“May I have a look at your skit,” I said, “when you’ve finished it?”
“It _is_ finished. Wrote it straight off. D’you think I could stop and
then go on again with a thing like that?” He gathered the sheets and
held them out to me. “Take the thing--it’s amused me to do it. The
heroine’s secret is that she isn’t an Octoroon at all; she’s a De La
Casse--purest Creole blood of the South; and her villainous brother
isn’t her brother; and the bad millionaire isn’t a millionaire; and her
penniless lover is. It’s rich, I tell you!”
“Thanks,” I said dryly, and took the sheets.
I went away concerned about my friend, his illness and his poverty,
especially his poverty, for I saw no end to it.
After dinner that evening I began languidly to read his skit. I had
not read two pages of the thirty-five before I started up, sat down
again, and feverishly read on. Skit! By George! He had written a
perfect scenario--or, rather, that which wanted the merest professional
touching-up to be perfect. I was excited. It was a little gold-mine
if properly handled. Any good film company, I felt convinced, would
catch at it. Yes! But how to handle it? Bruce was such an unaccountable
creature, such a wild old bird! Imagine his having only just realised
the cinema! If I told him his skit was a serious film, he would say:
“Good God!” and put it in the fire, priceless though it was. And yet,
how could I market it without _carte blanche_, and how get _carte
blanche_ without giving my discovery away? I was deathly keen on
getting some money for him; and this thing, properly worked, might
almost make him independent. I felt as if I had a priceless museum
piece which a single stumble might shatter to fragments. The tone of
his voice when he spoke of the cinema--“What a _thing_!”--kept coming
back to me. He was prickly proud, too--very difficult about money.
Could I work it without telling him anything? I knew he never looked at
a newspaper. But should I be justified in taking advantage of that--in
getting the thing accepted and produced without his knowing? I revolved
the question for hours, and went to see him again next day.
He was reading.
“Hallo! You again? What do you think of this theory--that the Egyptians
derive from a Saharan civilisation?”
“I don’t think,” I said.
“It’s nonsense. This fellow----”