Читать книгу: «Kid Scanlan», страница 3

I guess the ex-owner of this bus was on the level at that about doin' them forty-five thousand miles in a week, because this car could have beat a telegram across the country, "when she got warmed up!" as I. Markowitz says. Every one of them six cylinders was in there trying and when they worked together like little pals and forgot whatever private quarrels they had, the result was speed, believe me! The Kid was hangin' on to the steerin' wheel and havin' the time of his young life and I was hangin' on to the seat and wishin' I had listened to that insurance agent in New York. We come to the top of a hill and as we start down the other side the prize boob of the county is waterin' the pavement around his real estate. When he hears us, he drops the hose which makes it all wet in front of us.

"Hold tight!" screams the Kid to me. "We're gonna do a piece of skiddin'. I forgot to get chains!"

Just about then we hit the damp spot and the Kid puts on the brakes. Sweet Cookie! You should have seen that car! It must have got sore at the man with the hose and went crazy, because it made eight complete turns tryin' to get at him and the poor simp was too scared to run. Finally the thing gives it up and shoots down to the bottom of the hill. We hit a log and I hit the one-man top. Then the motor calls it a day and stops dead. The Kid hops out and walks around to the crank. He gives it a couple of turns and it turns right back at him. He grabs it again and it was short with a left hook to the jaw, and then the Kid shakes his head and takes off one side of the hood. He sticks his hand down inside and pulls out a little brown thing that looks like a cup with a cover on it.

"No wonder she stopped!" he says, holdin' it up. "Look what I just found in here."

I give it the once over.

"What d'ye think of that, eh?" he says. "It's a wonder she run at all! I'll bet that boob mechanic left that in there when he started us off at the garage." He throws the thing in a ditch and puts the hood on. "Now," he says, "we're off for Film City!"

He grabs hold of the crank and gives it about eleven whirls, but there ain't a thing doin' and while we're stuck there like that, along comes a guy in another car.

"Can I help you fellows out?" he hollers.

"Yes!" I yells back. "Have you got a rope?"

He comes over and looks at the thing.

"What seems to be the trouble?" he asks the Kid.

"Nothin' in particular," the Kid tells him. "She's a great little car only we can't get her goin'."

"Have you got gas?" asks the stranger.

"Plenty!" says the Kid. "D'ye think I would try to run a car without gasoline?"

"I don't know," says the other guy. "I never seen you before! Is your spark all right?"

"A number one!" pipes the Kid.

"And she won't run?" he asks.

"She won't run!" we both says together.

"Hmph!" he snorts, scratchin' his head. He opens the hood and fusses around on both sides for a minute and then he rubs the side of his nose with his finger. He looks like he was up against a tough proposition.

"How far have you run this car?" he asks the Kid finally.

"All the way from Frisco," answers the Kid.

"Like this?" he says, pointin' to the motor.

"No!" I cuts in. "It was movin'."

"Why you couldn't have gone three feet with this car!" he busts out suddenly. "I never seen nothin' like this before in my life!"

"Why don't you go out at nights, then?" growls the Kid, gettin' sore. "Stop knockin' and tell us what's the matter with it."

"There ain't nothin' the matter with it," says the other guy with an odd little grin. "Not a thing —only it ain't got no carburetor in it, that's all!"

If he figured on creatin' a sensation on that remark – and from the way he said it, he did – he lost the bet. The Kid just gives him the baby stare and shrugs his shoulders like it's past him.

"No which?" he says.

"Carburetor!" explains the native. "The little cup where your gasoline mixes with the air to start the motor."

The Kid claps his hands together and yells,

"That little crook back in Frisco must have held out on me!"

But I had been doin' some thinkin' and I looks the Kid in the eye,

"What does this carburetor thing look like?" I asks the other guy.

He describes it to me, and when he got all through I gives the Kid another meanin' look and walks over to the ditch. After pawin' around in the mud for a while I found the little cup the Kid had throwed away.

"Is this it?" I asks the native.

