LEND ME YOUR EARS
I don't mind a four-flusher if his stuff is good, know what I mean? A
guy that makes the world think he's there forty ways when as a matter
of fact, he's _shy_ about sixty, deserves credit. Usually, them birds
get it too! They know more about credit than the guy that wrote it,
and any butcher, grocer, tailor or the like who figures on 'em settlin'
the old account has no right to be in business. The only time a
four-flusher pays off is when he hits a new town. Then, if the
attendance is good, he'll buy four or five evenin' papers right out
loud in front of everybody, carelessly displayin' a couple of yellow
bills that might be fifties--if they wasn't tens. After that outburst,
all he spends is the week end.
For the benefit of them which live in towns where the total vote for
President sounds like the score of a world series game, I'll explain
what a four-flusher is, although they probably got one in their midst,
at that. You'll generally find _one_ wherever there's two people--men
or women. A four-flusher is a guy who claims he can lick Jack Dempsey
in a loud and annoyin' voice, and then runs seven blocks in five
minutes flat when some hick in the back room arises to remark that he's
willin' to take a beatin' for Jack. A four-flusher is the bird that
breezes down Main street in a set of scenery that would make John Drew
look like one of the boys in the gas main trenches somewheres in
Broadway, and yet couldn't purchase an eraser, if rubber was sellin' at
three cents a ton. A four-flusher is a hick that admits bein' a better
singer than Caruso, a better ball-player than Ty Cobb, a better real
estate judge than Columbus and more of a chance taker than Napoleon.
The first time he starts at any one of them things, he's a odds-on
favorite for last and finishes ten lengths behind the rest of the
field. That's a four-flusher.
A guy can be taught paintin', pinochle, politics and prohibition, but a
first-class four-flusher is _born_ that way!
Takin' 'em as a league, I'm about as fond of them guys as a worm is of
a fisherman. The only one I ever fell for was J. Harold Cuthbert, and
that bird had somethin' that the others didn't--he was different! I
thought I had seen 'em all, but this guy crossed me, his stuff was new!
The way I met Harold was almost romantic. He was reclinin' on the
ground in a careless manner about ten feet away from the main entrance
to Film City, and he looked like the loser in a battle royal where the
weapons used had been picked out by a guy who hoped there'd be no
survivors. He was gazin' up at what the natives insist is a better
grade of sky than anything we got in the East, and he looked like he
was tryin' to figure whether they was right or not. About two feet
away, lumberman's measure, observin' the wreck and yawning was Francis
Xavier Scanlan, known to the trade as Kid Scanlan, welterweight
champion of the world and Shantung. I looked around for a director and
a camera man, but they was nobody else in sight, so figurin' this
couldn't be nothin' more than a dress rehearsal, I stepped over to the
Kid.
"Who's your friend?" I asks him, noddin' to the sleepin' beauty.
"I seen Genaro lookin' for you," says the Kid. "I'll bet you been over
to Frisco tryin' to nail that dame at the Busy Bee, ain't you?"
"A gambler will never get nowheres," I tells him, "but you're startin'
off with a win on that bet!" I points at the model for still life
again. "When does that guy get up?" I inquires.
The Kid looks down at him for a minute, proddin' him carelessly with
his foot.
"Weather permittin'," he answers, "he ought to be on his feet in five
more minutes, and I'd never have raised a finger to him, if he hadn't
come at me first!"
"D'ye mean to say you been wallopin' that guy?" I says.
"Well, what does it look like?" sneers the Kid. "A man's got a right
to protect himself, ain't he?"
"He hit you, eh?" I says.
"No!" answers the Kid. "He didn't get that far with it, but he claimed
he was goin' to, and naturally it was up to me to stop him from gettin'
in a brawl. I never seen a gamer guy in my life, either," he goes on,
admirin'ly. "He knows he'll catch cold layin' on the ground like that,
and yet the minute I stung him he takes a dive and stays down!"
By this time our hero has risen to his feet and, while dustin' off his
clothes, he looks like he's figurin' whether he ought to claim he'd
been doped and ask for a return bout, or call it a day and let it go at
that. Except for where the Kid had jabbed him, he wasn't a bad lookin'
bird, his best bets bein' a crop of dark, wavy hair and a set of
features which any movie leadin' man could give ten thousand bucks for
and make it up on the first picture. The suit of clothes he was
wearin' had probably put the tailor over, and he also had two yellow
gloves and a little trick cane. He walks over to where me and the Kid
was standin' and takes off his hat. It was one of them dashin',
devilish soft things that has names like Pullman cars--you know, "The
Bryn Mawr, $2.50. All Harvard Wears One." Then he points at the Kid
with his cane.
"I made a serious error," he remarks, "in engaging in a brawl with a
thug! I thought you would meet me with a gentleman's weapons and--"
"I ain't got a marshmallow on me," butts in the Kid, grinnin', "or I
would have done that thing. You come at me without no warnin', didn't
you?"
"Merciful Heaven, what grammar!" says the other guy. "I didn't come at
you, as you say in that quaint English of yours, I thought you could
take a joke or--"
"Yeh?" interrupts the Kid. "That's what the formerly Kaiser has been
tryin' to tell the world, but it ain't goin' into hysterics over his
comedy!"
"Well," says the other guy, buttonin' up his coat and glarin' at us
both, "this is not the end of the incident, you can rest assured of
that! The next time we meet I think the result will be different!"
"Say!" pipes the Kid. "What d'ye think I'm gonna do--fight a world
series with you? If you wanna scrap, I know where you can get all the
action you can handle."
