"Yes—the cat!"
CHIPPO'S SCENARIO.
(With the British Army in France.)
It was the Société Grand Guignol de Cinéma's busy day. On the beach at Petiteville cameras were rattling away like machine guns, orders from the producer were hissing through the air with the vicious hum of explosive bullets, and weary supers were marching and counter-marching in a state of hopeless apathy.
At the very height of these operations Chippo Munks wandered into the camera barrage and got firmly entangled in the picture. As "crowd in background" was indicated by the scenario, the producer refrained from killing Chippo out of hand—in fact he invited his co-operation for another crowd a little later on. Thus it was that Chippo earned the right to describe himself as a "fillum actor," with licence to speak familiarly of his colleagues, Charles Chaplin and Mary Pickford, and full powers to pose as the ultimate authority of the camp whenever cinemas were mentioned.
At the Café des Promeneurs it was generally assumed that Chippo was merely waiting for a fat contract from the Société Grand Guignol, and pending its arrival he explained that he was constructing a suitable scenario.
"The public," he said, "is fed up with Texas rancheros in Anzac 'ats and antimacassar trousers playing poker dice with one 'and and keeping a sustained burst of rapid fire against their opponents with the other. They wants something true to life. Now, my fillum opens at the Café de l'Avenir, where a stout old British soldier runs a Crown an' Anchor board at personal loss, but 'appy in the knowledge that 'e is amusing his comrades."
"The same answering to the name of Chippo Munks?" interjected Chris Jones.
"The name on the programme is Reginald Denvers," said Chippo firmly. "Acrost the way, at the Café de la Vache Noire, a drunken unprincipled gambler named Jim Blaney—which you will also reckernise is an alias—regularly pockets the pay of 'is fellow-soldiers under pretence of a square deal at banker an' pontoon. One night, 'aving sucked 'is victims dry for the time being and also largely taken 'is cawfee avec, Blaney goes acrost to the Avenir an' sets 'is stall out there. Reginald remonstrates.