“Had ’em before?” Mr. Bernstein looked anxious.
“One or two. This place seems to appeal to them. Sit down, Mr. Bernstein, you’ll find that seat comfortable. I always take this one—I’m getting old and set in my ways. I suppose it’s the place you’re interested in?”
Mr. Bernstein edged his chair closer to the wicker table and leaned across it.
“Say,” he began with a glow of enthusiasm, “this place and that servant and you! It would be great. I says to Greenfield—he’s my best director—I says to him before I came up here, ‘Now what we want is one of them old-time, sort of before-the-war Southern aristocrats.’ When I saw you, colonel, I—gee, sir, I says to myself: ‘Sammy Bernstein, there’s your man!’ It ain’t your clothes, colonel, it’s the way you look. Say, I’ve got a fellow at the studio—dress him up in a silk hat and white tie and patent-leather pumps, and he looks like a duke. But you put that guy into his every-days, and, bless your soul, you wouldn’t know him from a tin-peddler! Now, it ain’t so with you. You’d look the part in your shirt-sleeves. When I saw you, I says to myself: ‘Sam Bernstein, there’s the real article—ain’t any near-seal about that, either!’”
“Mr. Bernstein, say no more,” said the colonel. “I’m a modest man!”
Bernstein expanded, smiling.
“Sir, I’ll make it two thousand dollars for this place, that old negro, and you in one five-reeler. Two thousand dollars down! Isn’t any work in it. You just stand and look natural.”
This time the colonel’s eyes did more than twinkle; he laughed heartily.
“Mr. Bernstein, I never looked natural before a camera in my life. I’m afraid we can’t come to an agreement. I’m too old for the movies, sir. I’ll have to decline.”
Bernstein’s face fell.