"And where is that, pray?" asks the other guy.
"Russia!" says the Kid. "You must have seen it in the papers." He
pats him on the shoulder. "And now, good-by and good luck," he goes
on. "I'm sorry I had to bounce you, but--"
"Enough of this nonsense!" cuts in the other guy, pullin' out a card
and passin' it over to the Kid. "My seconds will wait upon you
to-morrow. I choose rapiers!"
"You which?" says the Kid, examinin' the card. "I don't make you."
"I said that my choice of weapons is rapiers!" explains this guy. "And
as a matter of fairness I must tell you that I have never met my equal
with a sword!"
"Are you tryin' to kid me?" asks Scanlan. "What d'ye mean rapiers?"
"Is it possible you have never handled a blade?" exclaims the other
guy, like he couldn't have heard it right.
"I used to, at that," admits the Kid, "but now I use a fork, except to
pat down the potatoes!"
"So much the worse for you, then!" frowns the sword-swallower. "But
you brought it upon yourself. Remember, to-morrow! And--" he stoops
over and hisses, "--rapiers, without buttons!"
"Ha, ha!" yells the Kid. "Raypeers without buttons! How are you gonna
hold 'em up?"
"Your ignorance is pathetic--not funny!" answers the other guy.
"I know," says the Kid. "I barely got through Yale!" He lays his arm
on this guy's shoulder. "Are you on the level with this fight thing?"
he asks him.
"I was never more in earnest in my life!" says the knife-thrower.
"Or nearer Heaven!" grins the Kid. "All right!" he goes on. "I'm
game, if you are, only there's just one question I'd like to ask before
the slaughter begins; don't _I_ get no say about the tools we're gonna
use?"
This guy thinks for a minute and then nods his head.
"Very well!" he says. "I'll make the concession--an unheard-of thing
in the code. What is your choice?"
"Pinochle!" yells the Kid. "I'll stake you to a hundred aces and beat
you from here to Denver!"
"Ugh!" snorts the other guy--and castin' a sneer at both of us, he
passes in the gate.
We went in after him, and the Kid tells me how he come to flatten this
baby, which, from the card he give us, was J. Harold Cuthbert. The Kid
says Harold stopped him outside the portals of Film City and asked him
why no auto had met him at the train. Scanlan says he didn't know, but
he had seen the mayor and two brass bands goin' down and hadn't Harold
met 'em? Harold says he had not and he was gonna file a complaint
about it, because he was the greatest movie actor that ever bawled out
a director. With that, says the Kid, he reeled off the names of the
pictures he had been featured in, and from the list he give out the
only thing he wasn't featured in was "Microbes at Play," a educational
film tore off by the company last year. The Kid asks him if he ever
heard of Kid Scanlan, the shop girls' delight, who was bein' starred in
a five-reeler called "Lay Off, MacDuff." Harold throwed out his chest
and says he wrote it and practically made Scanlan by directin' it. At
that the Kid tells him that he may be a movie star, but he looks like a
liar to him. Harold makes a pass at him, and Scanlan hit him to see
would he bounce. He didn't, and he was just comin' around when I
blowed on the scene.
When we got to Genaro's office, Harold was tellin' Eddie Duke the
reason he was bunged up was because he had fell off the train comin'
out, and Eddie says that was tough and it was time Congress got after
them railroads, but the thing he'd like to know was why Harold had come
out at all. They had looked up the files and there was nothin' to show
who had ordered this guy shipped on.
Harold looks over the bunch in the office for a minute, registers
"I-am-thinking-deeply," and then snaps his fingers.
"Oh!" he says. "I had a letter of introduction from Mr. Potts, but I
suppose it's in my gray morning suit which will arrive with my trunks
in a day or so. Mr. Potts and myself are old friends," he winks at
Genaro confidentially. "I really think my father owns a slew of the
company's stock, but then Dad is connected with so many vast
enterprises that--"
"Joosta wan minoote!" interrupts Genaro, turnin' a cold eye on Harold.
"Joosta wan minoote! We're very busy joosta now, sometime nex' week
everybody she'sa listen about your father. What we wanna know is what
Meester Potts he'sa senda you out here to do?"
"Yeh!" says Duke. "That's the idea--what's your act?"
"Why, I intend to play romantic leads," pipes Harold, "and I have an
idea that--"
"Ha, ha!" laughs the Kid. "That's fair enough. All Edison had was a
idea, and look at him now!"
Harold frowns at him and walks over to Miss Vincent.
"How do you do, Miss Vincent," he says, takin' off his hat and
presentin' her with a bow. "I knew you at once from your photographs.
I have a remarkable memory, inherited from my father. The late J. P.
Morgan once said of him, during the course of a gigantic stock deal,
that--but enough of personalities. I saw you in the 'Escapades of
Eva.'"
"Did you like me?" smiles Miss Vincent.
"Very much!" Harold tells her. "Although the mediocre support and
execrable direction spoiled most of your opportunities. Now if _I_ had
directed that picture, you would have been a great deal--"
"Joosta wan minoote!" butts in Genaro, gettin' red in the face. "I,
Genaro, directed that picture!"
Harold looks over at him and lights a cigarette.
"Well," he says, flickin' the ash in Genaro's drinkin' glass, "I
daresay you did your best! But had _I_ been there when the picture was
being produced, I would have suggested a great many things that would
have greatly improved it. I remember calling Belasco's attention to a
detail one time and Dave said to me--"
"Enough!" snaps Genaro, glarin' at him. "You will report to Meester
Duke. He'sa tella you what to do. Or maybe," he snorts, "maybe _you_
tella heem!"