"It is," he says. "What was it doin' over there?"

"It must have fell off!" answers the Kid quickly, kickin' at me to keep quiet.

Well, this guy finally fixes us up and about an hour later we hit the little road that leads into Film City, without havin' no further mishaps except the noise from that motor. About half a mile from the gates I seen a familiar lookin' guy standin' in the middle of the road and wavin' his hands at us.

"Slow up!" I says to the Kid. "Here's Genaro!"

The Kid reaches down to the side of his seat and yanks a handle that was stickin' up. It come right off in his hand and we kept right on goin'.

"That's funny!" says the Kid, holdin' up the handle and lookin' at it like it's the first one he ever seen. "We should have stopped right away – that's the emergency brake!"

He stamps on the floor with his foot a couple of times and shuts off the gas. We drift right on, and, if Genaro had had rheumatism, he would have been killed outright. As it was, he jumped aside just in time and the car comes to a stop of its own free will about twenty feet past him down the road.

"What's a mat?" yells Genaro, rushin' up to us. "Why you no stoppa the car when you see me?"

"Why don't they stop prohibition?" I hollers back at him. "We must have lost the stopper off this one, we – "

But he runs around the other side to where the Kid is sitting examinin' all them handles and buttons.

"Sapristi!" he yells at the Kid. "Where you go, Meester Kid Scanlan? Everybody she's a look for you – Meester Potts he'sa want you right away! We starta firsta reel of your picture to-day. Everybody she'sa got to wait for you!"

"Keep your shirt on!" growls the Kid. "You told me this mornin' I had lots of time, didn't you?"

Genaro grabs hold of a tree and does a little dance.

"Aha!" he remarks to the sky. "He'sa make me crazee! What you care what I tole you this a morning? Joosta now I want you queek! You maka mucha talk with me while Meester Potts and everybody she'sa wait for you!"

"Well," says the Kid. "Get in here and we'll go there right away."

Genaro climbs in the back of the car.

"Hurry up!" he says, holdin' his ears. "Anything so she'a stop that terrible noise. Hurry up!"

"I'll do that little thing!" pipes the Kid – and we was off.

I climbed over the seat and in the back with Genaro so's he wouldn't feel lonesome, and, so's if the Kid hit anything, I'd have a little more percentage in my favor. Genaro seems to be sore about something and to make conversation I ask him what's the matter.

"Everything she's the matter!" he tells me, while the Kid keeps his foot on the gas and we bump and clatter along the road. "Everything she's the matter! I work all morning on lasta reel of 'The Escapes of Eva.' Got two hundred extra people stand around do nothing. De Vronde, the bigga bunk, he's a play lead with Miss Vincent." He stops and kisses his hand at a tree we was passing "Ah!" he goes on. "She'sa fina girl! Some time maybe I ask her – pardone, I talka too fast! Lasta reel De Vronde he'sa get what you call lynched. They putta rope around he'sa neck and he's a stand under bigga tree. Joosta as they pulla rope to keel him, Miss Vincent," he throws another kiss at a tree. "Ah! sucha fina girl!" he whispers at me rollin' his eyes. "Sometime I – pardone, everytime I forget! Miss Vincent she'sa come along on horse and sava he'sa life – you see?"

"I got you!" I tells him. "Then what happens?"

"Sapristi!" he says. "That's all! What you want for five reels? But thisa morning, Meester Potts he'sa come up and watch. He'sa president of company and knows much about money, but acting – bah! he'sa know nothing! Gotta three year old boy he'sa know more! He'sa standa there and smile and rub he'sa hands together lika barber while we taka lasta reel. Everything she'sa fine till we come to place where De Vronde he'sa get lynch and Miss Vincent – ah! – she'sa come up on horse and sava him. Then Meester Potts he'sa rush over and stoppa the cameras. 'No!' he'sa yell. 'No, by Heaven, I won't stand for that! That's a rotten! You got to get difference ending froma that!'"

"What was the matter?" I asks him. "Didn't he want De Vronde saved?"

