CHAPTER III
PLEASURE ISLAND
Speakin' of boobs, as people will, did you ever figure what would happen if the production of 'em would suddenly cease? Heh? Where would this or any other country be, if all the voters was wise guys and the suckers was all dead?
In the first place, there wouldn't have been no ex-Land of the Rave and Home of the Spree, if Queen Isabella hadn't been boob enough to fall for Columbus's stuff, about would she stake him and his gang of rough and readys to a couple of ferryboats and they'd go out and bring back Chicago. Even old Chris himself was looked on as Kid Stupid, because he claimed the earth was round. The gang he trailed with had it figured as bein' square like their heads.
The guy that invented the airship was doped out as a boob until the thing begin to fly, the bird that turned out the first steamboat was called a potterin' old simp and let him alone and he'd kill himself—and that's the way it goes.
The sucker is the boy that keeps the wise guys alive. He'll try anything once, and it don't make no difference to him whether it's three-card monte or a new kind of submarine. He's the guy that built all the fancy bridges, the big buildin's, fought and won the wars that the wise guys started, and fixed things generally so that to-day you can push a little trick electric button and get anything from a piece of pie to a divorce. He's the simp that falls for the new minin' company stock, grins when the wise guys explain to him just how many kinds of a sucker he is, and then clips coupons while they're gettin' up early to read the want ads. He's the baby that's done everything that couldn't be did.
That's the boob!
The boob is the guy that takes all the chances and makes it possible for old Kid World to keep goin' forward instead of standin' still. Any burg that's got a couple of sure enough eighteen-carat boobs in it, known to the trade as suckers, has got a chance.
So the next time somebody calls you a big boob, don't get sore—thank him. He's boostin' you!
Gimme ten boobs in back of me and I'll take a town, because they'll take a chance. Gimme a hundred wise guys and the town'll take us, because them birds will have to stop and figure what's the use of startin' somethin'.
Me for the boobs!
Kid Scanlan was a boob. He was a great battler, a regular fellow and all like that, but he was a boob just the same. He started fightin' because he was simp enough to take a chance of havin' his features altered, and he won the title through bein' stupid enough to mix it with the welterweight champion. I was the wise guy of the party, always playin' it safe and seein' what made it go, before I'd take a chance. But the Kid got a whole lot further than I ever will. He made a name for himself in the ring and another in the movies and I ain't champion of nothin'—I'm just with Scanlan, that's all.
I'm gettin' offers from promoters here and there to have him start against some set up for money that was sinful to refuse, but there's nothin' doin'. The Kid has took to bein' an actor like they did to gunpowder in Europe, and not only he won't fight, I can't even get him mad!
"I'm off that roughneck stuff!" he tells me. "Nobody ever got nothin' by fightin'. Look what it did to Willard! Besides," he goes on, "what would John Drew and them guys think of me, if it should leak out that I had give in to box fightin' again? Why they'd be off me for life! Nope, let 'em battle in Russia, I'm through!"
Fine for a champion, eh?
Now here's a guy that went to the top in the one game where you can't luck your way over. Because he was a fightin' fool, the 'Kid had right-crossed his way to the title and now that he was up there, the big stiff wouldn't look at a glove! No! he was a actor now! I'd tell him that Kid Whosthis had flattened Battlin' McGluke the night before and we could get ten thousand to go six rounds with the winner. He'd flick the ash off a gold-tipped cigarette and say,
"Yeh?" Then he'd grab me by the shoulder and pour this in my ear. "Did you get me in that Shakespeare picture last week? I hear the guy that writes up shows for the Peoria Gazette claims Mansfield had nothin' on me!"
A few months before he would have said somethin' like this,
"All right! Wire the club we'll fight him, and if I don't bounce that tramp in two rounds, I'll give my end to them starvin' Armenians!"
Now I didn't kick when the Kid falls for Miss Vincent, because I had seen Miss Vincent, and the Kid was only human. I didn't say nothin' when he staked himself to that second-hand auto that like to wrecked California, but when he pulls this actor thing on me and says pugilism, pugilism, mind you, ought to be discouraged—I figured it was about time for yours in the faith to step in.
The Kid had two ambitions in life, both of which he picked up at Film City. One was to be the greatest movie hero that ever flattened a villain, and the other was to ease himself into the Golden West Club.
