Produced by Al Haines
KID SCANLAN
BY
H. C. WITWER
AUTHOR OF
THE LEATHER PUSHERS, FIGHTING BLOOD, ETC.
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1920,
BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
DEDICATED TO
ALLAN HENRY WITWER
MY SIX-YEAR-OLD DESCENDANT
WHO WEEPS BITTERLY WHEN
I READ MY YARNS ALOUD
TO HIS PATIENT
MOTHER
H. C. W.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. LAY OFF MACDUFF
II. EAST LYNCH
III. PLEASURE ISLAND
IV. LEND ME YOUR EARS
V. "EXIT, LAUGHING"
VI. THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM
VII. LIFE IS REEL!
VIII. HOSPITAL STUFF
KID SCANLAN
CHAPTER I
LAY OFF, MACDUFF!
Brains is great things to have, and many's the time I've wished I had a
set of 'em in _my_ head instead of just plain bone! Still they's a lot
of guys which has gone through life like a yegg goes through a safe,
and taken everything out of it that wasn't nailed, with nothin' in
their head but hair!
A college professor gets five thousand a year, a good lightweight will
grab that much a fight. A school teacher drags down fifteen a week,
and the guy that looks after the boilers in the school buildin' gets
thirty!
Sweet cookie!
So don't get discouraged if the pride of the family gets throwed out of
school because he thinks twice two is eighteen and geography is played
with nets. The chances is very bright that young Stupid will be
holdin' the steerin' wheel of his own Easy Eight when the other guys,
which won all the trick medals for ground and lofty learnin', will be
wonderin' why a good bookkeeper never gets more than twenty-five a
week. And then, if he feels he's _got_ to have brains around him, now
that he's grabbed the other half of the team--money--he can go downtown
and buy all the brains he wants for eighteen dollars a week!
So if you're as shy on brains as a bald-headed man is of dandruff, and
what's more, you _know_ it, cheer up! Because you can bet the gas-bill
money that you got somethin' just as good. Some trick concealed about
you that'll keep you out of the bread line. The thing to do is to take
an inventory of yourself and find it!
Look good--it's there somewheres!
Kid Scanlan's was hangin' from his left shoulder, and it made him
enough dimes in five years to step out of the crowd and watch the
others scramble from the sidelines. It was just an ordinary arm, size
36, model A, lot 768, same as we all have--but inside of it the Kid had
a wallop that would make a six-inch shell look like a lover's caress!
Inside of his head the Kid had nothin'!
Scanlan went through the welterweight division about like the Marines
went through Belleau Wood, and, finally, the only thing that stood
between him and the title was a guy called One-Punch Ross--the
champion. They agreed to fight until nature stopped the quarrel, at
Goldfield, Nev. They's two things I'll never forget as long as I pay
the premiums on my insurance policy, and they are the first and second
rounds of that fight. That's as far as the thing went, just two short
frames, but more real scrappin' was had in them few minutes than Europe
will see if Ireland busts loose! Except that they was more principals,
the battle of the Marne would have looked like a chorus men's frolic
alongside of the Ross-Scanlan melee. They went at each other like
peeved wildcats and the bell at the end of the first round only seemed
to annoy 'em--they had to be jimmied apart. Ross opened the second
round by knockin' Scanlan through the ropes into the ten-dollar boxes,
but the Kid was back and in there tryin' again before the referee could
find the body to start a count. After beatin' the champ from pillar to
post and hittin' him with everything but the bucket, the Kid rocks him
to sleep with a left swing to the jaw, just before the gong.
The crowd went crazy. I went in the hole for five thousand bucks and
the Kid went in the movies!
I had been handlin' Ross before that battle, but after it I wouldn't
have buried him! This guy was a ex-champion then, and I don't want no
ex-nothin' around _me_--unless it's a bill.
Right after that scrap, Scanlan sent for me and made me a proposition
to look after his affairs for the followin' three years, and the only
time I lost in acceptin' it was caused by the ink runnin' out of my
fountain pen when I was signin' the contract. In them days I had a rep
for bein' able to get the money for my athletes that would make Shylock
look like a free spender. Every time one of _my_ boys performed for
the edification of the mob, we got a elegant deposit before we put a
pen to the articles and we got the balance of the dough before we
pulled on a glove. I never left nothin' to chance or the other guy.
That's what beat Napoleon and all them birds! Of course, they was
several people here and there throughout the country which was more
popular than I was on that account, but which would _you_ rather, have,
three cheers or three bucks?
Well, that's the way _I_ figured!