His shoulders does one of them muscle dances.

"Ask me!" he says. "I couldn't tella you! He'sa know nothing about art! Joosta money – that's all. He'sa tella me girl saving leading man from lynch lika that is old as he'sa fren' Methuselah! He'sa want something new for finish that picture – bran' new, he'sa holler or no picture! All morning I worka, worka, worka, he'sa maka faces at everything I do!"

"Well!" I says. "If you – "

I happened to look up just then and I seen the well known gates of Film City about a hundred yards away, and if we was makin' a mile an hour, we was makin' fifty. I leaned over and tapped the Kid on the shoulder.

"Don't you think you had better slow up a trifle?" I asks him.

"I don't think nothin' about it!" he throws over his shoulder. "I know it! I been tryin' to stop this thing for the last fifteen minutes and there's nothin' doin'!"

"Throw her in reverse!" I screams, as them great big iron gates looms up over the front mud guards.

"I can't!" he shouts. "The darned thing's stuck in high and I can't budge it!"

One of them gates was open and the Kid steers for it, while I closed my eyes and give myself over to prayer. We shot through leavin' one lamp, both mudguards and a runnin' board behind.

"Hey!" yells Genaro. "What's a mat? Thisa too fasta for me! Stoppa the car before something she'sa happen!"

"Somethin' she'sa gonna happen right now!" I says. "Be seated!"

The Kid swings around a corner and everybody in Film City is either lookin', runnin' or yellin' after us. I often wondered what a wide berth meant, and I found out that afternoon. That's what everybody in the place give us when we come through there hittin' on six as I. Markowitz would remark. A guy made up like a Indian chief jumped behind a tree and we only missed him by dumb luck.

"Hey!" he yells after us. "Are you fellows crazy? Look out for the Moorish Castle!"

I yelled back that we wouldn't miss nothin' of interest, if we could help it and the gas held out, and just then I got a flash at the Moorish Castle. It had been built the day before for a big five reel thriller that Genaro was gonna produce and I understand he was very partial to it. As soon as he sees it he jumps up in the back of the car and slaps the Kid on the shoulders.

"Hey, crazee man!" he hollers. "Stoppa the car, I, Genaro, command it! Don't toucha my castle!" his voice goes off in a shriek. "Sapristi! – I – "

That was all he said just then, because we went through the Moorish Castle like a cyclone through Kansas, and as we come out on the other side the whole thing tumbled down, bringin' with it a couple of Chinese pagodas that had just come from the paint shop. All we lost was half of the radiator and the windshield. The Kid pulls a kind of a sick grin and licks his lips.

"Some car, eh?" he says, takin' a fresh grip on the steerin' wheel.

I missed Genaro and lookin' back through the dust I seen him draped over a fence with his head touchin' the ground and his feet up in the air. A lot of daredevils was runnin' towards us and yellin' murder.

"Where's Genaro?" asks the Kid, as we miss a tree by a half inch.

I shivered and told him.

"The big quitter!" snarls the Kid. "Left us flat the minute somethin' happened, eh? I always knew that guy was yellah!"

We shot across the African Desert and comin' around another turn we bust right into "The Escapes of Eva." There's about two hundred supers dressed like cowboys and Duke, Genaro's assistant, is up on a little platform with the Big Boss Potts, directin' the thing. De Vronde is under a tree with a rope around his neck and another one that don't show in the picture under his arms so's he can be pulled up and it will look like he was bein' lynched. A little ways up the road is Miss Vincent on a horse, ready to make her dash to save De Vronde's life.

As all this comes into view, the Kid swings around on me and shoves somethin' big and round in my face.

"Now!" he hollers. "We're up against it for real! The steerin' wheel come off!"

I pushed open the door on the side and stood on the runnin' board.

"Let me know how you make out!" I yells. "I got enough!"

With that I jumps.

Just as I hit the ground, I hear Duke yellin' through a megaphone.