The Golden West Club was over in Frisco, and as far as the average guy was concerned it could have been in Iceland. It was about as easy to get into that joint as it is to get into Heaven, and it was also the only other place where you couldn't buy your way in. Your name had to be Fortescue-Smith or Van Whosthis, and you had to look it. You had to be partial to tea, wrist watches, dancin', opera, tennis and the like, and to top it all off you had to be a distant relative to a hick called William the Conqueror, who I hear was light heavy-weight champ in days of old. If you checked up all right on them little details, they took a vote on you. If you was lucky, you got a letter in a few weeks later sayin' your application was bein' considered and you might get in, but not to bank on it, because they was havin' trouble connectin' up your grandfather with the rest of the family tree, it bein' said around that he made his money through work.
That was the place Kid Scanlan wanted to bust into!
One night he gets all dressed up like a horse in one of them soup and fish layouts, and he hires a guy to drive him over to the Golden West Club in that second-hand A. G. F. he had. I will say the Kid went into the thing in a big way, payin' seventy-five bucks for a dress suit and ten more for the whitest shirt I ever seen in my life. He sends in eight berries for a hack-driver's hat and seven for a pair of tan shoes. Then he climbs into his bus and tells the driver, "Let's go!" Before he pulled out, he told me they was so many guys belonged to the thing that he figured he could mix around for a few minutes without anybody gettin' wise that he wasn't a regular member, if he could only breeze past the jobbie on the door.
And outside of the shoes, which I thought was a trifle noisy, the Kid sized up like any of the real club members I had seen, except his chest wasn't so narrow and he had an intelligent look.
Well, he blowed in about twelve o'clock and come up to the rooms we had at the hotel in Film City. He stands in the middle of the bedroom, takes off this trick silk hat, and, puttin' everything he had on the throw, he pitched it into the bathtub. He slammed that open-faced coat in a corner and in a minute it was followed by them full-dress pants. The gleamin' white shirt skidded under the bed, neck and neck with the shoes. I didn't say a word while he was abusin' them clothes, but I was so happy I felt like cheerin', because they was somethin' in the Kid's face I hadn't seen there since we hit the movies. The last time I had caught him lookin' like that was when One-Punch Ross had dropped him with a left hook, just before the Kid won the title. When the Kid got to his feet that there look was on his face and two seconds later he was welterweight champion of the world and points adjacent.
He inserts himself into his pyjamas and then he swings around on me.
"How much did they offer us at the Garden for ten rounds with Battlin' Edwards?" he wants to know.
I liked to fell out of the bed!
"Eight thousand, with a privilege of thirty per cent of the gross," I says, gettin' off of the hay. "Will I wire 'em?"
"Yep!" he snaps out. "Tell 'em I'll fight Edwards two weeks after I get through here!"
"And when will that be, might I ask?" I says, ringin' for a messenger and tryin' to keep from dancin' a jig.
"As soon as them simps finish that picture, 'How Kid Scanlan Won the Title,'" he tells me. "Genaro says he'll start it to-morrow, and as soon as it's through, so am I—here!"
I didn't get the answer to all this until the Kid crawls into the hay half a hour later, scowlin' and mutterin' to himself. I took a good look at him and then I says,
"Speakin' of clubs and stuff like that, how did you make out at that Golden West joint to-night?"
He sits right up in the bed.
"Are you tryin' to kid somebody?" he snarls.
"I asked you a civil question, you big stiff!" I comes back, "and don't be comin' around here and slippin' me that rough stuff! If you can be a gentleman at your clubs and joints like that, you want to be one here! D'ye get that?"
He looks at me for a minute and seein' I'm serious, he growls,
"I thought you had heard about it!" Then he props himself up with the pillows and begins, "I went over there to-night and them boobs was havin' a racket of some kind, I guess, because all the automobiles in the West was lined up outside the doors of the club. I tried to horn in the line with that boat of mine and the biggest nigger in the world, dressed up like a band leader, comes over and wants to know if I'm a guest. I told him no, that I was a movie actor and to step one side or he'd break the headlights when I hit him. He claims I can't get in the line without I got a ticket showin' I'm a guest. I got tired of his chatter, so I dropped him with a short left swing and we keep on goin' till we wind up at the front door. This stupid simp I had drivin' my bus is lookin' at the swell dames goin' in, instead of at the emergency brake, and he forgets to stop the thing till we have took off the rear end of a car in front of us and busted my front mudguard again.
"While the chiffure of the wreck is moanin' to my guy about it, I ducked out the side and blowed around to the entrance. I figured they was a password of some kind, so I says to the big hick at the gate, 'Ephus Doffus Loffus,' and pushes past him, I guess he was surprised at me bein' a stranger and knowin' the ropes at that, because I seen him lookin' after me when I beat it up the first stairway to the second floor. I got a flash at myself in a mirror as I breeze past, and, if I do say it myself, I was there forty ways. I was simply a knockout in that evenin' dress thing! A swell-lookin' guy pipes me at the top of the stairs and, after givin' me the once over, he taps me on the arm.