About a month after Scanlan become my only visible means of support, I
signed him up for ten rounds with a bird which said, "What d'ye want,
hey?" when you called him Hurricane Harris, and the next day a guy
comes in to see me in the little trick office I had staked myself to on
Broadway. When he rapped on the door I got up on a chair and took a
flash at him over the transom and seein' he looked like ready money, I
let him come in. He claims his name is Edward R. Potts and that so far
he's president of the Maudlin Moving Picture Company.
"I am here," he says, "to offer you a chance to make twenty thousand
dollars. Do you want it?"
"Who _give_ you the horse?" I asks him, playin' safe. "I got to know
where this tip come from!"
"Horse?" he mutters, lookin' surprised. "I know nothing of horses!"
"Well," I tells him, "I ain't exactly a liveryman myself, but before I
put any of Kid Scanlan's hard-earned money on one of them equines, I
got to know more about the race than you've spilled so far! What did
the trainer say?"
He was a fat, middle-aged hick that would soon be old, and he wears
half a pair of glasses over one eye. He aims the thing at me and
smiles.
"I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about!" he says.
"But I fancy it's a pun of some sort! Very well, then, what _did_ the
trainer say?"
I walked over and laid my arm on his shoulder.
"Are you endeavorin' to spoof me?" I asks him sternly. "Or have you
got me confused with Abe Levy, the vaudeville agent? Either way you're
losin' time! I don't care for your stuff myself, and if that's your
act, I wouldn't give you a week-end at a movie house!"
He takes off the trick eye-glass and begins to clean it with a
handkerchief.
"My dear fellow!" he says. "It is plain that you do not understand the
nature of my proposal. I wish to engage the services of Kid Scanlan,
the present incumbent of the welterweight title. We want to make a
five-reel feature, based on his rise to the championship. I am
prepared to offer you first class transportation to our mammoth studios
at Film City, Cal.; and twenty thousand dollars when the picture is
completed! What do you say?"
"Have a cigar!" I says, when I get my breath. I throwed a handful of
'em in his lap and give the water cooler a play.
"No, thanks!" he says, layin' 'em on the desk. "I never smoke."
"Well," I tells him, "I ain't got a thing to drink in the place, you
gotta be careful here, y'know! But to get back to the movie thing,
what does the Kid have to do for the twenty thousand fish?"
He takes a long piece of paper from his pocket and lays it down in
front of me. It looked like a chattel mortgage on Mexico, and what
paragraphs didn't commence with "to wit," started off with "do hereby."
"All that Mr. Scanlan has to do," he explains, "will be told him by our
director at the studios, who will produce the picture. His name is Mr.
Salvatore Genaro. Kindly sign where the cross is marked!"
"Wait!" I says. "We can't take a railroad ride like that for twenty
thousand, we got to have twenty-five and--"
"All right!" he butts in. "Sign only on the first line!"
"Thirty thousand, I meant to say!" I tells him, "because--"
"Certainly," he cuts me off, handin' over his fountain pen. "Don't use
initials, sign your full name!"
I signed it.
"How do I know we get this money?" I asks him.
"Aha!" he answers. "How do we know that the dawn will come? My
company is worth a million dollars, old chap, and that contract you
have is as good as the money! Be at my office at two this afternoon
and I will give you the tickets. _Adios_ until then!"
And he blows out of the office.
I closed down the desk, went outside and climbed into my Foolish Four.
In an hour I was up to the trainin' camp near Rye where Kid Scanlan was
preparin' for his collision with Hurricane Harris. Scanlan is trainin'
for the quarrel by playin' seven up with the room clerk from the Beach
Hotel, and when I bust in the door he takes a look, throws the cards on
the floor and makes a pass at his little pal so's I'll think he's a new
sparrin' partner. I pulled him off and dragged him to one side.
"How would you like to go in the movies?" I says.
"Nothin' doin'!" the Kid tells me. "They make my eyes sore!"
"I don't mean watch 'em!" I explains. "I mean act in 'em! We're goin'
out to the well known Coast this afternoon and you're gonna be a movie
hero for five reels and thirty thousand bucks!"
"We don't fight Harris?" asks the Kid.
"No!" I says. "What d'ye mean _fight_! Leave that stuff for the
roughnecks, we're actors now!"
We got out to Film City at the end of the week and while there wasn't
no brass band to meet us at the station, there was a sad-lookin' guy
with one of them buckboard things and what at one time was probably a
horse. I never seen such a gloomy lookin' layout in my life; they
reminded me of a rainy Sunday in Philadelphia. The driver comes up to
us and, after takin' a long and searchin' look, says,
"Which one of you fellers is the pugeylist?"