"C'mon, now – gimme action! Hey! Get two of those cameras at an angle. When I say 'Shoot!' you, Nelson, and Hardy pull that rope so De Vronde swings about five feet clear of the ground! Be sure the rope is under his arms, too! Hey, you extra people – a little ginger there! This is a lynching not a spelling bee! Dance around some – yell! That's it. Now, all ready?" He blows the whistle. "Shoot!" he yells, "and gimme all you got!"

Well, the Kid did what he could – he blowed the little trick horn on the side of the car about a second before he shot into the mob. Them bloodthirsty outlaws just melted away before him, and them that was slow-witted was picked up and tossed to one side before they knowed what hit 'em. They's a big stone wall at the other side of the tree and that's where the Kid was headed for. Just as he sails under De Vronde, who's hangin' from the rope over his head, the Kid sees the wall, grabs De Vronde by the legs and hangs there, lettin' that crazy, six cylinder A. G. F. proceed without him. De Vronde and the Kid crashes to the ground and the car dashed its brains out against the wall.

While great excitement is bein' had by all, Duke jumps from the platform to tell the camera men to cease firin' and a handful of actors runs over to jimmy the Kid and De Vronde apart. I thought this Duke guy was gonna explode, on the level it was two minutes before he could speak.

"What d'ye mean, you ivory-headed simp?" he screams at the Kid, finally. "What d'ye mean by that? You've ruined a hundred feet of film, you – "

I hear somebody puffin' along beside me as I come runnin' up and I see it's Potts. He's red in the face and mumblin' somethin' to himself as he waddles along. I felt real sorry for the Kid – car and job, both gone! Potts rushes up and grabs Duke by the shoulder.

"There!" he yells, pointin' to the Kid. "There stands a man that knows more about the picture game than the whole infernal lot of you! That's the kind of a finish I've been trying to get for this picture all morning!"

CHAPTER III
PLEASURE ISLAND

Speakin' of boobs, as people will, did you ever figure what would happen if the production of 'em would suddenly cease? Heh? Where would this or any other country be, if all the voters was wise guys and the suckers was all dead?

In the first place, there wouldn't have been no ex-Land of the Rave and Home of the Spree, if Queen Isabella hadn't been boob enough to fall for Columbus's stuff, about would she stake him and his gang of rough and readys to a couple of ferryboats and they'd go out and bring back Chicago. Even old Chris himself was looked on as Kid Stupid, because he claimed the earth was round. The gang he trailed with had it figured as bein' square like their heads.

The guy that invented the airship was doped out as a boob until the thing begin to fly, the bird that turned out the first steamboat was called a potterin' old simp and let him alone and he'd kill himself – and that's the way it goes.

The sucker is the boy that keeps the wise guys alive. He'll try anything once, and it don't make no difference to him whether it's three-card monte or a new kind of submarine. He's the guy that built all the fancy bridges, the big buildin's, fought and won the wars that the wise guys started, and fixed things generally so that to-day you can push a little trick electric button and get anything from a piece of pie to a divorce. He's the simp that falls for the new minin' company stock, grins when the wise guys explain to him just how many kinds of a sucker he is, and then clips coupons while they're gettin' up early to read the want ads. He's the baby that's done everything that couldn't be did.

That's the boob!

The boob is the guy that takes all the chances and makes it possible for old Kid World to keep goin' forward instead of standin' still. Any burg that's got a couple of sure enough eighteen-carat boobs in it, known to the trade as suckers, has got a chance.

So the next time somebody calls you a big boob, don't get sore – thank him. He's boostin' you!

Gimme ten boobs in back of me and I'll take a town, because they'll take a chance. Gimme a hundred wise guys and the town'll take us, because them birds will have to stop and figure what's the use of startin' somethin'.

Me for the boobs!