And he stamps out of the office.
"What a quaint little man!" says Harold, sittin' down in Genaro's chair
and glancin' with interest over some letters that was on his desk.
"How do those chaps ever get into the movies?"
"Ow!" whispers Duke. "If the quaint little man had only heard that!"
He turns, to Harold. "I don't know where I can place you right away,"
he says. "How are you on Shakespeare? We're putting on a seven reeler
of 'As You Like It' with Betty Vincent as Rosalind. Do you think you
could do Orlando?"
Harold throws out his chest and sneers.
"What a question!" he remarks. "I could eat it up!"
"I don't want you to eat it," says Duke, gettin' sore. "If you can
play it, I'll be satisfied! You had better go over and register at the
hotel now, and, when you come back, we'll go over the thing."
Harold gets up, yawns and looks at Miss Vincent.
"I'll show you an entirely new interpretation of Rosalind, Miss
Vincent," he tells her. "Of course, Shakespeare was clever after a
fashion, but _I_--however," he breaks off and holds out his arm.
"Would you care to walk about the grounds here a bit, so that I may
illustrate some of the salient points in my version?"
"No!" cuts in the Kid, before she can answer. "On your way!" he says.
"Miss Vincent's got a date with me to find out is it true you can make
ninety miles an hour in a 1921 Automatic!"
"But--but, my dear sir--" splutters Harold. "I--you--"
"Listen, Stupid," says the Kid. "I can't be bouncin' you all day, but
if you don't canter along, I'll make you hard to catch!"
Miss Vincent smiles and grabs the Kid by the arm.
"Let us have no violence!" she says. "You can tell me all about
Rosalind when I return, Mr. Cuthbert."
"Yeh," adds the Kid. "I'll be willin' to stand for a earful of it
myself, then."
And they breeze out of the office.
"Heavens, what an uncouth ruffian!" pipes Harold, lookin' after 'em.
"I wonder Miss Vincent trusts herself in his company."
"She's a whole lot safer with him than you'd be, old top!" I says.
"And if I was you, I'd lay off that uncouth ruffian stuff around the
Kid. Don't keep temptin' him, because he's liable to get sore, and
when Scanlan gets mad you want to be in the next county!"
"Huh!" sneers Harold. "What does he do, pray?"
"Well," I says, "I'll tell you. I don't get that dewpray thing of
yours, but the last time the Kid got peeved he won the welterweight
title! Is that good enough?"
"He had better look to his laurels," remarks Harold, "for if he insults
me again, he'll lose them! I'm rather a master of boxing, and at home
I won several medals as an amateur heavy--"
"I suppose," I butts in, "I suppose you left them medals in one of them
gray mornin' suits of yours, eh? You didn't have 'em on when the Kid
flattened you, did you?"
"I am not fond of vulgar display," he says, "or--"
"What are you wearin' that black eye for then?" I asks him.
He didn't have none ready for that, and I blew.
Well, Harold run true to form.
The next afternoon I seen Duke standin' near the African Desert. He
was callin' upon Heaven in a voice that could be heard plainly in Cape
May, N. J., to ask it if it had ever seen a actor like J. Harold
Cuthbert. Not gettin' no answer, he turned his attention to the other
place, and when he seen me he put it up to me.
"What's the matter with Harold?" I asks him. "I thought he was gonna
be a knockout in this Shakespeare stuff."
"He was!" says Duke. "The camera men are laughin' yet! Alongside of
that big four-flusher, Kid Scanlan would look like Richard Mansfield!"
"He's rotten, eh?" I says.
"Rotten?" yells Duke. "Why, say--callin' him _rotten_ is givin' him a
_boost_! If that big stiff is an actor, I'm mayor of Shantung! He
don't know if grease paint is to put on your face or to seal letters
with, he's got the same faculty of expression on that soft putty map of
his as an ox has, he makes love like a wax dummy and he come out to
play 'As You Like It' in a dress suit! It took eight supers to keep
him away from in front of the camera, and he played one scene with his
face glued up against the lens!"
Just then Harold himself eases into view with the Kid taggin' along at
his side. Scanlan is excited about somethin' and wavin' his arms, but
Harold still has that old sneer on his face, and as they come up, I
hear him sayin' this,
"My dear fellow, I know more about auction pinochle than Hoyle. At
home I am recognized as the champion card player of--" He breaks off,
when he sees us, and turns to Duke. "Hello!" he calls over. "Are you
ready to admit now that my idea of making feature productions is the
right one?"
"No!" snarls Duke. "But I'll concede that as an actor you're a
crackerjack bartender! D'ye mean to tell me that you got away with
that kind of stuff in the studios back East?"
"I introduced it!" says Harold, proudly. "As a director for some of
the largest film companies in the world, I have put on hundreds of--"
"The only thing you ever put on was your hat!" interrupts Duke. "And I
bet that give you trouble on account of the size of your head. I
suppose you're gonna tell me that you're also a scenario writer, a
camera man and the guy that got Nero's permission to film the burnin'
of Rome, eh?"
"The last is something of an exaggeration," pipes Harold, "but as far
as the other things you mentioned are concerned, I must confess that
there are few people in the business who have approached me!"
"Ain't that rich?" whispers the Kid to me. "You got to hand it to this
bird!"
"You'd be a wonder as a press agent!" I says to Harold.
"Now that's odd you should remark that," he smiles. "For, as a matter
of fact, I excel in _that_ field! I did all the press work for--"
"Columbus!" yells Duke, wavin' him off. "Good-by!" he goes on. "I got
enough! You got a liar lookin' like George Washington!"