"'You may bring me a glawss of Appollinaris, my man,' he says, 'and for heaven sake remove those yellow shoes!'
"With that he walks away and another guy comes up and whistles at me. When I turn around, he's givin' me the up and down through a glass thing he's got hung over one eye.
"'Bring up a box of perfectos at once!' he pipes. 'Come! Look alive now!'
"Then I got it! I thought I was knockin' 'em dead and these guys thought I was a waiter! Well, I thinks, I'll show them boobs somethin' before I take the air—I can pull that stuff myself! With that I breezes into the next room and there's a hick sittin' at a table, toyin' with a book. He was as near nothin' as anything I ever seen, on the level! He's got a swell dress suit on, but it didn't fit him no better than mine did me and it couldn't have cost no more or he would have killed the tailor. Outside of the shoes, mine bein' classier, we was both made up the same. A guy comes in, looks him over for a minute and then he yawns. 'Bored?' he says. The simp that was sittin' down looks back at him, yawns and says, 'Frightfully.' Then the other guy bows at him and goes out. Some other hick wanders in and says, 'Ah, Van Stuyvessant, bored?' and Stupid says, 'Frightfully' and the other guy blows out. I seen that the coast was clear, so I smoothed my hair, pulled down my vest and throwed my chest out like them other guys did. Then I breezed in and stopped before this guy. He yawns and looks up at me very dignified like he was sittin' in the Night Court and I was up before him for the third time in a week.
"'Hey, Stupid!' I says. 'Get me a gin fizz and don't make it too sweet! And for heaven's sakes get rid of that shirt!'
"I thought he was goin' to get the apoplexy or somethin', because his face is as red as a four-alarm fire. Then he says,
"'Why—what—how dare you, you insolent puppy!'
"I leaned on his shoulder and tapped him on the end of the beak with my thumb.
"'Lay off that stuff, Simple,' I tells him. 'I'm a guest here and a couple of hicks took me for a waiter. I'm just gettin' even, that's all. If you don't get me that gin fizz like I asked you, I'll knock you for a goal!'
"He gets as white as my shirt and presses a little button on the table. A big husky, made up like a Winter Garden chorus man, runs in and Stupid says, 'Eject this ruffian, Simms! And then you will answer to me for allowing him to enter!'
"Simms was game, but a poor worker, so I feinted him over in front of his master and then I flattened him with a left and right to the jaw. I took it on the run then and got out the back way!"
The Kid stops and heaves a sigh.
"And then what?" I encourages him.
"And then nothin'!" he says. "That's all! Except I'm off the Golden West Club, the movies and this part of the country! I got enough. Them guys over there to-night gimme the tip-off—I don't belong, that's all! I was a sucker to ever stop fightin' to be a actor, but I got wise in time. You go ahead and sign me right up with anybody but Dempsey, and if Genaro don't start my picture to-morrow, I'll give 'em back their money and you and me will leave the Golden West flat on its back!"
Say! I was so happy I couldn't sleep. I just turned over on my side and registered joy all night long!
The next mornin' we go to Genaro the first thing, and the Kid puts it up to him right off the bat. Either he starts "How Kid Scanlan Won the Title" or he kisses us good-by. Genaro raves and pulls his hair for awhile, but they ain't no more give to the Kid than they is to marble and finally Genaro says he'll start the picture right away.
We find out that another director is usin' the whole camp to put on a trick called "The Fall of Babylon," so we got to go over to an island in the well known Pacific Ocean and take what they call exteriors there. They rounded up Miss Vincent, De Vronde, the cuckoo that wrote the thing, and about a hundred other people and load us all on a yacht belongin' to Potts. We're gonna stay on this trick island till the picture is finished, and we eat and sleep on the yacht.
On the trip over, we all go down in what Potts claims is the grand saloon and Van Aylstyne, the hick that wrote the picture, reads it to us. It starts off showin' the Kid workin' in a pickle factory on the East Side in New York. They're only slippin' him five berries a week and out of that he's keepin' his widowed mother and seven of her children. One day he finds a newspaper and all over the front page is a article tellin' about all the money the welterweight champion is makin', so the Kid figures the pickle game is no place for a young feller with his talent, and decides to become welterweight champ. First he tries himself out by slammin' the guy he's workin' for, after catchin' him insultin' the stenographer by askin' her to take a ride in his runabout, when the buyer is already takin' her out in his limousine. When the boss comes back to life, he fires the Kid and our hero goes out and knocks down a few odd brutes here and there for gettin' fresh with innocent chorus girls and the like. Finally, he practically wrecks a swell gamblin' joint where he has gone to rescue his girl, which had been lured there by the handsome stranger from the city.
