Daughter reaches up and grabs the Kid's hand.

"I--I--want to thank you," she says, "for saving my mother. I--I don't know what might have happened, if you hadn't been here!"

"That's all right!" pipes the Kid. "D'ye want us to do anything else?"

"Yes," she says. "Will you tell me where you heard that--that description of the--the million lovely loaves?"

"Sure," answers the Kid. "When we was comin' East, we stopped off at a hick burg somewheres and a guy took us over a bakery--"

Daughter claps her hands and laughs.

"Poetic justice!" she says. "That explains everything. My poor, dear father founded that bakery, and those were the last advertis.e.m.e.nts for it he wrote!"

CHAPTER VII

LIFE IS REEL!

The nation is bein' flooded these days with advertis.e.m.e.nts claimin'

that any white man which works for less than forty thousand bucks a year is a sucker. The best of 'em is wrote by a friend of mine, Joe Higgins, who gets all of twenty bucks every Sat.u.r.day at six--one-thirty in July, August and September.

The ads that Joe tears off deals with inventions. He shows that Edison prob'ly wouldn't of made a nickel over a million, if he hadn't discovered everything but America, and that Bell, Marconi, Fulton and that gang, wouldn't of been any better known to-day than ham and eggs, if they hadn't used their brains for purposes of thinkin' and invented somethin'. There's fortunes which would make the Vanderbilts and Astors look like public charges, explains Joe, awaitin' the bird which will quit playin' Kelly pool some night and invent a new way to do _anything_.

The ad winds up with the important information that the people which Joe works for is so close to the patent office gang that they could get French fried potatoes copyrighted. For the sum of "write for particulars," they'll rush madly from Washington papers that'll protect any idea you got, before some snake-in-the-gra.s.s friend plies you with strawberry sundaes and steals your secret. At the bottom of this there's a long list of things sadly needed by a sufferin' public, which will willin'ly shower their inventor with medals and money,--things like non-playable ukaleles, doctors which can guess what's the matter with _you_ instead of your bankroll, grape fruit that won't hit back while you're eatin' it, non-refillable jails and so forth. All you got to do is stake yourself to a couple of test tubes, a white ap.r.o.n and a laboratory, hire Edison, Marconi, Maxim and Hennery Ford as a.s.sistants--with the U. S. Mint in back of you in case expenses come up--and you'll wake up some mornin' to find yourself the talk of Fall River.

I been lookin' over these ads for a long time, but there's three names I never seen on the list of famous inventors. They are to wit: the guy that discovered the only absolute cure for rheumatism, the one that invented the dope book on the female race and the bird that holds a patent on the complete understandin' of human nature. I guess the reason I never seen _their_ names is because the thing ain't really been decided yet--there seems to be some difference of opinion. But if you wanna find out how many guys there are that swear they invented _all_ them things, look up the population of the world. The figures is exactly the same.

I ain't met n.o.body yet which didn't admit they had the only correct dope on women, rheumatism and human nature, but I'm still waitin' to be introduced to the guy which really knows anything at all about _any_ of 'em, when it gets right down to the box score!

The nearest I ever come to knowin' the original patentee to two of 'em was Eddie Duke. Eddie is one of the best men in the movable picture game, accordin' to everybody but himself. _He_ concedes he's _the_ best. He's a little, aggressive guy which would of prob'ly been a lightweight champion, for instance, if it hadn't been for his parents.

They killed off his chances of makin' _big_ money, by slippin' him a medium dose of education when he was too young to fight back. Eddie's like a million other guys I know, all Half-way Henrys, you might call 'em. Too much brains to dig streets and not enough to own 'em!

Unhappy mediums that always calls _somebody_ boss!

We're sittin' in Duke's office one mornin', when without even knockin'--a remarkable thing for a movie star--in walks Edmund De Vronde. Edmund has caused more salesladies to take their pens in hand than any other actor in the world. His boudoir is hung with pictures of dames from eight to eighty and from Flatbush to Florida. If some of 'em was actual reproductions, them dames was foolish for sellin'

shirtwaists, believe me! Edmund is as beautiful as five hundred a week and built like Jack Dempsey. Off the screen he's as rough and ready as a chorus man.

"h.e.l.lo, Cutey!" says the Kid, who liked De Vronde and carbolic acid the same way.

"I've come to ask a favor," says De Vronde.

"Well," Duke tells him, lightin' a cigarette and lookin' straight at the end of it, "we ain't gonna pay for no more autographed photos, we won't fire the press agent, you gotta finish this picture with Miss Hart and both them camera men that's shootin' this movie is high-cla.s.s mechanics and stays! Outside of that, I'm open to reason."