Harold looks after Duke as he went into the office.
"Heavens!" he says. "I can't stand that man with his petty little
jealousies! Now when I--"
I don't know what the rest of it was, because me and the Kid left him
to tell it to the African Desert.
Well, Genaro bein' afraid to get in dutch with Potts, which accordin'
to Harold was a ex-roommate of his, give this guy a crack at everything
from directin' to supin', and Harold hit .000 at 'em all. The only
thing he seemed to be any good at was talkin' about himself, and he was
champion of the world at that! He was willin' to concede that
Wellington beat Napoleon and it was Fulton who doped out the steamboat,
but _he_ was the guy that had put over everything else. His favorite
word only had one letter in it, and that's the one that comes right
after H. No matter what subject would come up anywheres where Harold
could get a earful of it, he was the bird that invented it!
We went down to Montana Joe's one afternoon to deal prohibition a blow,
and the Kid gets talkin' about drinkin' as a art, carelessly lettin'
fall the information that, before he had put the Demon Rum down for the
count, he had been looked on as a champion at goin' through the rye.
He winks at Joe and orders a tumbler of private stock. Harold never
bats a eye, but says he's got a roomful of lovin' cups which was give
him for emptyin' bottles. Joe sets down a mixin' glass full of booze
before the Kid, and Scanlan looks at Harold and asks Joe what was the
matter with the shaker. Harold coughs and raps on the bar. "You may
let me have a seidel of gin!" he says, sneerin' at the Kid--and we all
fainted!
He got run out the south gate one afternoon by a enraged scene painter
for tellin' the latter that he could shut both eyes, bind one arm, lay
flat on his side and paint a better exterior than the two hundred
dollar a week decorator, and he started a riot in the developin' room
another time by remarkin' that the bunch in there didn't know how to
paste up film--adding of course, that _he_ did. He tried to show Van
Aylstyne how to write scenarios, and Van Aylstyne threatened to quit
cold if Harold wasn't called off, and when he found fault with Genaro's
lightin' of a night scene, Genaro chased him all over the place with a
practical shotgun.
It wouldn't have been so bad, if Harold had come through on
_somethin'_. If he had discovered _anything_, he could actually do
even half way decent, he would have got away with murder. But
no!--That bird was the original No Good Nathan, from Useless, Miss.
The fact that he didn't cause no sensation in our midst, worried Harold
about as much as the price of electric fans keeps 'em awake in Iceland.
There was only one thing Harold was afraid of--and that was lockjaw!
Then Potts blows in unexpected one afternoon, and we all stood around
to see him and Harold fall on each other's neck. In fact, pretty near
everybody in Film City watched the reunion which took place on the edge
of the Street Scene in Tokio--it was very affectin'.
Potts comes walkin' along with three supers and Eddie Duke carryin' his
suitcases, when Harold bumps into the parade at the corner. Genaro had
sent him over to Frisco for a lot of props that would be needed in a
picture he was puttin' on, and naturally, now that Potts was on hand,
he was anxious to have everything O.K. He had give Harold a list in
the mornin' that read like a inventory of a machine shop, and here's
friend Harold comin' back with nothin' in his hands but his fingers.
"The props--where are they?" shrieks Genaro. "Seven hour you have been
gone and you come back with nothing! Everything she'sa ready and we
musta wait till you come with the props--where are they--queek?"
"My dear fellow," says Harold, bowin' to Miss Vincent, "there is no
excuse for addressing me before these ladies and gentlemen in that
ruffianly manner. I was unable to carry out your--er--orders this
morning, having overlooked a trifling detail in the scurry and bustle
of catching that ungodly early train."
"What!" screams Genaro, doin' a few cabaret steps. "You got nothing?
_Sapristi_! What you do--make fun of me? Why you no get those props?"
"Calm yourself!" pipes Harold. "I'll tell all. I forgot the list of
articles you gave me and--"
"Aha--he'sa maka me crazee!" yelps Genaro, pullin' a swell clog step.
"Take heem away before I keel heem!"
Just then Potts comes by, and we all yell, "Welcome to Film City, Mr.
Potts!" Harold hears this and turns pale. He seen we was all watchin'
closely for the grand reunion between him and his old college chum
Potts. He coughs a couple of times and takes a step forward. That boy
was game!
"How do you do, Mr. Potts?" he says. "Did you--er--have a pleasant
trip?"
"Yes," answers Potts, lookin' at him kinda puzzled. "What is your name
again? I don't seem to recall it!"
And the boss was supposed to be Harold's dear old college chum!
"Why--er--why--ha! ha!" pipes Harold, dyin' game. "That's odd! Surely
you recall--eh--Cuthbert, my name is, you must remember--eh--why in New
York we--eh--"
He's about eighty feet up in the air and still soaring with the whole
bunch watchin' him and enjoyin' the thing out loud. Potts is lookin'
him over like he's a strange fish or somethin'.
"I think you're mistaken!" pipes the boss, cuttin' in on Harold, "I
never saw you before in my life!"
With that he passes on, leavin' Harold flat and with no more friends
than China had at the Peace Conference.
After that little incident, it was about as pleasant for Harold in Film
City as it was for a German in Liverpool durin' the war. Genaro, Duke
and everybody else went out of their way to make him sick of the
movies, but Harold stuck around and took whatever odd jobs that come
his way with the remark that he could do it better than anybody else
and that was why they give it to him.