"Well!" says Potts, when Van Aylstyne gets finished. "How does that strike you?"
"What I like," pipes Miss Vincent, with a funny little quirk of her lip and a wink at De Vronde. "What I like is its daring originality!"
Van Aylstyne stiffens up.
"Of course," he says, kinda sore, "if I'm to be criticised by—"
"Ain't they no villains or nothin' like that in it?" butts in the Kid, frownin' at him.
"Joosta one minoote!" says Genaro. "Don't get excite! That's joosta firsta reel!"
He waves his hand at Van Aylstyne, and this guy gives a couple of glares all around and then turns over another page. It seems at this stage of the game, a lot of gunmen get together to stop the Kid from winnin' the title, so they throw him off a cliff. He gets up, dusts off his clothes, registers anger and flattens half a dozen of 'em. A little bit later he gets fastened to a railroad track and the fast mail runs over him. This makes him peeved, and he gets up and wallops a couple of tramps that's passing for luck. Then the villain's gang of rough and readys grabs him again and he is throwed off a ship into the ocean. A guy comes along in a motor boat, and, after shootin' a few times at the Kid without actually killin' him, registers surprise and runs over him. When the Kid comes up there ain't nothin' to wallop, so he swims six miles to the island. The minute he crawls on the beach he faces the camera and registers exhaustion. Then a lot of guys jump out and stab him. He knocks 'em all cold and then he goes on, fights the champ and wins the title.
"Is that all there is to it?" asks the Kid, when Van Aylstyne stops for breath and applause.
"Practically all," Van Aylstyne tells him. "Of course I'll have to go over it and spice it up a little more—get more action in it here and there, wherever it appears to drag. But we can do this as we go along."
"Yes!" says Potts. "You'll have to do that. I want this picture to be the thriller of the year!" He scratches his chin for a minute and looks at Van Aylstyne. "You better ginger it up a bit at that!" he goes on. "It sounds a little tame to me. See if you can't work in a couple of spectacular fires, a sensational runaway with Mr. Scanlan being dragged along the ground, or you might have him do a slide for life from the topmast of the yacht to one of the trees along the shore here."
"Wait!" pipes Genaro. "I have joosta the thing! While I listen, I getta thisa granda idea! Meester Scanlan, he'sa can be throw from the airsheep and—"
"Lay off, lay off!" butts in the 'Kid. "They's enough action in that thing right now to suit me! Don't put nothin' else in it. I'll be busier than a one-armed paperhanger as it is!" He turns to Van Aylstyne. "Where d'ye get that stuff?" he scowls. "Would you jump off a cliff, hey?"
Van Aylstyne throws out his little chest, while the rest of them snickers.
"I write it!" he says.
"Yeh?" pipes the Kid. "Well, you'll jump it, too, bo, believe me!"
"What's a mat?" hollers Genaro. "What's a use hava the fighta now? Wait till we starta the picture, then everybody she'sa fighta! Something she'sa go wrong. Sapristi! we feexa her then. Joosta holda tight your horses!"
He pats the Kid on the shoulder and slips him a cigar.
The rest of the trip to the island took about two hours, durin' which time the Kid and Miss Vincent sat on the top deck, and she give him his daily lesson in how to speak English, eat soup and a lot more of that high society stuff.
We finally got to this island place and by three o'clock the next afternoon they was half way through with the first reel. I horned in on the thing myself, takin' off a copper, for which they gimme five bucks even.
That night they was big doings on board the yacht. They had music and dancin' and what not galore. Van Aylstyne, Potts, De Vronde and most of the other help was there in the soup and fish and the twenty odd dames that was actin' in the picture was all dressed up to thrill. I never seen so much of this here de collect stuff in my life. I heard a lot of talk around the studios at the camp about "exposures," and, well, I seen what they meant all right that evenin'. It got me so dizzy, never havin' no closeups like that before, that I ducked for my stateroom about nine o'clock when the joy was just beginnin' to be unconfined and I hadn't been up there five minutes, when the Kid comes up and knocks at my door.
"I'm goin' to hit the hay," he tells me. "If I gotta fight Battlin' Edwards in two months, I'm gonna start readyin' up now! I been puttin' on fat since I been here, and it's got to come off. I'll get up at five to-morrow and do a gallop around the island, and I just dug up a couple of ex-bartenders among the extry people which will gimme some sparrin' practice every mornin' till they give out!"
"Great!" I says. I was hardly able to believe my ears. It sounded like the old Kid Scanlan again!
