“With me,” he said in his animated, exotic way, and all creased with smiles, “my cinema business is not business alone! No! It is Art! It is the art hunger that ever urges me onward, not the desire for commercial gain. For me, beauty is ever first; the box-office last! You understand, Mr. Shotwell? With me, art is supreme! Yes. And afterward my crust of bread.”
“Well, then,” said Jim, “I can’t see why you don’t pay this man Skidder what he asks for the property.”
“I tell you why. I make it clear to you. For argument––Skidder he has ever the air of one who does not care to sell. It is an attitude! I know! But he has that air. Well! I say to him, ‘Mr. Skidder, I offer you––we say for argument, one dollar! Yes?’ Well, he do not say yes or no. He do not say, ‘I take a dollar and also one quarter. Or a dollar and a half. Or two dollars.’ No. He squint and answer: ‘I am not anxious to sell!’ My God! What can one say? What can one do?”
“Perhaps,” suggested Jim, “he really doesn’t want to sell.”
“Ah! That is not so. No. He is sly, Mr. Skidder, like there never has been in my experience a man more sly. What is it he desires? I ask. I do not know. But all the time he inquire about my business if it pays, and is there much money in it. Also, I hear, by channels, 118 that he makes everywhere inquiries if the film business shall pay.”
“Maybe he wants to try it himself.”
“Also, that has occurred to me. But to him I say nothing. No. He is too sly. Me, I am all art and all heart. Me, I am frank like there never was a man in my business! But Skidder, he squint at me. My God, those eye! And I do not know what is in his thought.”
“Well, Mr. Puma, what do you wish me to do? As I understand it, you are our client, and if I buy for you this Skidder property I shall look to you, of course, for my commission. Is that what you understand?”
“My God! Why should he not pay that commission if you are sufficiently obliging to buy from him his property?”
“It isn’t done that way,” explained Jim drily.