I made a mistake when I said everybody rode him--he had three little
pals. They was Miss Vincent, the Kid and yours in the faith. Miss
Vincent claimed that after all he was only a boy which would grow out
of lyin', if give enough time, and it was a outrage the way everybody
picked on him. The Kid said we couldn't all be perfect, and Miss
Vincent would give him back his presents if he laid off Harold. _My_
excuse for not shootin' Harold was that I liked one thing about him,
and that was the way he hung on, no matter how they was breakin' for
him. He was no good all over, but he wouldn't _quit_ and any guy that
could stand up under punishment like he did is worth a cheer any
time--and sometimes a bet!
I thought I'd brighten his life by tellin' him how he stood with the
three of us. I pictured him goin' down on his knees and thankin' me
with tears in his eyes, when I said that we was with him to the bitter
end. He must have had rheumatism or a pair of charley horses, because
he failed to do any kneelin' where I could see it, and his eyes was as
dry as the middle of Maine. Instead of that, he took me for ten bucks
and said the news was no surprise to him. He didn't see how Miss
Vincent could miss likin' him, because he had been a assassin with the
women from birth. As for the Kid, well, it was common talk that
Scanlan was afraid of him, and I was nothin' but a sure-thing player
which knowed he was a winner and stuck, hopin' I'd cash.
Could you tie Harold?
Van Aylstyne, the guy that committed the scenarios, went out one night
to get some atmosphere for a thriller at Montana Joe's. He got the
atmosphere O.K., bringin' most of it back on his breath and the Kid
asked him to stick out his tongue so he could see was they any revenue
stamps on it. In the mornin' he grabbed a container of ice water and a
pen and dashed off a atrocity in five reels based on what atmosphere of
Montana Joe's that was still with him. He called the thing "The End of
the World!" Potts says the title alone sounded good enough to him to
remove the bumpers from his bankroll without lookin' further, addin',
in a loud aside, that if the plot wasn't a knockout, Van Aylstyne could
change the title to "The End of My Job!" De Vronde, the popular
heart-breaker, is given the lead opposite Miss Vincent, and, of course,
Kid Scanlan is to be dragged in as a special feature. Harold has
hypnotised Genaro into lettin' him take off a "enter with others" in
the first reel. Everything was ready to have the cameras pointed at
it, when somethin' come along that balled it all up.
Her name was Gladys O'Hara.
Gladys was no ravin' beauty and I heard her say "ain't it" twice, but
she was one of them dames that the first flash you get at 'em you
wonder are they still enforcin' the law against mashers! She had a
wonderful complexion and although if you looked close you could see she
had give nature a helpin' hand, she did the retouchin' so well that you
was glad she had. She had one of the latest model, twin-six figures
and she dressed with the idea of givin' the natives a treat, even if
she was takin' chances on pneumonia. Gladys was the kind of dame that
starts the arguments in the newspapers on what is our offices comin'
to, look how them stenographers dress!
When J. Harold Cuthbert met Gladys, she had got as far as bein' a
saleslady in the Busy Bee, Frisco. She could have beat that with her
eyes closed, but Gladys kept hers open and, bein' a female wise guy,
she knew who to eat lunch with and who to say, "I don't get you!"
to--which is a art! As a result, she had never got no further than
sellin' shirtwaists and had her first home to break up. She never
advanced beyond that counter--up or down! Many a necktie salesman had
flashed Gladys and gone right out to buy the tickets, before he even
asked her would she look over a show, windin' up by throwin' 'em away
and tellin' her what a sweet old woman his mother was and how strong he
was for his own gas meter. That was Gladys. She looked like what she
wasn't, and she fooled 'em all.
All but Harold!
I found Gladys very easy to look at myself, and I helped the Sante Fe
over a tough year by runnin' over to Frisco to the Busy Bee whenever I
could get away. It took me a short month to find out that I had the
same chance of winnin' out as I'd have of gettin' elected King of
Montenegro by acclamation, because Harold had been there first and got
in his deadly work.
I was standin' in the next aisle to where Gladys held forth, one
afternoon, waitin' for a couple of fatheads to call it a day and move
away from the counter, when along comes Harold. As usual, he was all
dressed up like a horse, with the even fare back to Film City in them
one-way pockets of his. He butts right into the conversation, and I
nearly fainted when he passes a box of candy over to Gladys. Then I
seen the label on the package, and I revived, because it was one of a
dozen that some simp had sent Miss Vincent and in order to please the
Kid she had give 'em all away. Harold had brought his all the way over
to Frisco on a ticket furnished by the Maudlin Movin' Picture Company,
which sent him over for props.
Well, Harold gets warmed up and in a minute he's press agentin' himself
at the rate of fifty-five words a minute--I clocked him! He tells
Gladys he's bein' _starred_ in "The End of the World" and the amount of
money they're payin' him would startle Europe, if it ever got out. He
claims he made 'em all faint at the rehearsals and offers from other
companies is comin' in so fast that he's got a charley horse on his
thumb from openin' telegrams. From that he works into the fact that
after the picture is made he's gonna run around Europe--that's just the
way he said it, "Run around Europe!" Oh, boy!--that bein' the way he
usually spent his vacations. When Gladys staggers over to wait on a
customer, Harold charges himself up again and when she comes back he's
off to a runnin' start. He remarks that his father has just made a
killin' in Wall Street that has caused Rockefeller to weep and gnash
his teeth and that the last affair his mother give at Newport got four
columns on the front page, although the mayor of the town had been shot
the same afternoon.