I closed the door, and just as he was turnin' away, I heard the swish of skirts and then I got Miss Vincent's voice. It was low and sweet and kinda soothin' and—well, she was the kind of dame guys kill each other for! Do you get me?
"Oh!" she kinda breathes. "Why are you up here all alone?"
I heard the Kid's deep breathin'—it was always that way when she spoke to him, and I knowed without seein' 'em that his nails was engravin' fancy work on the palm of his hand.
"Why," he says, tryin' to keep his voice steady. "I'm off this tango thing—and the last time I had one of them dress suits on, I was mistook for a waiter!"
Y'know there was a funny little catch in the Kid's voice when he pulled that, although he tried to pass it off by coughin'. That boy sure did want to mix with the big leaguers, and, bein' Irish, it come hard to him to miss anything he wanted. Usually he got it!
I heard Miss Vincent sneer.
"Don't flatter these conceit-drugged travesties on the male sex by caring about anything they say," she tells him. "You have so many things they never will have! Why, you're a big, clean, two-handed man and—" She breaks off and gives a giggle that I would have took Verdun for. "But there!" she goes on. "I—I—guess I'm getting too enthusiastic!"
I could almost feel her blush, and I knowed how she looked when she did that thing, so I says, "Good-by, Kid!"
"That's all right!" pipes the Kid. "It wasn't these guys here. But I can't go downstairs anyhow, because I gotta start trainin' for Battlin' Edwards."
"Oh, bother Battling Edwards!" she says. "I thought you promised me to give up prize fighting!"
This was a new one on me, and it cleared up a lot of things I hadn't been able to figure out before!
"I gotta take it back," I hear the Kid sayin' in a kinda dead voice. "I pulled a bone play when I did that! I can't give up fightin' no more than you can give up the movies! The only thing I got is a wallop, and that won't get me nowhere in the movies or society, but it got me the title in the ring. I guess I'll stick to my own game!"
"Oh, come!" she tells him, kinda impatient. "You have the blues! Shake 'em off—I don't like you when you scowl like that. Come on down and have a dance with me. You'll feel better."
"You said somethin'!" answers the Kid. "But I can't—on the level. I gotta train for this guy, or he's liable to bounce me, and, if I lose this quarrel, I'm through! Y'see, this ain't no movie, this is gonna be the real thing! If this guy flattens me, he'll be the champion and you know that bird is gonna be in there tryin' till the last bell!"
I peeked through them little wooden cheaters on the window and I seen her kinda stiffen up and register surprise.
"I am not accustomed to coaxing people to dance with me, Mr. Scanlan," she says, "and—"
"Yes, and I'm not used to havin' dames like you ask me!" butts in the Kid. "But I gotta beat Edwards—and I can't beat him by stayin' up late!"
She just breezes past him and down the deck without another word.
The Kid kicks a fire bucket that was standin' there into the Pacific Ocean, and from the way he slammed the door of his stateroom I'll bet all them trick beer mugs that Potts had on the wall fell on the floor.
Well, the next mornin' we all go over to the island again and the Kid is up at daybreak, trottin' over the hills. He's got four sweaters on, although it's as hot as blazes, and I'm taggin' along in back of him. Then he comes back, changes his clothes and works in the picture till noon, when we knock off for the eats. Miss Vincent passed us once when we was talkin' to Genaro, and she deliberately passed the Kid up!
After that it was suicide to give Scanlan a nasty look.
Along around two o'clock that afternoon, another yacht shows up a little ways off the island and in a few minutes it stops and five guys and a woman hops in one of them trick launches and put-puts over to us. They get out and come up the string-piece and we get a good flash at them. The male members of the party is all dressed up in blue coats and white pants and from their general get-up I thought they was all gonna form a circle, pick up the ends of their coats and pipe. "What ho, the merry villagers come and we are the daisy maids!"
All but one. He was a great big husky, kinda dark skinned and he looked like a assassin with the women, know what I mean? Also, I had seen this bird somewheres before, but I couldn't check him up right off the bat. The girl that was with the troupe was a good looker all right, and you could see she was a big-timer. But she was kinda thin and worn out to the naked eye. And when I got a close-up of her, I seen there was a funny look in her eyes, like she had been double-crossed or somethin'. She looked at everything like she wished it was hers, but there was no chance, d'ye get me?
Well, Potts comes a-runnin' to meet 'em and then he comes up and introduces 'em all around. He claims they're from Frisco and friends of his which has come over to see how movin' pictures is made and they might even go so far as to take off a part in one of 'em, just for the devilment of it. Miss Vincent looks hard and close at the dark-skinned guy, like she was tryin' to think where she had seen him before, but Genaro come along just then and I'll bet them newcomers didn't get no encouragement from the way he looked 'em over. De Vronde and Van Aylstyne, though, fell for this bunch so hard they liked to broke their necks. It seems them two hicks found out they all was members of this Golden West Club, and they did everything but shine their shoes from then on.