"Pugilist?" I says. "What d'ye mean pugilist? We're the new leadin'
men for the stock company here. Pugilist! Ha! Ha! How John Drew
will laugh when I tell him that!"
He takes a piece of paper from his pocket and reads it.
"I'm lookin' for Kid Scanlan and Johnny Green," he announces. "One of
'em's supposed to be the welterweight champion, but I doubt it! I
never seen him fight!"
"Well," I says, "you got a good chance to try for the title, bo, if you
ain't more respectful! I'm Mr. Green and that's Kid Scanlan, the
champ!"
He looks at the Kid and kinda sneers.
"All right!" he says. "Git aboard and I'll take you out to Mr. Genaro.
I'll tell you now, though, that if you ain't what you claim, you got to
walk back!" He takes a side glance at the Kid. "Champ, eh?" he
mutters.
We climb in the buckboard and this guy turns to me and points the whip
at the Kid.
"He don't look like no pugeylist to me," he goes on, like he's lookin'
for a argument, "let alone a champion! Still looks is deceivin' at
that. Take a crab, for instance--you'd never think from lookin' at it
that you could eat it, would you? No! Git up!"
Git _up_ was right, because the animal this guy had suspended between
the shafts had laid right down on the ground outside the station,
whilst he was talkin' to us. The noble beast got gamely to its feet at
the word from Gloomy Gus, give a little shiver that rattled the harness
and then turned around to see what its master had drawed from the train
that mornin'. It took a good eyeful and kinda curled up its lip and
sneered at us, showin' its yellow teeth in a sarcastical grin.
"Hold fast!" remarks Gloomy Gus. "It's rough country here and this
horse is about to do a piece of runnin'!" He takes off his belt and
whales that equine over what would a been the back on a regular horse.
"Step along!" he asks it.
Well, if they had that ride at Coney Island, they'd have made a fortune
with it in one summer, because as soon as Old Dobbin realized he'd been
hit, he started for South Africa and tried to make it in six jumps! He
folded his long skinny ears back of his neck somewheres and just simply
give himself over to runnin'. We went up hills and down vales that
would have broke an automobile's heart, we took corners on one leg and
creeks in a jump and when I seen the Pacific Ocean loomin' up in the
offing I begin to pray that the thing couldn't swim! Gloomy Gus leans
over and yells in my ear, "Some horse, eh?"
"Is that what it is?" I hollers back.
"Well, he's tryin' all right. He's what you could call a runnin'
fool!" We shot past somethin' that was just a black blur for a minute
and then disappeared back in the dust. "What was that?" I yells.
"Montana!" screams Gloomy Gus, "and--"
"Ha! Ha!" roars the Kid, openin' his mouth for the first time.
"That's goin' a few! Let me know when we pass Oregon, I got a friend
there!"
"Montana Bill!" explains Gloomy Gus, frownin' at the Kid. "That's the
only place you can get licker within five miles of Film City!" He
looks at the Kid again and mutters half to himself, "Champion, eh!"
Then he yanks in the reins and we slow down to about a runaway's pace
right near what looks to be a World's Fair with a big wall around it
and an iron gate in the middle. We shot up to the entrance and the
horse calls it a day and stops, puffin' and blowin' like a fat
piano-mover.
"Film City!" hollers Gloomy Gus. "Git out here and walk in. Mr.
Genaro's office is right back of the African Desert!"
I thanked him for bringin' us in alive. He didn't say nothin' to me,
but as he was passin' in the gates I seen him lookin' after the Kid and
shakin' his head. "Champion, hey!" he mumbles.
This Film City place would have made delerium tremens lay down and
quit. There was Indians, cowboys, cannibals, chorus girls, Japs,
sheriffs, train robbers, and--well, it looked like the place where they
assemble dime novels. A guy goes racin' past us on a horse with a lot
of maniacs, yellin' and shootin', tearin' after him and on the other
side a gang of laborers in tin hats and short skirts is havin' a battle
royal with swords. Three feet from where we're standin' a house is
burnin' down and two guys is sluggin' each other on the roof. We walk
along a little further and run into a private conversation. Some guy
in a new dress suit is makin' love to a dame, while another fellow
stands in front of them and says at the top of his voice, "Remember
now, you're madly in love with her, but father detests the sight of
your face. Ready--hey, camera--all right--wait a minute, wait a
minute, don't wrestle with her, embrace her, will you, _em_brace her!"