Gladys takes this all in with her mouth as open as Kelly pool and her
eyes half closed and dreamy like she was dyin' happy.
When Harold put on the brakes and eased up, she throwed him a look that
I would have walloped Dempsey for. Harold says he must go, because the
picture would be ruined if he wasn't there to direct it, and Gladys
holds out a tremblin' hand. Then Harold plays his ace--he takes off
his hat, bows, kisses that hand and blows.
When I seen Gladys deliberately walk back of the wrappin' booth, put
her hand to her lips and kiss it herself--I pulled my hat down over my
ears and went back to Film City.
The next mornin' they begin work on the first reel of "The End of the
World," and Harold had a field day at bein' rotten. He got in
everybody's way, ruined twenty feet of film by firin' off a cannon at
the wrong time and made Genaro hysterical by gettin' caught in a papier
mache tower and pullin' it down. Not content with that, he goes back
of a interior to try out one of the Kid's cigarettes and by simply
flickin' the thing into a can of kerosene he set the Maudlin Movin'
Picture Company back about five hundred bucks.
They run him out of the picture, and he went, yellin' that it would be
a farce without him in it.
About four o'clock me and the Kid is trottin' along the road outside of
Film City like we did every day so's Scanlan could keep in condition,
when we all but fell over Harold. He's sittin' on a rock and gazin'
off very sad in the general direction of New York. His dashin',
smashin', soft hat was yanked down over his home-breakin' face, and his
dimpled chin was buried in his lily white hands. He looked like a guy
that has worked twenty-seven years inventin' a new steamboat and then
seen it sink the first time he tried it out.
The Kid runs over and slaps him on the back just hard enough to make
his hat fall off.
"Cheer up, Cutey!" pipes Scanlan. "They can't hang a guy for tryin'!"
Harold retrieves his hat, smoothes it out carefully and lets loose the
gloomiest sigh I ever heard in my life.
"Have you a cigarette?" he asks sadly.
The Kid pulls out a deck, and Harold takes two, droppin' one in his
pocket.
"Alas!" he remarks, strikin' a match on my shoe. "Alas!"
"When can the body be seen?" asks Scanlan. "And is it a church funeral
or will they pull it off at the house?"
"This is no time for levity," mutters Harold. "I'm ruined!"
"I only got ten bucks with me," the Kid tells him, "but I'll part
with--"
"Poof!" sneers Harold, wavin' his hands like a head waiter. "Money! I
am not in need of that. Why, my father--" He breaks off to take the
bill from the Kid's hand and shove it in his pocket. "Rather than
offend you!" he explains. "No," he goes on, "this is a more serious
matter than money. I--" He flicks away the cigarette, jumps up off
the rock and gives us both the up and down. "I am going to take you
two into my confidence," he says, "and perhaps you will help me."
"Go on!" encourages the Kid. "I'm all worked up--shoot it!"
"Well, then," says Harold, with the air of a guy pleadin' guilty to
save his old father. "In the first place, my name is not J. Harold
Cuthbert!"
There was no answer from us, and Harold seemed peeved because we had
not collapsed at his confession.
"What is it?" I asks, when the silence begin to hurt the ears.
"Trout!" pipes Harold, bitterly. "Joe Trout!"
"Yeh?" says the Kid. "Well, what's the matter with that? What did you
can it for?"
"Ha, ha!" hisses Harold, with a "curse you!" giggle. "Where could a
man get with a name like _that_?"
"In the aquarium!" yells the Kid. "I knew you'd fall!"
Harold shakes his head and blows himself to another sigh.
"Imagine a moving picture leading man named Trout!" he goes on. "I
changed my name as a sacrifice to the movies, for--"
"Just a minute!" I butts in. "On the level now, where _did_ you get
your movin' picture experience?"
"As assistant bookkeeper in a grocery store!" he answers. "Now you
have it!"
"But you said your father was a big man in Wall Street!" I busts out.
"He is!" answers Harold, lookin' over at the Santa Fe. "They don't
come any bigger. He's a traffic policeman at the corner of Broadway
and Wall Street and stands six foot four in his socks!"
"Sweet Cookie!" shouts the Kid, and falls off the rock.
When we recover from that, Harold has smoked the other cigarette, and
he nods for my box. Then he asks us do we want to hear the rest.
"If you don't tell it," says the Kid, "you'll never leave here alive!
Hurry up, I'm dyin' to hear it!"
"Well," says the ex-J. Harold Cuthbert, "I am about to be married and
at the eleventh hour Nemesis has gripped me. I told my fiancee that I
was being featured in 'The End of the World' and that it would be
exceedingly easy for me to get _her_ a part in the picture--she having
expressed a desire to that effect at various times. She will be here
within the hour to watch me being filmed and to hold me to my promise
to place her as leading woman opposite me." He stops and moans.
"Gentlemen," he goes on, "picture for yourself the contretemps when she
finds I am nothing but a super and that Genaro wouldn't give Sarah
Bernhardt a job on a recommendation from me! My romance will be
shattered, and the--the humiliation will kill me!"
There was a heavy silence for a minute, and then the Kid whistles.
"Well, pal," he says, "you have certainly balled things up a few,
haven't you?"
Joe Trout just let loose another moan.
"Gimme one of them good cigarettes!" pipes the Kid to me. He lights it
and looks over at friend Joe. "The first thing," he says, puffin'
away; "the first thing, is this--just how _much_ do you think of this
dame, all jokes aside?"
Joe turns around and straightens up, for once in his life lookin' like
the real thing.
"I love her!" he says. That was all--but the way he pulled it was a
plenty!