"What I want will cost you nothing," says De Vronde. "That is--practically nothing. My dresser,--the silly idiot!--tendered me his resignation this morning!"

"Well, what's all this gotta do with me?" he asks De Vronde. "I can't be bothered diggin' up valets to see that you got plenty of fresh vanilla cold cream every morning and that they's ample talc.u.m powder on the chiffonier! I got--"

"I have already secured a man," interrupts De Vronde. "He happens to be a--a--friend of mine. The poor fellow is desperately in need of work. He's in Denver at present, and I'd like to have him on as soon as possible. If we're to begin that big feature on Monday, I'm sure I can't be bothered thinking about where this shirt and that cravat is, and just what color combinations will be best for my costume in the gypsy cave."

"That's right!" grins the Kid. "Figure for yourself what would happen, if Cutey forgot his mustache curler, for instance. The whole country would be, now, aghast, and he'd be a nervous wreck in five minutes!"

"So if you'll kindly telegraph the fare to this address," goes on De Vronde, ignorin' the Kid, "I'll be obliged."

With that he blows.

"And the tough part of it is," moans Duke, reachin' for a 'phone, "I'll have to do just that! It'll cost about sixty bucks to import this bird here and when he gets here, it's nothin' but another mouth to feed. If I had half the nerve of that big stiff De Vronde, I'd take a German quartette over to London and make 'em sing the 'Wacht Am Rhein' in front of Buckin'ham Palace!"

"He claims this valet's a friend of his, too," says the Kid. "I'll bet he'll turn out to be another one of them sweet spirits of nitre boys, eh?"

"If he is," growls Duke, "it won't be two days before he'll be sick and tired of the movie game, you can bet two green certificates on that!"

A week later, me and the Kid is standin' near the entrance to Film City talkin' to Miss Vincent, when a young feller blows in through the gates and walks up to us. He's one of them tall birds, as thin as a dime, and his clothes has been brushed right into the grain. When the light hit him, I seen they was places where even the grain had quit. His shoes is so run over at the heels that they'd of fit nice and snug into a car track and he'd just gone and shaved himself raw.

One good look and this bird checked up as a member in good standin' of one of the oldest lodges in the world. They got a branch in every city, and they was organized around the time that Adam and Eve quit the Garden of Eden for a steam-heated flat. The name of this order is "The Shabby Genteels."

But what transfixed the eye and held the attention, as we remark in the workhouse, was this guy's face. I might say he had the most inconsistent set of features I ever seen off the screen. He ain't a thousand miles from bein' good-looking and his chin is well cut and square, like at one time he'd been willin' to hustle for his wants and fight for 'em once he got 'em, but that time ain't _now_! His eyes is the tip-off. They don't look straight into yours when he talks--the liar's best bet!--or they don't look at the ground, but they stare off over your shoulder into the air, like he's seein' somethin' _you_ can't, and it ain't pleasant to look at.

I've seen that look on beaten fighters, when the winner is settin'

himself for the knockout, and I've seen it on the faces of other guys, when some smug-jowled judge has reached into their lives and took ten or twenty years as a deposit on what they'll do with the rest. It's a look you don't forget right away, take it from me!

Well, this feller that's walkin' up to us had that look. If a director had yelled "Register despair!" at him, he could of just looked natural and they'd of thought he was another Mansfield.

And he's _young_! Get that?

"Pardon me!" he says, takin' off his hat. "Where can I find Mister De Vronde?"

The Kid puts his hand on his arm and swings him around,

"You'll pro'bly find him over behind the Street Scene in Venice," he tells him. "If he ain't there, look around the Sahara Desert for him--know him when you see him?"

The other guy looks at us for a minute like he thinks he's bein'

kidded. Then he pulls a slow, tired grin.

"I think so," he says. "Thanks!"

When he walks away, I turns to Miss Vincent.

"That's prob'ly Cutey De Vronde's new guardeen," I says. "I guess he--"

"You and the Kaiser is the same kind of guessers!" b.u.t.ts in the Kid.

"He guessed we wouldn't sc.r.a.p! If that guy we was just talkin' to is a lady's maid for Cutey, I can sing like Caruso!"

"He doesn't look like a valet," says Miss Vincent, kinda doubtful.

"I don't blame him!" says the Kid. "And lemme tell you, he never got them muscles from brushin' clothes and b.u.t.tonin' vests. I felt his arm when I swung him around that time, and this guy is just about as soft as the Rock of Gibraltar!"

"I can't understand," says Miss Vincent, "how a strong, healthy man can be a valet--ugh!" she winds up, with a little shiver.