When the Kid blows in and sees 'em, he claims he remembers 'em all as bein' among them present the night he went over to the Club, and he says they had better keep lots of the Golden West between him and them while they was in our midst.
The tall dark guy, whose name was somethin' like Brown-Smith, took one flash at Miss Vincent and then everybody else could have been in France for all the notice he give 'em. He took up his stand about two feet away from her, and there he stuck all day long like cement. Anybody could see that this stuff was causin' two people to register worry. They was the Kid and the dame that come over with the troupe. Scanlan watches Brown-Smith makin' his play for Miss Vincent, and he seen that if she wasn't encouragin' him, she wasn't complainin' to the police either, but the Kid keeps quiet and takes it out in makin' them sparrin' ex-bartenders tired of life.
The next day I got up early lookin' for the Kid, and as I come through a clearin' in the island I seen three things at once, and if I hadn't ducked behind a tree, they'd have seen me. There's my meal ticket with all his sweaters off, standin' in the middle of the little space, shadow boxin' in front of a tree. The well known sun is shinin' down on his blonde head, and I never noticed before just what a handsome brute the Kid was in action. The muscles in his arms are jumpin' and ripplin' under a skin that a chorus girl would give five years for, and he's as graceful and light on his feet as one of them Russian toe dancers.
The other two things I seen was Miss Vincent and the dame that had blowed in with the Golden West boys.
The new dame is watchin' the Kid like he was a most pleasin' sight to them tired little eyes of hers. Her mouth is open a little bit and there's a kind of wishin' smile on her lips. Y'know she looked like this was what she wanted ever since she come into the store. Get me?
Miss Vincent is doin' a piece of watchin' herself around the tree that's between 'em, only she ain't watchin' the Kid. She's watchin' this new dame, and you can take it from me she was registerin' hate! That classy little nose of hers is quiverin' and she's bitin' hard on her lip. Her body was so stiff and straight that, on the level, I thought she was gonna spring!
The Kid finally stops boxin', puts on his sweaters and then he gets a flash at the new dame. She calls somethin' to him and he comes over—then they start back to the yacht together. Miss Vincent ducks and so did I. I didn't want none of them to see me, because this thing was gettin' a little too deep for yours in the faith.
They go ahead with another reel of the Kid's picture that morning and Brown-Smith still keeps hangin' around Miss Vincent like a panhandler outside a circus, and when she has to come in the picture herself, he stands on the sidelines beside one of the camera men, with them chorus men friends of his draped around him. The Kid is goin' through a scene where he flattens half a dozen guys that are tryin' to discourage him from fightin' the champ and Brown-Smith is givin' his friends the low down on it.
"By Jove!" he sneers, just loud enough so's we can all get an earful. "It nauseates me to see that fellow knocking about those poor devils who have to do that for a living! Fawncy him doing anything like that in real life! Why, he would most likely call for the police if some one slapped his wrist. I know those moving picture heroes!"
This troupe of Sweet Williams around him snickers right out loud in public at that, like the big guy was simply a knockout as a comedian. Miss Vincent frowns and the new dame looks kinda worried and nervous, but the Kid just reddens a bit and continues to swat the supers all over the lot. Brown-Smith pulls a few more raw cracks like that, gettin' louder and nastier all the time, and finally he asks Potts to let him take part in the big scene at the end of the reel where the Kid is supposed to bounce everybody in the thing but the camera men. He says it will be great stuff to tell about at the club the first rainy night and a lot of bunk like that—all the time he's watchin' the Kid with that nasty sneer on his face.
Potts says all right, and offers to stake him to an old suit of clothes, but he laughs and says he won't need anything, tossin' his coat to one side like the acrobat at the theatre flips away his handkerchief before goin' to work. He rolls up his sleeves and starts limberin' up his arms in front of Miss Vincent, winkin' at her and noddin' to the Kid. She looks kinda worried, but her control is good and she holds fast. She wasn't the only one that looked worried, believe me! I was doin' that thing myself, because this Brown-Smith guy had a good thirty pounds on the Kid, and he was built that way all over, reach, height and everything else. The minute he put up his hands, I seen two things. First, that he knowed somethin' about box fightin' and, second, that he was goin' to try and bounce the Kid for the benefit of Miss Vincent.