Kid Scanlan was a boob. He was a great battler, a regular fellow and all like that, but he was a boob just the same. He started fightin' because he was simp enough to take a chance of havin' his features altered, and he won the title through bein' stupid enough to mix it with the welterweight champion. I was the wise guy of the party, always playin' it safe and seein' what made it go, before I'd take a chance. But the Kid got a whole lot further than I ever will. He made a name for himself in the ring and another in the movies and I ain't champion of nothin'– I'm just with Scanlan, that's all.

I'm gettin' offers from promoters here and there to have him start against some set up for money that was sinful to refuse, but there's nothin' doin'. The Kid has took to bein' an actor like they did to gunpowder in Europe, and not only he won't fight, I can't even get him mad!

"I'm off that roughneck stuff!" he tells me. "Nobody ever got nothin' by fightin'. Look what it did to Willard! Besides," he goes on, "what would John Drew and them guys think of me, if it should leak out that I had give in to box fightin' again? Why they'd be off me for life! Nope, let 'em battle in Russia, I'm through!"

Fine for a champion, eh?

Now here's a guy that went to the top in the one game where you can't luck your way over. Because he was a fightin' fool, the 'Kid had right-crossed his way to the title and now that he was up there, the big stiff wouldn't look at a glove! No! he was a actor now! I'd tell him that Kid Whosthis had flattened Battlin' McGluke the night before and we could get ten thousand to go six rounds with the winner. He'd flick the ash off a gold-tipped cigarette and say.

"Yeh?" Then he'd grab me by the shoulder and pour this in my ear. "Did you get me in that Shakespeare picture last week? I hear the guy that writes up shows for the Peoria Gazette claims Mansfield had nothin' on me!"

A few months before he would have said somethin' like this.

"All right! Wire the club we'll fight him, and if I don't bounce that tramp in two rounds, I'll give my end to them starvin' Armenians!"

Now I didn't kick when the Kid falls for Miss Vincent, because I had seen Miss Vincent, and the Kid was only human. I didn't say nothin' when he staked himself to that second-hand auto that like to wrecked California, but when he pulls this actor thing on me and says pugilism, pugilism, mind you, ought to be discouraged – I figured it was about time for yours in the faith to step in.

The Kid had two ambitions in life, both of which he picked up at Film City. One was to be the greatest movie hero that ever flattened a villain, and the other was to ease himself into the Golden West Club.

The Golden West Club was over in Frisco, and as far as the average guy was concerned it could have been in Iceland. It was about as easy to get into that joint as it is to get into Heaven, and it was also the only other place where you couldn't buy your way in. Your name had to be Fortescue-Smith or Van Whosthis, and you had to look it. You had to be partial to tea, wrist watches, dancin', opera, tennis and the like, and to top it all off you had to be a distant relative to a hick called William the Conqueror, who I hear was light heavy-weight champ in days of old. If you checked up all right on them little details, they took a vote on you. If you was lucky, you got a letter in a few weeks later sayin' your application was bein' considered and you might get in, but not to bank on it, because they was havin' trouble connectin' up your grandfather with the rest of the family tree, it bein' said around that he made his money through work.

That was the place Kid Scanlan wanted to bust into!

One night he gets all dressed up like a horse in one of them soup and fish layouts, and he hires a guy to drive him over to the Golden West Club in that second-hand A. G. F. he had. I will say the Kid went into the thing in a big way, payin' seventy-five bucks for a dress suit and ten more for the whitest shirt I ever seen in my life. He sends in eight berries for a hack-driver's hat and seven for a pair of tan shoes. Then he climbs into his bus and tells the driver, "Let's go!" Before he pulled out, he told me they was so many guys belonged to the thing that he figured he could mix around for a few minutes without anybody gettin' wise that he wasn't a regular member, if he could only breeze past the jobbie on the door.

And outside of the shoes, which I thought was a trifle noisy, the Kid sized up like any of the real club members I had seen, except his chest wasn't so narrow and he had an intelligent look.