Kid Scanlan takes this all in with his eyes poppin' out of his head and
his mouth as open as a stuss game.
"Some joint, eh?" he says to me. "This is what I call a _regular_
cabaret! See if we can get a table near the front!"
A lot of swell-lookin' dames comes in--well, of course it _was_ some
warm out there, but even at that they was takin' an awful chance on
gettin' pneumonia, and files out of a house on the left and starts to
dance and I had to drag the Kid away bodily. We duck through a side
street, and every time we turn around some guy with a camera yells for
us to get out of the way, but finally we wind up at Mr. Genaro's
office. He ain't in, but a guy that was tells us Genaro's makin' a
picture of Richard the Third, over behind the Street Scene in Tokio.
We breezed over there and we found him.
Genaro is in the middle of what looks like the chorus of a burlesque
show, only the men is wearin' tights instead of the women. I picked
him out right away because he was the first guy I had seen in the place
in citizen's clothes, outside of the guys with the kodaks. He was
little and fat, lookin' more like a human plum puddin' than anything
else. When we had worked our way through the mob, we saw that he was
shakin' his fist at 'em and bawlin' 'em out.
"Are you Mr. Genaro?" I asks him.
"Joosta wait, joosta wait!" he hollers over his shoulder without even
lookin' around. "I'm a ver' busy joosta now! Writa me the letta!"
"Where d'ye get that stuff?" I yells back, gettin' sore. "D'ye know
who we are?"
I seen the rest of them gigglin', and Genaro dances around and throws
up his hands.
"Aha!" he screams, pullin' at his hair. "You maka me crazy! What's a
mat--what you want? Queek, don't make me wait!"
The Kid growls at him and whispers in my ear,
"Will I bounce him?"
"Not yet!" I tells him. "I'm Mr. Green," I says to Genaro, "and this
is Kid Scanlan, welterweight champion of the world, and if you pull any
more of that joosta wait stuff, you'll be able to say you fought him!"
He drops his hands and smiles.
"Excuse, please!" he says. "I maka mistake!" he grabs hold of his head
again and groans, "Gotta bunch bonehead here this morning," he goes on,
noddin' to 'em. "Driva me crazy! Shakespeare he see these feller play
Reechard, he joomp out of he'sa grave!" He swings around at them all
of a sudden and makes a face at 'em, "Broadaway star, eh?" he snarls.
"Bah! You maka me seek! Go away for one, two hour. I senda for
you--you all what you calla the bunk!"
On the level I thought he was gonna bite 'em!
The merry villagers scatter, and Genaro turns around to us and wipes
his face with a red silk handkerchief.
"You knowa the piece?" he asks us. "Reechard the Third, Shakespeare?"
"Not quite!" I says. "What is he--a local scrapper?"
The Kid butts in and shoves me away.
"Don't mind this guy," he says to Genaro. "He's nothin' but a igrant
roughneck! _I_ got you right away. I remember in this Richard the
Third thing--they's a big battle in the last act and Dick tells a
gunman by the name of MacDuff to lay off him or he'll knock him for a
goal!"
"Not lay off!" says Genaro, smiling "Lay on! Lay on, MacDuff!"
"Yeh?" inquires the Kid. "I thought it was lay off. I only seen the
frolic once. I took off a member of Dick's gang at the Grand Oprey
house, when I was broke in Trenton."
"Nex' week we start _your_ picture," says Genaro to the Kid. "Mr. Van
Aylstyne he'sa write scenario now. This gonna be great for
you--magnificent! He'sa give you everything! Firsta reel you fall off
a cliff!"
"Who, me?" hollers the Kid,
"Si!" smiles Genaro. "Bada man wanna feex you, so you no fighta the
champ! You getta the beeg idea?"
"What's next?" asks the Kid, frownin'.
"Ah!" pipes Genaro, rollin' his eyes at the sky. "We giva you the
whole picture! Second reel you get run over by train--fasta mail! You
see? So you no fighta the champ!"
The Kid looks at me and grabs my arm.
"This guy's a maniac!" he hollers. "Did you get that railroad thing?
He--"
Genaro goes right on like he don't hear him.
"Thirda reel!" he says. "Thirda reel you get hit by two automobiles,
this bada feller try to feex you so you no fighta the champ!"
