"That's easy," sneers the Kid. "A _man_ can't!"

Well, a man _did_! Gimme your ears, as the deaf guy said.

The next mornin' it turns out that I can guess like a rabbit can run.

The new entry on the payroll borrehs a match from me, and durin' the tete-a-tete that folleyed, I find out that his name is John R. Adams and, as far as the world in general and America in particular is concerned, it could of been George Q. Mud. Durin' the lifetime of twenty-nine years he's been on earth, he's tried his hand at everything from bankin' to bartenderin', and so far the only thing he's been a success at is bein' a failure. At that he leads the league. And now, to top it all off, he's a valet for a movie hero!

"It's all a matter of luck!" he says, bitterly. "A man who tries these days is not an ambitious hustler, but a _pest_ to the powers above him!

I defy a man to stand on his own feet and make good without influence.

It's not _what_ do you know any more, but _who_ do you know! I've been a bookkeeper, a printer, a salesman, a chauffeur, a bank clerk, and, yes, even a chorus man. At every one of those things I gave the best I had in stock to get to the front. Did I get there? Not quite!" he throws away the cigarette he's hardly had a puff of. "Why?" he asks me. "Because in every trade or profession there's somebody with half the sand and ability, who don't know the job's requirements but knows the boss's son! I'm not a quitter or I wouldn't be here, but I'm sick and disgusted with this thing called life and--"

"And that's why you never got nowhere!" breaks in a voice behind us--and there's Eddie Duke. Adams flushes up and starts away, but Eddie pulls him back.

"Listen to me, young feller!" he says. "I happened to hear your moan just now and your dope is all wrong. There ain't no such thing as luck; if there was, a blacksmith is the luckiest guy in the world and oughta make a million a minute, because he's handlin' nothin' but horseshoes all day long, ain't he? Forget about that luck stuff!

Makin' good is all in the way you look at it, anyways. A bricklayer makin' thirty bucks a week, raisin' a family and bringin' home his pay every Sat.u.r.day night in his pocket instead of on his breath, is makin'

good as big as J. P. Morgan is--d'ye get me? Yes, sir, that bird can say he's got over! Makin' good is like religion, every other guy has a different idea of what it means, but there's many a feller swingin' a pick that's makin' good just as much as the bird that owns the ditch--in his own way! You claim a guy's got to know somebody these days to get over, eh? Well, you got that one right, I'll admit it!"

"Of course!" says Adams, brightenin' up. "That's my argument and--"

"That ain't no argument, that's a whine!" sneers Duke, cuttin' him off short. "Listen to me--you bet you gotta know somebody to get anywheres, _you gotta know yourself_! That's all! Just lay off thinkin' how lucky the other guy is, and give Stephen X. You a minute's attention. You may be the biggest guy in the world at _somethin'_, if you'll only check up on yourself and see what that somethin' is!

Remember Whosthis says, 'Full many a rose is born to blush unseen--'

Well, don't be one of them desert flowers; come into the city and let 'em all watch you blush. Get me? How did you happen to meet this big stiff De Vronde?"

Adams gets pale for a second and clears his throat.

"I'm working for him," he says slowly, like he's thinkin' over each word before lettin' it go, "and I don't care to discuss him."

At just that minute, De Vronde, Miss Vincent, the Kid and another dame come rollin' up in Miss Vincent's twelve-cylinder garage-mechanic's friend. De Vronde hops out and walks over to us, wavin' his cane and frownin'.

"Look here!" he bawls at Adams. "I thought I told you to be at the east gate with my duster and goggles? You've kept me waiting half an hour, while you're gossiping around! Really, if you're going to start this way, I shall have to get another man. Look sharp now, no excuses!"

The Kid winks at me, noddin' to Adams who's lookin' at De Vronde with a very peculiar gaze. I couldn't quite get what he's registerin'. Miss Vincent looks interested and sits up. The other dame opens the door of the car and stands on the runnin' board.

"Here's where the fair Edmund gets his and gets it good!" hisses Duke in my ear, lookin' at Adams.

"I'm very sorry," says Adams, suddenly. "I should have remembered."

And without another word or look, he exits.

"Yellah!" snorts the Kid.

