Just then the fair Albert comes limpin' over to Potts. He looked like he'd been battlin' a buzz saw!

"Mr. Potts," he says, "if you dare to use that scene in your picture, I will bring suit against your firm. I demand that the film be destroyed at once!"

"What you say!" screams Genaro. "Nevaire! She'sa mine, that picture!

Away wit' you--you bigga bunk!" He stands before the camera like he's ready and willin' to protect it with his life.

"You entered the scene of your own accord, _Mr. LaRue_," remarks Potts, "and I trust you are in earnest about suing us. The publicity will just about save me a hundred thousand in advertising."

As soon as he heard that name "LaRue," this guy just kinda caves in and closes up tight. Miss Vincent turns her nose up at him and walks over to the Kid as the other dame comes up and shakes Scanlan's hand.

"Thank you!" she says, in that tired voice of hers. "You have done a big thing for me! Now he cannot go into the pictures again, and maybe he'll--he'll stay home with me!"

At that Miss Vincent suddenly leans over and kisses her. Can you beat them dames?

Albert picks up his hat and straightens his tie. Then he glares from one to the other of us and walks over to Genaro.

"I trust," he says, throwin' out his chest. "I trust you realize that if your picture is a success, I, and I alone, am responsible for it.

If it hadn't been for the advent of myself, a finished artist, in that fight scene, it would have fallen flat! Good day, sir!"

And him and his dame and the white-faced Sweet Williams blows!

CHAPTER IV

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-cla.s.s 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 n.o.body 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," b.u.t.ts 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, b.u.t.tonin' up his coat and glarin' at us both, "this is not the end of the incident, you can rest a.s.sured 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 sc.r.a.p, 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 pa.s.sin' 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 b.u.t.tons!"

"Ha, ha!" yells the Kid. "Raypeers without b.u.t.tons! How are you gonna hold 'em up?"

"Your ignorance is pathetic--not funny!" answers the other guy.