Well, he blowed in about twelve o'clock and come up to the rooms we had at the hotel in Film City. He stands in the middle of the bedroom, takes off this trick silk hat, and, puttin' everything he had on the throw, he pitched it into the bathtub. He slammed that open-faced coat in a corner and in a minute it was followed by them full-dress pants. The gleamin' white shirt skidded under the bed, neck and neck with the shoes. I didn't say a word while he was abusin' them clothes, but I was so happy I felt like cheerin', because they was somethin' in the Kid's face I hadn't seen there since we hit the movies. The last time I had caught him lookin' like that was when One-Punch Ross had dropped him with a left hook, just before the Kid won the title. When the Kid got to his feet that there look was on his face and two seconds later he was welterweight champion of the world and points adjacent.

He inserts himself into his pyjamas and then he swings around on me.

"How much did they offer us at the Garden for ten rounds with Battlin' Edwards?" he wants to know.

I liked to fell out of the bed!

"Eight thousand, with a privilege of thirty per cent of the gross," I says, gettin' off of the hay. "Will I wire 'em?"

"Yep!" he snaps out. "Tell 'em I'll fight Edwards two weeks after I get through here!"

"And when will that be, might I ask?" I says, ringin' for a messenger and tryin' to keep from dancin' a jig.

"As soon as them simps finish that picture, 'How Kid Scanlan Won the Title,'" he tells me. "Genaro says he'll start it to-morrow, and as soon as it's through, so am I – here!"

I didn't get the answer to all this until the Kid crawls into the hay half a hour later, scowlin' and mutterin' to himself. I took a good look at him and then I says.

"Speakin' of clubs and stuff like that, how did you make out at that Golden West joint to-night?"

He sits right up in the bed.

"Are you tryin' to kid somebody?" he snarls.

"I asked you a civil question, you big stiff!" I comes back, "and don't be comin' around here and slippin' me that rough stuff! If you can be a gentleman at your clubs and joints like that, you want to be one here! D'ye get that?"

He looks at me for a minute and seein' I'm serious, he growls.

"I thought you had heard about it!" Then he props himself up with the pillows and begins, "I went over there to-night and them boobs was havin' a racket of some kind, I guess, because all the automobiles in the West was lined up outside the doors of the club. I tried to horn in the line with that boat of mine and the biggest nigger in the world, dressed up like a band leader, comes over and wants to know if I'm a guest. I told him no, that I was a movie actor and to step one side or he'd break the headlights when I hit him. He claims I can't get in the line without I got a ticket showin' I'm a guest. I got tired of his chatter, so I dropped him with a short left swing and we keep on goin' till we wind up at the front door. This stupid simp I had drivin' my bus is lookin' at the swell dames goin' in, instead of at the emergency brake, and he forgets to stop the thing till we have took off the rear end of a car in front of us and busted my front mudguard again.

"While the chiffure of the wreck is moanin' to my guy about it, I ducked out the side and blowed around to the entrance. I figured they was a password of some kind, so I says to the big hick at the gate, 'Ephus Doffus Loffus,' and pushes past him, I guess he was surprised at me bein' a stranger and knowin' the ropes at that, because I seen him lookin' after me when I beat it up the first stairway to the second floor. I got a flash at myself in a mirror as I breeze past, and, if I do say it myself, I was there forty ways. I was simply a knockout in that evenin' dress thing! A swell-lookin' guy pipes me at the top of the stairs and, after givin' me the once over, he taps me on the arm.

"'You may bring me a glawss of Appollinaris, my man,' he says, 'and for heaven sake remove those yellow shoes!'

"With that he walks away and another guy comes up and whistles at me. When I turn around, he's givin' me the up and down through a glass thing he's got hung over one eye.

"'Bring up a box of perfectos at once!' he pipes. 'Come! Look alive now!'