While they're gettin' things ready for the massacre, the Kid comes over to me and says,
"What's the big idea? I know this bird—he's the guy that asked me to bring him a glawss of Appollinaris that night at the Golden West Club. If he fusses around me, I'm gonna maul him!"
I knowed that wasn't the reason, because Kid Scanlan could take both a wallop or a joke. The reason was standin' about three feet away talkin' to Genaro and she never looked better. Believe me, she had everything that mornin'!
"Looka thisa bigga boob, Miss Vincent!" Genaro is sayin', wavin' his arms around and shakin' his head at Brown-Smith. "He'sa wanna get in my picture so he showa the girls what a bigga fella he is. Meester Potts he's a go crazee if thisa picture she's a no good. He's a joomp at me, he's a holler at me and he letta thisa bigga bunk get in it! Thisa fight, she'sa gotta looka real—not lika the actor, butta real! Thisa fella he'sa go in slappa Meester Scanlan on he'sa wrist. Meester Scanlan he'sa no wanna hurt Meester Potts' fren'—you know?—so he'sa slappa heem back! Everybody she'sa laugh at me when they showa that picture. Aha! They maka me crazee!"
He runs over to Brown-Smith and grabs his arm.
"Please, Meester!" he begs him, with tears in his eyes. "Please, Meester, getta gooda and rough with thisa fella!" he points to the Kid. "Don't be afraid for heem, he's a tougha nut! He's a nevaire geta hurt! Don't maka thisa fight looka like the act. You rusha heem, hitta heem, wrestle heem, choka heem, graba heem, bita heem, kicka heem, anything but keela heem, so thisa picture she looka like reala fight! Pretty soon, I blowa the whistle. He's a hitta you easy—so—you falla down. Maka looka good, don't sitta down, falla down—so!—" Genaro stops and throws himself on the grass and then hops up again. "You watcha that?" he goes on. "Alla right!" He jumps away from the cameras and yells, "Hey, Joe! You stanna over there and shoota this froma the right! Alla right, now everybody! Meester Kid Scanlan, you ready? Gooda! Come now—cameras—ready—shoot!"
The Kid meets the rush of the gang like they had practised it together, and he floors one after the other of them with snappy left hooks. Of course he was pullin' his punches and barely touchin' these hicks, but it looked awful good from front. Then Brown-Smith, who had been hangin' around on the outside, rushes in. For a guy who had never tried the thing before, he struck me as bein' real swift at pickin' up the rules, because he faced the cameras at the right angles and pulled a lot of fancy stuff that usually nobody but a sure enough movie actor knows. The Kid sidesteps him and puts a light left to his chin and Brown-Smith comes back with a right swing that would have floored the Kid, if it hadn't been too high. The Kid went back on his heels and a little trickle of claret comes from his lips. Genaro jumps in the air, clappin' his hands. "Magnificenta!" he yells. Miss Vincent is breathin' hard and her hands pressed up tight against her chest. Her face was the color of skimmed milk. Genaro pipes her and grabs a camera man. "Shoota that—queek!" he hollers, pointin' to her. The new dame runs over to me and grabs my arm.
"Stop it!" she whispers, excited like. "You must! Albert will kill him! He was amateur heavyweight champion once and—oh!—he wants to beat Mr. Scanlan—he—oh!—"
I heard Miss Vincent give a little yelp, and I shove this dame away and, believe me, bo, I come near goin' dead on my feet! Because there's my champ on the ground, layin' flat on his face and he looked as cold as the North Pole! I started to dash in, but Genaro grabs me and throws me aside. "Stoppa, fool!" he yells. "Thisa picture she'sa maka me famous!"
The rest of the mob is too scared to do anything—they knowed that this was the real thing! The Kid gets up on one knee, and, on the level, the only sound you could hear was his choked breathin' and the steady click of the cameras—yes, and I guess the beatin' of my heart! The Kid is shakin' his head to clear it from that wallop and I yelled to him to stay down and take his time. He gets half way up and slides down again flat and Brown-Smith laughs. Then Miss Vincent suddenly turns, and there's a bucket of ice cold lemonade standin' on a bench beside her. It had been put there for the extry people. This here eighteen-carat, regular fellow dame grabs that bucket and throws the lemonade all over the Kid's head and shoulders!
It braced him like a charge of hop—his head jerked up as it hit him and he shook off the drops—and in another second he was on his feet, smilin' the old Scanlan smile and dancin' around this guy who was rushin' in to finish him. He swings for the Kid's jaw and the Kid, movin' his head an inch out of the way, puts a hard right and left to the mouth. Brown-Smith coughed out a tooth that he had no further use for, and starts backin' away, coverin' up like a crab. The Kid laughs over at me and sends this guy's head back like it was on a hinge, with two uppercuts and a right jab. He tries to rush in and grab the Kid, and Scanlan closes his left eye with the prettiest straight left I ever seen. He wasn't tryin' to knock this big stiff out, he was deliberately cuttin' him to pieces in a most cold, workmanlike manner.
