"So if you'll kindly telegraph the fare to this address," goes on De Vronde, ignorin' the Kid, "I'll be obliged."
With that he blows.
"And the tough part of it is," moans Duke, reachin' for a 'phone, "I'll have to do just that! It'll cost about sixty bucks to import this bird here and when he gets here, it's nothin' but another mouth to feed. If I had half the nerve of that big stiff De Vronde, I'd take a German quartette over to London and make 'em sing the 'Wacht Am Rhein' in front of Buckin'ham Palace!"
"He claims this valet's a friend of his, too," says the Kid. "I'll bet he'll turn out to be another one of them sweet spirits of nitre boys, eh?"
"If he is," growls Duke, "it won't be two days before he'll be sick and tired of the movie game, you can bet two green certificates on that!"
A week later, me and the Kid is standin' near the entrance to Film City talkin' to Miss Vincent, when a young feller blows in through the gates and walks up to us. He's one of them tall birds, as thin as a dime, and his clothes has been brushed right into the grain. When the light hit him, I seen they was places where even the grain had quit. His shoes is so run over at the heels that they'd of fit nice and snug into a car track and he'd just gone and shaved himself raw.
One good look and this bird checked up as a member in good standin' of one of the oldest lodges in the world. They got a branch in every city, and they was organized around the time that Adam and Eve quit the Garden of Eden for a steam-heated flat. The name of this order is "The Shabby Genteels."
But what transfixed the eye and held the attention, as we remark in the workhouse, was this guy's face. I might say he had the most inconsistent set of features I ever seen off the screen. He ain't a thousand miles from bein' good-looking and his chin is well cut and square, like at one time he'd been willin' to hustle for his wants and fight for 'em once he got 'em, but that time ain't now! His eyes is the tip-off. They don't look straight into yours when he talks—the liar's best bet!—or they don't look at the ground, but they stare off over your shoulder into the air, like he's seein' somethin' you can't, and it ain't pleasant to look at.
I've seen that look on beaten fighters, when the winner is settin' himself for the knockout, and I've seen it on the faces of other guys, when some smug-jowled judge has reached into their lives and took ten or twenty years as a deposit on what they'll do with the rest. It's a look you don't forget right away, take it from me!
Well, this feller that's walkin' up to us had that look. If a director had yelled "Register despair!" at him, he could of just looked natural and they'd of thought he was another Mansfield.