coat and wipes my face with a handkerchief.

"Yes," I says, "and they just tried to fix him so he no fighta the champ!"

"Zowie!" pipes Duke, sprawled out in the chair, "I thought he was Roberts, the man we wired to come on from Boston! What in the name of Charlie Chaplin will we do now? Potts will be here to-morrow to see this picture and you know what it means, if it isn't made!"

The Kid is over talkin' to Miss Vincent and Genaro calls him over.

"_Viola_!" he tells him. "You see what you do? You spoil the greata picture, the actor, the everything! To-morrow Mr. Potts he'sa come here. 'Where's a Reechard the Third, Genaro?' he'sa wanna know. I tella him--then, good-by everybody!"

"Everything would have been O.K.," says the Kid, pointin' to De Vronde who's got a couple of dames workin' over him with smellin' salts.

"Everything would have been O.K. at that, if Stupid over there hadn't gimme the haw, haw!"

We go back to the dressing-room and the Kid gets on his clothes. That night, findin' that we was as welcome in Film City as smallpox, we went over to Frisco and saw the town.

When we come back the next mornin' and breeze in the gates, the first thing we see is Gloomy Gus that drove us up from the station.

"Say!" he sings out. "You fellers are gonna get it good! The boss is here."

"Yeh?" says the Kid. "Where's Miss Vincent?"

"Talkin' to the boss!" he answers. "I don't believe you're no fighter, either!"

"Where was you yesterday?" I asks him.

"Mind yer own business!" he snaps. He gives the Kid the up and down.

"Champion of the world!" he sneers. "Huh!"

"Go 'way!" the Kid warns him. "I got enough work yesterday!"

"I think you're a big bluff!" persists the gloomy guy, puttin' up his hands and circlin' around the Kid. "Come on and fight or acknowledge yore master!"

He makes a pa.s.s at the Kid and the Kid steps inside of it and drops him, just as a big auto comes roarin' past and stops. Out hops friend Potts, the guy that practically give us our start in the movies. In other words, the thirty thousand dollar kid!

"Well, well!" he pipes, lookin' at the gloomy guy on the turf and then at us. "What does this mean, sir? Are you trying to annihilate all my employees? Do you know you cost me a small fortune yesterday by ruining that Richard the Third picture?"

"I'm sorry, boss," the Kid tells him, proddin' Gloomy Gus carelessly with his foot, "but all your hired men jumped at me at once and a guy has to protect himself, don't he?"

"Nonsense!" grunts Potts. "You a.s.saulted Mr. De Vronde and temporarily disabled several of my best people! I had made all arrangements for the release of that Shakespeare picture in two days, and you have put me in a terrible hole!"

"Now, listen," I b.u.t.ts in, "I tried to--"

"Not a word!" he cuts me off, wavin' his hands. "One of the camera men, another infernal idiot, kept turning the crank while this disgraceful brawl was at its height and I have proof of your villainy on film! I'll use it as a basis to sever my contract with you and--"

"Slow up!" I says. "If you lay down on the thirty thousand iron men, I'll pull a suit on you!"

Along comes a guy and touches Potts on the arm.

"They're waiting for you in the projecting room," he says.

"Come with me--both of you!" barks Potts, "and see for yourself the damage you caused!"

We followed him around to a little dark room with three or four chairs in it and a sheet on one wall. De Vronde, Miss Vincent, Duke and Genaro are there waitin' for us.

Well, they start to show the picture, and everything is all right up to the time the Kid busted into the drama. Now I hadn't seen nothin' out of the way at the time it actually happened, but here in this little room it was a riot when they showed it on the sheet. You could see Scanlan wallop De Vronde and then in another second the ma.s.sacre is on full blast!

On the level, it was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time. A guy with lockjaw would have to laugh at it. Here was the Kid knockin' 'em cold as fast as they come on, with their little trick hats and the pink silk tights. There was a pile of Shakespeare actors a foot deep all around him as far as you could see. Potts is laughin' louder than anybody in the place, and when they finally shut the thing off he slaps the Kid on the back.

"Great!" he hollers. "Wonderful! Who directed that?"

"_I_ did!" pipes Duke, throwin' out his chest. "Some picture, eh?"

"Joosta one minoote!" says Genaro, wakin' up, "joosta one minoote! It was under my supervision, Mr. Potts! I feexa the--"

"Cut that strip of film off!" Potts interrupts, "and take four more reels based on the same idea! Get somebody to write a scenario around a fighter busting into the drama and playing Shakespeare! It's never been done, and if the rest of it is as funny as that it will be a knockout!"

"But Reechard!" says Genaro. "What of heem?"

"Drop it!" snaps Potts. "Everybody get to work on this and I'll stay here till it's finished!"

I looked around and pipe the Kid--over talkin' to Miss Vincent, of course.

"Say!" he wants to know. "Do we go to Oakland in that rabbit-chaser of yours this afternoon, Miss Vincent?"

"Sir!" b.u.t.ts in De Vronde. "This lady and I are conversing!"

"Now listen, Cutey!" smiles the Kid. "You know what happened yesterday, don't you?"

De Vronde turns pale and Miss Vincent giggles.

"Of course we're going to Oakland!" she laughs. "I'm going to be your leading woman next week in 'How Kid Scanlan Won the t.i.tle.'"

"Suits me!" says the Kid. "But say, on the level now--I'm there forty-seven ways on that Shakespeare thing, ain't I?"

CHAPTER II

EAST LYNCH

Success has ruined more guys than failure ever will. It's like a Santa Cruz rum milk punch on an empty stomach--there's very few people can stand it. Many a guy that's a regular fellow at a hundred a month, becomes a b.o.o.b at a hundred a week. What beat Napoleon, Caesar and Nero--failure? No, success! Give the thing the once over some time and you'll see that I'm right.

Success is the large evenin' with the boys at the lodge and failure is the mornin' after. As a matter of fact, they're twins. Often you can be a success without knowin' it, so if you been a failure all your life accordin' to your own dope, cheer up. But when you get up to the top where you can look down at all these other guys tryin' to sidestep the banana peels of life and climb up with you, knock off thinkin' what a big guy you are for a minute and give ten minutes to thinkin' what a tough time you had gettin' there. Give five minutes more to ruminatin'

on how long the mob remembers a loser and you'll find it the best sixteen minutes you ever spent in your life.

In these days when the world is just a great big baby yellin' for a new toy every second, any simp can beat his way to the top. The real stunt is _stayin' there_ after you arrive!

Kid Scanlan was a good sample of that. When the Kid was fightin' for bean money and the exercise, he never spent nothin' but the evenin' and very little of that. He didn't know whether booze was a drink or a liniment and the only ladies he was bothered about was his mother. But when he knocked out One-Punch Ross for the t.i.tle and eased himself into the movies, it was all different. He begin to spend money like a vice-investigating committee, knock around with bartenders and give in to all the strange desires that hits a guy with his health and a bankroll. I stood by and cheered for a while until he crashes in love with this movie queen, Miss Vincent, that got more money a start than the Kid did in a season and more letters from well wis.h.i.+n' males than a newly elected mayor. Then I stepped in and saved the Kid just before he become a total loss.