"Then I got it! I thought I was knockin' 'em dead and these guys thought I was a waiter! Well, I thinks, I'll show them boobs somethin' before I take the air – I can pull that stuff myself! With that I breezes into the next room and there's a hick sittin' at a table, toyin' with a book. He was as near nothin' as anything I ever seen, on the level! He's got a swell dress suit on, but it didn't fit him no better than mine did me and it couldn't have cost no more or he would have killed the tailor. Outside of the shoes, mine bein' classier, we was both made up the same. A guy comes in, looks him over for a minute and then he yawns. 'Bored?' he says. The simp that was sittin' down looks back at him, yawns and says, 'Frightfully.' Then the other guy bows at him and goes out. Some other hick wanders in and says, 'Ah, Van Stuyvessant, bored?' and Stupid says, 'Frightfully' and the other guy blows out. I seen that the coast was clear, so I smoothed my hair, pulled down my vest and throwed my chest out like them other guys did. Then I breezed in and stopped before this guy. He yawns and looks up at me very dignified like he was sittin' in the Night Court and I was up before him for the third time in a week.

"'Hey, Stupid!' I says. 'Get me a gin fizz and don't make it too sweet! And for heaven's sakes get rid of that shirt!'

"I thought he was goin' to get the apoplexy or somethin', because his face is as red as a four-alarm fire. Then he says.

"'Why – what – how dare you, you insolent puppy!'

"I leaned on his shoulder and tapped him on the end of the beak with my thumb.

"'Lay off that stuff, Simple,' I tells him. 'I'm a guest here and a couple of hicks took me for a waiter. I'm just gettin' even, that's all. If you don't get me that gin fizz like I asked you, I'll knock you for a goal!'

"He gets as white as my shirt and presses a little button on the table. A big husky, made up like a Winter Garden chorus man, runs in and Stupid says, 'Eject this ruffian, Simms! And then you will answer to me for allowing him to enter!'

"Simms was game, but a poor worker, so I feinted him over in front of his master and then I flattened him with a left and right to the jaw. I took it on the run then and got out the back way!"

The Kid stops and heaves a sigh.

"And then what?" I encourages him.

"And then nothin'!" he says. "That's all! Except I'm off the Golden West Club, the movies and this part of the country! I got enough. Them guys over there to-night gimme the tip-off – I don't belong, that's all! I was a sucker to ever stop fightin' to be a actor, but I got wise in time. You go ahead and sign me right up with anybody but Dempsey, and if Genaro don't start my picture to-morrow, I'll give 'em back their money and you and me will leave the Golden West flat on its back!"

Say! I was so happy I couldn't sleep. I just turned over on my side and registered joy all night long!

The next mornin' we go to Genaro the first thing, and the Kid puts it up to him right off the bat. Either he starts "How Kid Scanlan Won the Title" or he kisses us good-by. Genaro raves and pulls his hair for awhile, but they ain't no more give to the Kid than they is to marble and finally Genaro says he'll start the picture right away.

We find out that another director is usin' the whole camp to put on a trick called "The Fall of Babylon," so we got to go over to an island in the well known Pacific Ocean and take what they call exteriors there. They rounded up Miss Vincent, De Vronde, the cuckoo that wrote the thing, and about a hundred other people and load us all on a yacht belongin' to Potts. We're gonna stay on this trick island till the picture is finished, and we eat and sleep on the yacht.

On the trip over, we all go down in what Potts claims is the grand saloon and Van Aylstyne, the hick that wrote the picture, reads it to us. It starts off showin' the Kid workin' in a pickle factory on the East Side in New York. They're only slippin' him five berries a week and out of that he's keepin' his widowed mother and seven of her children. One day he finds a newspaper and all over the front page is a article tellin' about all the money the welterweight champion is makin', so the Kid figures the pickle game is no place for a young feller with his talent, and decides to become welterweight champ. First he tries himself out by slammin' the guy he's workin' for, after catchin' him insultin' the stenographer by askin' her to take a ride in his runabout, when the buyer is already takin' her out in his limousine. When the boss comes back to life, he fires the Kid and our hero goes out and knocks down a few odd brutes here and there for gettin' fresh with innocent chorus girls and the like. Finally, he practically wrecks a swell gamblin' joint where he has gone to rescue his girl, which had been lured there by the handsome stranger from the city.