"Wait!" I butts in. "You must--"
"But fiftha reel--aaah!" Genaro don't pay no attention to me, but
kisses his hand at a tree. "Fiftha reel," he says, "she'sa great! Get
everybody excite! You get throw from sheep in ocean, fella shoot at
you when you try sweem, bada fella come along in motorboat, he'sa run
you down! Then you swim five, six, seven mile to land and there dozen
feller beat you with club--so you no fighta the champ!"
The Kid has sunk down on a chair and he's fannin' himself. His face
was the color of skim milk.
"What you think?" asks Genaro. "She's a maka fine picture, what?"
"Great!" I says. "If that guy that wants to fix the Kid so he no
fighta the champ loses out, they can't say he wasn't tryin' anyhow!
Why don't you throw in another reel, showin' the lions devourin' the
Kid--so he no fighta the champ?"
"That's a good!" Genaro shakes his head. "I spika to Van Aylstyne!"
He took us up to his office and when we get inside the door they's a
dame sittin' there which would make Venus look like a small-town
soubrette. She looked like these other movie queens would like to!
Whilst we're givin' her the up and down, she smiles at the Kid and he
immediately drops his hat on the floor and knocks over a inkwell.
"Miss Vincent," says Genaro, "this Mr. Kid Scanlan. He'sa work with
you nex' week. This Mr. Green, hisa fr'en'."
We shake hands all around and the Kid elbows me to one side.
"Where are you goin' this afternoon?" he asks the dame. "Anywheres?"
Genaro raps on the desk.
"Joosta one minoote!" he calls out. "Mr. Kid Scanlan, I would like--"
"Joosta wait!" pipes the Kid. "Writa me the letta! I'm ver' busy
joosta now!" He puts one hand on the mantelpiece and drapes himself in
front of the dame. "And you haven't been here long, eh?" he says.
Genaro frowns for a minute and then he grins and winks at me.
"Miss Vincent!" he butts in. "You show Mr. Kid Scanlan all around this
afternoon, what? Explain him everything about nex' week we maka his
picture. What you think, no?"
"Yes!" pipes the Kid grabbin' his hat. "I never been nowheres. Lets
go!"
The dame smiles some more, and, well, Scanlan must have been born with
a horseshoe in each hand because she takes his arm and they blow.
Just as they were goin' out the door, in comes Gloomy Gus which brought
us up from the station. He looks at the Kid and this dame goin' out
and he sneers after 'em.
"Champion!" he mutters, curlin' his lip. "Huh!"
The next mornin' we meet this guy Van Aylstyne who doped out the stuff
so the Kid "no fighta the champ!" He's a tall, slim, gentle-lookin'
bird, all dressed in white like a Queen of the May or somethin' and
after hearin' him talk I figured my first guess was about right. We
also got to know Edmund De Vronde, one of the leadin' men and the shop
girls' delight, and him and Van Aylstyne were both members of the same
lodge. Whilst we're standin' there talkin' to Genaro, who I found out
was the headkeeper or somethin', along comes Miss Vincent in one of
them trick autos that has a seat for two thin people and a gasoline
tank. Only, you don't sit in 'em, you just stoop, with your knees
jammed up against your chin. She drives this thing right up and stops
where we're standin'. If she ever looked any better, she'd have fell
for herself!
"I'm going to Long Beach," she sings out, "and I'm going to hit nothing
but the tops of the trees! Come along?"
De Vronde, Van Aylstyne and the Kid left their marks at the same time,
but you know, my boy was welterweight champ and when that auto buzzed
away from there he went with it.
"Ugh!" remarks De Vronde. "I loathe those creatures!" He dusts off
his sleeve where the Kid had grabbed it to toss him to one side. "The
fellow struck me!" he says indignantly.
Van Aylstyne picks up his hat which had fell off in the struggle.
"Thank Heavens," he tells the other guy, "we will soon be rid of him!
I'll have the script ready for Genaro to-morrow! I never saw such a
vicious assault!"
They walked away, and I turns to Genaro who had stepped aside for a
minute.
"Say!" I asks him. "Is this De Vronde guy worth anything to you?"
"_Sapristi_!" he tells me, makin' a face. "I could keel him! He'sa
wan greata big what you call bunk! He'sa no good! He can't act, he
can do nothing. Joosta got nice face--that's all!"
"Well," I says, "he won't have no nice face, if he don't lay off the
Kid! If Scanlan hears him make any cracks about him like he just did
now--well, he'll practically ruin him, that's all!"
After a while the Kid and Miss Vincent comes back and she hurries away
to change her clothes because she's got to work in this Richard the
Third thing. The Kid is all covered with dirt and mud and his face is
all cut up from the flyin' pebbles and sand.