Miss Vincent is smilin' now and the other dame—is not! Potts's mouth is open about five yards and he looks like he don't know whether to call the police or go back to the box office for a better seat. Then the Kid starts backin' friend Brown-Smith all over the place, shootin' lefts and rights at him so fast that I bet he thought it was rainin' wallops. He begins to register yellah—he gazes around wildly at Genaro and Genaro reaches for the whistle so's Brown-Smith can quit, but Miss Vincent sees him reach for it and she knocks it out of his hand! Genaro looks hard at her and yells to the camera men to keep turnin' the cranks. Potts starts over, stops, shakes his shoulders and turns his back.
Then the Kid tips back Brown-Smith's head with a lightnin' right hook and drops him with a left to the jaw.
They stopped the cameras and everybody give a hand in bringin' the dashin' Brown-Smith back to the Golden West again. Everybody but me, the Kid and Miss Vincent. The Kid walks over to Potts and stares at him.
"Well," he says. "I guess I'm through after that, eh?"
Potts slaps him on the back.
"Hardly!" he grins. "That was the greatest piece of acting I ever saw before a camera!"
Genaro runs up and grabs the Kid's hand.
"Wonderful!" he hollers. "Magnificenta! You are what you calla the true artiste, Meester Kid Scanlan! That picture she will be the talka of the country! She'sa maka me famous!"
"Yeh?" says the Kid. He turns to me and waves over to where Brown-Smith is recognizin' relatives and close friends. "That guy has an awful good left!" he says. He thinks for a minute. "D'ye know," he goes on, "that hick was tryin', at that!"
I see Miss Vincent talkin' to Potts and all of a sudden he throws up his hands and stares over at Brown-Smith.
"What?" he hollers. "Impossible!"
Then he slaps his hands together and laughs out loud.
"Oh!" he says, holdin' his sides. "This is too much! Ha, ha, ha!"
"What's the joke?" I asks Miss Vincent.
"It's more of a tragedy!" she says, kinda hysterical like she was glad it was all over. "That man is no more Brown-Smith than you are. He's Albert Ellington LaRue, who five years ago was the biggest moving picture leading man in the country! Why, he got hundreds of letters every day from poor, foolish little girls who grew dizzy watching him foil villains in five reels a week. He inherited some money—quite a lot, I believe, and suddenly vanished from the screen, turning up as Brown-Smith here last year. But he simply could not resist the call of his vanity to come back once more as the dashing hero of the film. He had planned to step into this picture, turn the tables in the fight with Mr. Scanlan, who he thought was an actor and not a pugilist, and thus come back to the movies in a blaze of glory! He told me he had two press agents awaiting the word to flash his coup all over the country. He thought it would make a great story!" She stopped and laughed. "It will!" she goes on. "Think of the matinée girls when they see their darling Albert back in the flash once more and being unmercifully beaten by a man thirty pounds lighter and inches smaller than him!"
Just then the fair Albert comes limpin' over to Potts. He looked like he'd been battlin' a buzz saw!
"Mr. Potts," he says, "if you dare to use that scene in your picture, I will bring suit against your firm. I demand that the film be destroyed at once!"
"What you say!" screams Genaro. "Nevaire! She'sa mine, that picture! Away wit' you—you bigga bunk!" He stands before the camera like he's ready and willin' to protect it with his life.
"You entered the scene of your own accord, Mr. LaRue," remarks Potts, "and I trust you are in earnest about suing us. The publicity will just about save me a hundred thousand in advertising."
As soon as he heard that name "LaRue," this guy just kinda caves in and closes up tight. Miss Vincent turns her nose up at him and walks over to the Kid as the other dame comes up and shakes Scanlan's hand.
"Thank you!" she says, in that tired voice of hers. "You have done a big thing for me! Now he cannot go into the pictures again, and maybe he'll—he'll stay home with me!"
At that Miss Vincent suddenly leans over and kisses her. Can you beat them dames?
Albert picks up his hat and straightens his tie. Then he glares from one to the other of us and walks over to Genaro.
"I trust," he says, throwin' out his chest. "I trust you realize that if your picture is a success, I, and I alone, am responsible for it. If it hadn't been for the advent of myself, a finished artist, in that fight scene, it would have fallen flat! Good day, sir!"
And him and his dame and the white-faced Sweet Williams blows!