“He’s a freak,” said Mr. Daly. He cocked a shrewd appraising squint at her side face. “Say, I was piping it off through the front window when the old battle-ax towed him in and interduced him to you gals, and the way it looked to me you kind of ducked soon as he began shooting conversation at you.”
“Never mind that part of it,” she countered. “Who is he and where did he come from? Or, don’t you know? All I caught was his name. Teal, something like that.”
“Teal, huh? Swell name for an old duck, I’ll claim. Jimmy Hoster yonder was just giving me the low-down on him. It seems like Chief Gillespie—you know, director with the Lobel outfit—well, Gillespie he piped him off down there in Alabama or wherever it was down South that he’s had his bunch on location, shooting stuff for that new costume picture that Winifred Desiree and Basil Derby are being featured in. So Gil brought him along with ’em when they got back this morning, figuring, I guess, on using him in that picture or else in something else.
“They had him over on the Lobel lot this afternoon and they tell me he went big just on his looks. Well, you got to hand it to that Gillespie—he’s some picker. If that old boy only had one of these here white goatees on his chin instead of those mountain-goat drapes, he’d be the most perfect Southern Colonel ever I saw in the fillums or on the talking stage, either one. But he’s the first one ever I saw—you know what I mean, O. K. in every touch—outside of a book or a show shop. I figure quite a lot of ’em around here will be wanting him.”
“I wish somebody would decide they wanted me,” she said. “This just hanging round and hanging round gets on my nerves—not to speak of other reasons.”
“Well, ain’t I told you I’m on the look-out for something for you? Ain’t I told you all about what I been doing ’specially on your account? But with a million of these janes from all over the country swarming in here and fighting for every chance that turns up, it’s kind of hard making an opening for a new hand.”
“If I could just get on once, even as an extra, I’d show ’em something.”
“If you’d listen to reason, kid, and be good to me”—he sank his voice—“you know, be a real little cozy pal, I’ll guarantee you’ll be something better than an extra. A fella likes to be a good fella and a good sport and all, and go through for somebody, but what I say is he’s due his reward. Now, ain’t he?”
The girl seemed not to have heard him.