The Kid grunts and tosses away the pill. Then he walks over to Joe and
slaps him on the back.
"Listen!" he says. "You ain't a bad guy at that. I'm gonna give you
somethin' I never took in my life--advice! Why don't you lay off lyin'
about yourself, kid? Why don't you can that four-flush thing?"
The effect of them simple words on Joe was remarkable. He swung around
on us so quick that we both ducked, thinkin' he was comin' back with a
wallop--but his hands was sunk so deep in his coat pockets they liked
to pushed through the linin' and his face was as hard and white as an
iceberg.
"Because!" he shoots out through his teeth. "_Because I can't_!"
Y'know the change was so sudden, I remember lettin' out a little
nervous laugh, and then sidesteppin' a vicious left the Kid sent at me.
Scanlan had turned as serious as the other guy.
"What d'ye mean, you _can't_?" he says, grabbin' Joe by the arm and
holdin' him fast. Joe's face showed how hard he was fightin' to keep
from fallin' apart.
"You won't understand!" he answers in a hard voice. "But I'll tell
you. The thing has grown upon me until I cannot shake it off! I guess
I was born a liar and probably four-flushed my nurse when I was three
days old. When I was a boy, my incessant lying, although it harmed no
one but myself, kept me in countless scrapes. As I grew older, the
habit grew stronger and I lost girls, jobs, friends and opportunities
with breath-taking rapidity. Time after time I have sworn to rid
myself of the thing and speak nothing but the undiluted truth, and the
first time I open my mouth I find myself unconsciously telling the most
astounding falsehoods about myself with an ease that nauseates me!" He
tore himself loose from the Kid and kicked a innocent tomato can down
the canyon. "I know I'm nothing but a big four-flusher," he winds up,
"and I can't help it!"
Right then and there I warmed up to Joe Trout like I never had before.
After all, Miss Vincent had the right dope--he was nothin' but a big
kid at that, and any guy that will come right out in public and admit
he's a false alarm, deserves credit!
"Well," he says after a minute, "I suppose you're both through with me
now, eh?"
"Do I look like a quitter?" demands the Kid.
"I'm still here, ain't I?" I chimes in.
Joe coughs and took hold of our hands.
"Thanks!" he mutters. "And now---"
"Listen!" interrupts the Kid. "I got the whole thing doped out. When
is this dame of yours due to hit Film City?"
"She'll be here on that one o'clock train," moans Joe.
"Fine!" says the Kid. "Now get this! De Vronde is supposed to do a
fall from a horse in 'The End of the World' and the big yellow bum
won't do it. They're lookin' for some guy that will take his place,
just for that one flash, see? Now suppose I fix it so you get that
chance and when the dame comes on, there you are playin' the lead as
far as she can see, in the best part of the frolic. How's that?"
I thought Joe was gonna kiss him!
"I'll never forget it!" he hollers. "You have saved my life! What can
I do to repay you?"
"Stop four-flushing," comes back the Kid, "and be on the level!"
"I'll do it, if it kills me!" promises Joe--and I don't know whether he
meant the fall or the other.
"Can you ride a horse?" the Kid asks him as we start back.
"Can _I_ ride a horse?" repeats Joe, stoppin' short. "What a question!
Why at home I was the champion--"
"Now, now!" butts in the Kid. "There you go again!"
"Pardon me!" says Joe, gettin' red--and he quits!
Well, the Kid fixed it all right, so's Joe could double for De Vronde
in that one place where he did the fall. I don't know how he did it
any more than I know how Edison come to think of the phonograph, but he
did! All my suspicions as to who the dame was come true when Gladys
hops off the one o'clock train that afternoon. I seen her talkin' to
Eddie Duke near the African Desert, and I immediately went scoutin'
around for Joe, because Eddie liked him the same way the brewers is
infatuated with the Anti-Saloon League and I knowed if Eddie got a
chance to harpoon Joe with Gladys, he'd do that thing.
About half a hour later, Genaro asks me to go over and find Potts,
because they're ready to start shootin' the picture and when I got near
the hotel I seen a couple of people blockin' the little narrow passage
in back of it. They was Gladys O'Hara and Joe Trout and when I got
close up I heard Joseph talkin'. He was goin' like a house on fire and
his little old lyin' apparatus was hittin' on all cylinders and runnin'
smooth without a break. He explains to Gladys that he went on only in
the important part of the picture which she would see in a minute, and
that De Vronde was only one of the cheap help who played the part while
_he_ was restin' for the big scene. As soon as that come up--and he
said the whole picture was built around it--they give De Vronde the
gate and in went the darin' Joe.
He was all dressed up in a Stetson hat, a cute little yellow silk
handkerchief twisted around his manly neck and more chaps than any cow
puncher ever wore on his legs outside of a movie. He looked like what
he'd liked to have been.
"--and not only that," he winds up, "but they are going to feature my
name on all the advertising for the picture!"
"Is that all?" asks Gladys in a queer little voice.
Joe looked surprised. I guess it was the first time anybody had asked
for more!
"Well--no!" he starts off again briskly. "Of course, I am--"
"Wait!" says Gladys, grabbin' his arm. "Don't tell me any more lies!
They are not featuring you in this or any other picture! You are not
the leading man, you are only a super! Your father is not a
millionaire and you cannot get me a job with the Maudlin Moving Picture
Company! You're simply a big four-flusher and that lets you out!"
Say! On the level, I thought Joe was gonna pass away on his feet! If
I was give to faintin', I'd have been stretched out cold, myself. He
got white and then he got red, then he got white again and red again
for fully a minute. He tried eighteen times by actual count to say
something but that well known tongue of his had laid down at last and
quit! He couldn't even raise a whisper.
