He takes a long piece of paper from his pocket and lays it down in front of me. It looked like a chattel mortgage on Mexico, and what paragraphs didn't commence with "to wit," started off with "do hereby."
"All that Mr. Scanlan has to do," he explains, "will be told him by our director at the studios, who will produce the picture. His name is Mr. Salvatore Genaro. Kindly sign where the cross is marked!"
"Wait!" I says. "We can't take a railroad ride like that for twenty thousand, we got to have twenty-five and—"
"All right!" he butts in. "Sign only on the first line!"
"Thirty thousand, I meant to say!" I tells him, "because—"
"Certainly," he cuts me off, handin' over his fountain pen. "Don't use initials, sign your full name!"
I signed it.
"How do I know we get this money?" I asks him.
"Aha!" he answers. "How do we know that the dawn will come? My company is worth a million dollars, old chap, and that contract you have is as good as the money! Be at my office at two this afternoon and I will give you the tickets. Adios until then!"
And he blows out of the office.