"Say!" he says to me. "That's some dame, believe me! We passed
everything on the road from here to Long Beach and on the way back we
beat the Sante Fe in by a city block! Come on over and see her work;
she's gonna act in that Richard the Third thing!"
We breezed over past the African Desert and there's the troupe all
gathered around a guy in his shirt sleeves, who's readin' 'em somethin'
out of a book. One of the camera guys tells me it's Mr. Duke, Genaro's
assistant.
"A fine piece of Camembert he is, too!" says this guy. "He put me over
on this side to get the battle scene from an angle and tells me to
shoot the minute the melee starts in case I don't get his signal. One
of them dames fainted from the heat a minute ago and the rest of 'em go
rushin' around yellin' like a lot of nuts. Naturally I thought the
thing went in the picture and I took forty feet of it before he called
me off! He's gonna report me now and I'm liable to get the gate when
Genaro shows up! I'll _get_ the big stew, though,--watch me!"
At this stage of the game, this Mr. Duke waves for us to come over.
"Where's Mr. Genaro?" he wants to know.
"Search me!" I tells him. "I just left him an hour or so ago and--"
He hurls down the book and dances around like he's gonna throw a fit or
somethin'.
"I been all over the place," he yells, "and I can't find him! I want
to get this exterior while the sun is right and there's no Richard or
no Genaro!"
The Kid, who has been talkin' to Miss Vincent, comes over then and says,
"What's all the excitement?"
"Who are you?" asks Duke.
"We're from New York," I butts in, "and--"
"Well, sufferin' cats!" hollers Duke. "Why didn't you say so before?
One of you is the man I'm holdin' this picture for!"
"Why, Genaro says," I begins, "that next week is--"
"Never mind Genaro!" shrieks Duke. "He ain't here now and I'm
directing this picture! See that sun commencing to get dim? Which one
of you was sent on by Mr. Potts?"
"This guy here!" I tells him, pointin' to the Kid. "I'm his manager."
"Carries a manager, does he?" snorts Duke. "Well, run him in the
dressin' room there and get a costume on him. Hurry up, will you--look
at that sun!"
We beat it on the run for the place he pointed out, and as we started
away I seen him throw out his chest and say to one of the dames,
"_That's_ the way those stars should be handled all the time! Fussing
over them is a mistake; you must show them at once that no such thing
as temperament will be tolerated! Broadway star, eh? Well, you saw
how _I_ handled him!"
I didn't quite make that stuff, but I felt that somethin' was wrong
somewheres. Genaro had told me the Kid's picture wasn't to be made for
a week, but we were gettin' thirty thousand for this stunt so I says to
the Kid,
"Get in there and shed them clothes of yours and I'll beat it over to
the hotel and get your ring togs! They're gettin' ready to fix you so
you no fighta the champ!"
I beat it back to the trick hotel and got the suitcase with the Kid's
gloves, shoes and trunks in it and it didn't take me five minutes to
get back, but that Duke guy is on my neck the minute he sees me.
"Will you hurry up?" he hollers, pullin' a watch on me. "Look at that
sun!"
"He'll be out in a minute now!" I says. "I got a guy in there helpin'
him dress."
"He knows this stuff all right, doesn't he?" he asks me. "I understand
he's been doing nothing but the one line for years."
"Knows it?" I laughs. "He's the world's champion; that's good enough,
ain't it?"
"That's what they all say!" he sneers. "All I hope is that he ain't no
cheap ham! Look at that sun gettin' away from me!"
While I'm tryin' to dope out what all these birds in tights and with
feathers in their hats has got to do with "How Kid Scanlan Won the
Title," Duke grabs my arm.
"Drag that fellow out of the dressin' room," he says, "and tell him he
enters from the second entrance where those trees are. He goes right
through the Tower scene--he knows it by heart, I guess. I'll be right
up on that platform there directing and that's where he wants to
face--not the camera!"
Well, I went into the dressin' room and the Kid is ready. He's got on
a pair of eight ounce gloves, red silk trunks and ring shoes.
"What do I pull now?" he asks me.
"Just walk right out from between them trees," I says, "and they'll tip
you off to the rest."
We sneaked around the scene from the back and stood behind the tree
which Duke had pointed out. A stage hand or somethin' who seemed to be
sufferin' from hysterics told us not to let Duke see us till we entered
the scene, because it was considered bad luck to walk before the camera
first.