"I knew you were four-flushin' the first time you started to hand me
that stuff!" goes on Gladys, sweetly. "I happen to know the folks
here, includin' the leadin' man, De Vronde. He was hangin' around that
shirtwaist counter before you knew whether they made pictures here or
sponge cake. Also, some of your friends come over from time to time
and tipped me off about you, so that I was all set when you started!"
Joe whirls around on her at that, and although this bird had beat me to
the wire with Gladys, I felt sorry for him right then. The poor kid
was hangin' on the ropes waitin' for somebody to throw in the sponge.
"If you knew all that," he says, kinda choked, "why--why did you let me
come over and continue to--to mislead you?"
Gladys coughs and places three or four stray hairs exactly back of her
little white ear, gazin' at her wrist watch like it's the first time
she ever seen one, and she's wonderin' can it really go. The big boob
stands there lookin' at her and the chance of a couple of lifetimes is
slippin' away. What? Say, listen! I don't know much about
women--fighters is my line--but there was a look on Gladys's face that
I'd seen Genaro work two hours one time to put on Miss Vincent's when
they was takin' a big picture. So you can figure she wasn't
registerin' hate!
"Well, why?" demands Joe again.
"This stuff is all new to me," says Gladys, with a sigh, "but I guess
I've got to do it!" She gazes at the ground and gets kinda red. "It
was not your conversation that made the hit with me!" she winds up
softly.
"I'm afraid I don't understand," pipes Senseless Joe.
"Heavens!" remarks Gladys. "There's enough concrete between your neck
and your hat to build a bridge over the bay! I can safely say you're
the first man I ever proposed to, but somebody's got to do it and I
guess I'm the goat!"
"What!" screams Joe, comin' to life at last.
"You--you--forgive--you--" The poor simp gets all excited and once
again he can't talk and--I don't blame him. You never seen Gladys, and
you don't know how she looked right then!
"Say!" says Gladys. "Am I bein' kidded or--"
Joe might have been a tramp as a movie lover, but take it from me, as
the real thing he was no slouch! I hadda stand there and watch it,
because I couldn't get past till they got away and if they'd ever seen
me, I guess Joe would have bought a gun. Finally, they break, Gladys
pushin' Joe away and holdin' him off.
"You've got to promise me you'll stop lyin' and four-flushin'!" she
tells him. "Tell the truth and don't kid yourself that you'd have been
President, if you hadn't been jobbed. That stuff is poor and will get
you nowheres. Make good and you won't have to tell anybody about
it--it'll be in the papers! As far as I can see, the best thing about
you right now is ME! If you can't get over with _that_, I'll see that
you do!"
"We'll get married to-night!" yelps Joe. "There's a minister in Film
City and--"
"Don't crowd me!" interrupts Gladys, lettin' herself be kissed. "Do
you promise?"
"Anything!" grins Joe.
"Just what _are_ you supposed to do in this picture?" she asks him.
"Fall off a horse!" says Joe.
"Is that all?" asks Gladys.
Joe nods.
"Well," Gladys tells him, "you won't do it! I don't want no crippled
bridegroom at my weddin'. Now listen to me! If you could _write_ that
stuff you've been wastin' on the air around here, you ought to make a
pretty good press agent. Mr. Potts, the man who owns the company and
the fellow you or your father _never_ palled around with, has a man on
his payroll named Struther. He's head of what they call the publicity
department, it says so on ten of his cards I have. He once claimed
he'd do anything for me in such a loud voice that the floorwalker had
to speak to him. I'm goin' over to the office now and ask him to give
you a job back in New York. To be perfectly truthful with you, that's
what I came over here for to-day in the first place!"
"But--but," stammers Joe. "I can't have you asking favors for me,
Gladys, and--and, why New York?"
"Because," she says, "that's where I come from, and I want to look at
it again--I'm simply crazy to yell down a dumbwaiter and throw a
quarter in my own gas meter!"
Well--that's about all. They had a big weddin' right in the middle of
Film City and everybody sent in and bought 'em a present. Potts got a
flash at Gladys, moans regretfully and has the ceremony filmed, givin'
the result to Joe as a special gift. Of course Gladys got Joe that
job. That dame could have got frankfurters and sourkraut in Buckingham
Palace! Before they left for New York, I tried Joe out.
"It'll be terrible here, when you're gone!" I says, "because you know
more about makin' movies than Rockefeller does about oil."
Joe shakes his head and grins.
"No!" he says. "I guess I don't know much about anything!"
I pronounced him cured to myself and shook his hand. The Kid went to
the train with him and his bride. I didn't feel up to seein' that guy
goin' away with Gladys.
I met the Kid as he was comin' up from the railroad station, and seein'
he was laughin', I asked him if the happy pair got off all right.
"Yeh!" he says. "Everything went fine. Me and Miss Vincent waited
till the train was pullin' out. Gladys was inside and Joe was standin'
on the steps of the Pullman, talkin'. Just before the thing pulled
out, I shook Joe's hand and said I hoped he got past in New York,
because it was a big burg and a tough one for losers." The Kid stops
and laughs some more.
"Well," I says, "what's the joke?"
"Sweet Papa!" says the Kid, wipin' his eyes. "Joe's face lights all up
and that old glitter comes back in his eyes!
"'Make good?' he yells to me. 'Well, I ought to make good--my father
owns half the town, and I was the biggest thing in it when I left!'"