“No. Money cannot buy Billy Whiskers. I shall keep him until he dies of old age, or I do,” said Mr. Watson.
“I am more sorry than I can tell you, as I wanted particularly to have him act in a high-class movie I am putting on the screen. You see when I owned him, or thought I owned him, he was my best drawing card in the movies.”
Mr. Watson began to laugh. It struck him as funny that Billy, who had done nearly everything, to be sure, had also been in the movies. “But when I think of it, I don’t know why he should not be a success in the movies, for he was a first-class actor in the circus for two or three years,” he said.
“Mr. Watson, if you could only see the pleasure he gives to little children when he is acting in the movies, I am sure you would let me have him. The films he is in are shown at orphan asylums, reform schools, charity fairs and so on.”
“Oh, is that so? Well, I certainly like to give pleasure to poor little orphans. Tell you what I will do. I’ll loan him to you, but I won’t sell him to anyone.”
“You are just the big-hearted man I thought you were, Mr. Watson!” exclaimed the caller. “And I thank you for the loan of him. We will take the best of care of him. In fact, he will have a caretaker who does nothing but look after his health and comfort. Why, when I had him before, I had his life insured and a veterinary to look after his health and to oversee his food. He was bathed and his hair combed and perfumed as if he was a human being, while he had a big ten by ten foot box stall all to himself, and rode in a limousine to and from the studio. Oh, I can tell you he was treated like a king, and he will have the same treatment again.
“If you would like to hear, I will tell you the special stunt we want him to do now. Picture to yourself a mountain fastness with two high peaks, between them a deep cleft or cut thousands of feet deep. On one side stands Billy with a young baby strapped to his back, the mother standing beside him wringing her hands in agony as she is about to make him leap across the chasm. She has been kidnaped by bandits and carried into the mountains. They did not know she had a baby under her shawl when they kidnaped her, and when they made the discovery they were going to kill the child, but she thought of this way of saving the baby’s life. You see the goat belonged to her next-door neighbor in the village at the foot of the mountain, and the mother was sure the goat would take it home.”
“You don’t think Billy will take that part, now do you?” asked Mr. Watson.
“I know he will, for I have seen him do much more difficult parts.”
“Well, if that is the kind of thing he does, I certainly want to see him act for the movies,” said Mr. Watson.