"Clear!" we hear Duke yellin', and then he blows a whistle. "Hey, move
faster there, you extra people, a little ginger! Billy, face center,
can't you! Now, Miss Vincent, register fear--that's it, great! All
right, Richard!"
"That's you!" pipes the stage hand, and on walks the Kid. He stands in
the middle of the scene like he done many a time in the newspaper
offices back home and strikes a fightin' pose.
A couple of women shrieks and runs back of the trees hidin' their faces
and Miss Vincent falls in a chair and laughs herself sick. To say the
Kid created a sensation would be puttin' it mild--he was a riot! The
rest of the bunch howls out loud, holdin' their sides and staggerin' up
against each other, and the stage hands rolled around the floor. But
the guy that was runnin' the thing, this Duke person, almost faints,
and then he gets red in the face and jumps down off the platform.
"What do you mean?" he screams at the Kid. "What do you mean by coming
out before these ladies and gentlemen in that garb? How dare you? Is
that your interpretation of Richard the Third? Have you been drinking
or what?"
"What's the matter, pal?" asks the Kid, lookin' surprised. "I got to
wear _somethin'_, don't I?"
Off goes the bunch howlin' again.
"If this is a joke, sir," yells Duke, "it will be a mighty costly one
for you!"
This De Vronde has been standin' on the side lookin' on and the Kid,
seein' Miss Vincent, waves a glove at her. She waves back holdin' her
side and smiles.
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" roars this De Vronde guy. "How droll!"
The Kid is over to him in two steps. He's seen that everybody is
givin' him the laugh and he realizes he's in wrong somehow, but the
thing has him puzzled.
"Where d'ye get that 'haw, haw' stuff?" he snarls, stickin' his chin
out in front of De Vronde.
"Why, you ignorant ass!" sneers De Vronde, out loud, so's Miss Vincent
can hear him. "If you had any brains you'd know!"
"I don't need no brains!" snaps the Kid, settin' himself. "I got
_this_!"
And he drops De Vronde with a right hook to the jaw!
"Boys!" screams Duke, pointin' to the Kid. "Throw that ruffian out!"
A couple of big huskies makes a dash for the Kid, and I figured I might
as well get in the thing now as later, so I tripped one as he was goin'
past and the Kid bounces the other with a short left. De Vronde jumps
up and hits the Kid over the head with a cane, while Miss Vincent
screams and hollers "Coward!" Then a bunch of supers comes runnin' in
from the back just as the Kid puts De Vronde down for keeps, and in a
minute everybody was in there tryin'.
Everybody but one guy, and he was turnin' the crank of his camera like
he was gettin' paid by the number of revolutions the thing made.
While it lasted, it was some fracas, as we say at the studio. It
certainly was a scream to see them guys, all dressed up to play the
life out of Richard the Third, fallin' all over each other to get out
of the way of the Kid's arms and bein' held back by the jam behind 'em.
After the Kid has beat most of them up and I have took care of a few
myself, a whistle blows and they all fall back--and in rushes Genaro.
"Sapristi!" he hollers. "What you mean eh? What you people do with my
Reechard?"
Duke tries to see him out of his one good eye.
"This scoundrel," he pipes, pointin' to the Kid, "came out here to play
Richard the Third costumed like that!"
Genaro looks from me to the Kid and grabs his head.
"What?" he yells. "That feller want to play Reechard? Ho, ho! You
maka me laugh! You're crazy lika the heat! That's what you call
fighting champion of the world! He'sa Mr. Kid Scanlan. We maka hisa
picture nex' week!"
Duke gives a yell and falls in a chair.
I pulls on my coat and wipes my face with a handkerchief.
"Yes," I says, "and they just tried to fix him so he no fighta the
champ!"
"Zowie!" pipes Duke, sprawled out in the chair, "I thought he was
Roberts, the man we wired to come on from Boston! What in the name of
Charlie Chaplin will we do now? Potts will be here to-morrow to see
this picture and you know what it means, if it isn't made!"
The Kid is over talkin' to Miss Vincent and Genaro calls him over.
"_Viola_!" he tells him. "You see what you do? You spoil the greata
picture, the actor, the everything! To-morrow Mr. Potts he'sa come
here. 'Where's a Reechard the Third, Genaro?' he'sa wanna know. I
tella him--then, good-by everybody!"
"Everything would have been O.K.," says the Kid, pointin' to De Vronde
who's got a couple of dames workin' over him with smellin' salts.
"Everything would have been O.K. at that, if Stupid over there hadn't
gimme the haw, haw!"
We go back to the dressing-room and the Kid gets on his clothes. That
night, findin' that we was as welcome in Film City as smallpox, we went
over to Frisco and saw the town.
When we come back the next mornin' and breeze in the gates, the first
thing we see is Gloomy Gus that drove us up from the station.
"Say!" he sings out. "You fellers are gonna get it good! The boss is
here."
"Yeh?" says the Kid. "Where's Miss Vincent?"
"Talkin' to the boss!" he answers. "I don't believe you're no fighter,
either!"
"Where was you yesterday?" I asks him.
"Mind yer own business!" he snaps. He gives the Kid the up and down.
"Champion of the world!" he sneers. "Huh!"
"Go 'way!" the Kid warns him. "I got enough work yesterday!"
"I think you're a big bluff!" persists the gloomy guy, puttin' up his
hands and circlin' around the Kid. "Come on and fight or acknowledge
yore master!"
He makes a pass at the Kid and the Kid steps inside of it and drops
him, just as a big auto comes roarin' past and stops. Out hops friend
Potts, the guy that practically give us our start in the movies. In
other words, the thirty thousand dollar kid!
"Well, well!" he pipes, lookin' at the gloomy guy on the turf and then
at us. "What does this mean, sir? Are you trying to annihilate all my
employees? Do you know you cost me a small fortune yesterday by
ruining that Richard the Third picture?"
"I'm sorry, boss," the Kid tells him, proddin' Gloomy Gus carelessly
with his foot, "but all your hired men jumped at me at once and a guy
has to protect himself, don't he?"
"Nonsense!" grunts Potts. "You assaulted Mr. De Vronde and temporarily
disabled several of my best people! I had made all arrangements for
the release of that Shakespeare picture in two days, and you have put
me in a terrible hole!"
"Now, listen," I butts in, "I tried to--"
"Not a word!" he cuts me off, wavin' his hands. "One of the camera
men, another infernal idiot, kept turning the crank while this
disgraceful brawl was at its height and I have proof of your villainy
on film! I'll use it as a basis to sever my contract with you and--"
"Slow up!" I says. "If you lay down on the thirty thousand iron men,
I'll pull a suit on you!"
Along comes a guy and touches Potts on the arm.
"They're waiting for you in the projecting room," he says.
"Come with me--both of you!" barks Potts, "and see for yourself the
damage you caused!"
We followed him around to a little dark room with three or four chairs
in it and a sheet on one wall. De Vronde, Miss Vincent, Duke and
Genaro are there waitin' for us.
Well, they start to show the picture, and everything is all right up to
the time the Kid busted into the drama. Now I hadn't seen nothin' out
of the way at the time it actually happened, but here in this little
room it was a riot when they showed it on the sheet. You could see
Scanlan wallop De Vronde and then in another second the massacre is on
full blast!
On the level, it was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time. A guy
with lockjaw would have to laugh at it. Here was the Kid knockin' 'em
cold as fast as they come on, with their little trick hats and the pink
silk tights. There was a pile of Shakespeare actors a foot deep all
around him as far as you could see. Potts is laughin' louder than
anybody in the place, and when they finally shut the thing off he slaps
the Kid on the back.
"Great!" he hollers. "Wonderful! Who directed that?"
"_I_ did!" pipes Duke, throwin' out his chest. "Some picture, eh?"
"Joosta one minoote!" says Genaro, wakin' up, "joosta one minoote! It
was under my supervision, Mr. Potts! I feexa the--"
"Cut that strip of film off!" Potts interrupts, "and take four more
reels based on the same idea! Get somebody to write a scenario around
a fighter busting into the drama and playing Shakespeare! It's never
been done, and if the rest of it is as funny as that it will be a
knockout!"
"But Reechard!" says Genaro. "What of heem?"
"Drop it!" snaps Potts. "Everybody get to work on this and I'll stay
here till it's finished!"
I looked around and pipe the Kid--over talkin' to Miss Vincent, of
course.
"Say!" he wants to know. "Do we go to Oakland in that rabbit-chaser of
yours this afternoon, Miss Vincent?"
"Sir!" butts in De Vronde. "This lady and I are conversing!"
"Now listen, Cutey!" smiles the Kid. "You know what happened
yesterday, don't you?"
De Vronde turns pale and Miss Vincent giggles.
"Of course we're going to Oakland!" she laughs. "I'm going to be your
leading woman next week in 'How Kid Scanlan Won the Title.'"
"Suits me!" says the Kid. "But say, on the level now--I'm there
forty-seven ways on that Shakespeare thing, ain't I?"