"No spine!" sneers Miss Vincent.

"Nick-looking boy--who is he?" asks the other dame, lookin' after him.

Duke slaps his hands together all of a sudden and gazes at her like a guy gettin' his first flash at his hour-old son. Then he looks after Adams, grins and claps his hands again.

"Who is he?" repeats the dame.

De Vronde sneers.

"Really," he says, "your interest is surprising. That fellow is my--"

"Shut up!" roars Duke, springin' to the runnin'-board. "Here!" he goes on, talkin' fast. "I'm gonna shoot them two interiors in half a hour, so you better call this joy ride off!" He turns to the strange dame and speaks very polite, "Miss Vincent will show you everything; if you want anything, just 'phone the office."

When they're gone, Duke turns to me and grins.

"I often heard you say you made Scanlan welterweight champ," he says, "by _pickin'_ the guys he was to fight till he got where he could lick 'em _all_. Well, I'm gonna do the same thing for our friend Mister Jack Adams, valet for Edmund De Vronde, the salesladies' joy. I'm goin' in that boy's corner from this day on, and, when I get through, he'll be a champ!"

"What?" I says. "Train a guy like that for the ring? Why--"

"I see you don't make me," he interrupts, "which is just as well, because you'd be liable to ball the whole thing up, if you did. This kid Adams has got symptoms of bein' a he-man in his face. He's. .h.i.t the b.u.mps good and hard and right now he's down, takin' a long count. Now whether he needs to be helped or kicked to his feet, I don't know, but I'm the baby that's gonna stand him up!"

"Well," I tells him, "go to it! But the thing I can't figure, is what d'you care if he gets over or not--who pays _you_ off on it?"

He looks me over for a minute, registerin' deep thought.

"I'm gonna give you the works!" he says finally. "And if you ever mention a word of this to anybody, they'll have to identify your body afterwards by that green vest you got!"

"Rockefeller's three dollars short of havin' enough money to make me tell!" I says.

"Fair enough!" says Duke. "Did you notice that strange dame which was with Miss Vincent in the car just now?"

"The blonde that would of made Marc Anthony throw away Cleopatra's 'phone number?" I asks. "Yeh--I noticed her. Easily that!"

"Well," he says, "this dame, which was such a knockout to you, is Miss Dorothy Devine. When her father died last year, she become a orphan."

"Well, that's tough," I says. "Me and the Kid will kick in with any amount in reason and--"

"Halt!" said Eddie. "Her dear old father only left her a pittance of fifty thousand a year and two-thirds control of the company we're all workin' for out here. Now besides bein' several jumps ahead of the average dame in looks, Dorothy is a few centuries ahead of the movies in ideas. She claims we're all wrong, and she's gonna revolutionize the watch-'em-move photo industry. That's what she's here for now!"

"Well," I says after a bit, "what d'ye expect _me_ to do--bust out cryin'?"

"Not yet!" he says. "I'll tell you when. Accordin' to Dorothy, all the pictures we put out are rotten. Our heroes and villains are plucked alive from dime novels and is everything but true to life. Our heroines belong in fairy tales and oughta be let stay there. _She_ claims that no beautiful girl with more money than the U. S. Mint would fall for the handsome lumberjack, and that no guy who couldn't do nothin' better than punch cows would become boss of the ranch through love of the owner's daughter. All that stuff's the bunk, she says.

Her dope is that a real man would boost himself to the top, girl or no girl, and the woman never lived which could put a man over, if he didn't have the pep himself. As a finish, she tells me that no healthy, intelligent girl would stand for the typical movie hero. A bird which would go out and ride roughshod over all the villains like they do in the films would nauseate her, she says, and we have no right to encourage this bunk by feedin' it to an innocent public!"

"Eddie," I says, "she ain't a mile off the track, at that! This--"

"Oh, she ain't, eh?" he snarls. "Well that shows that you and her knows as much about human nature as I do about makin' a watch! Miss Devine wants us to put on a movie that she committed herself, and, if we do, we'll be the laughin' stock of the world and Big Bend. It's got everything in it but a hero, a heroine, a villain, action and love interest. It's about as hot as one of them educational thrillers like 'Natives Makin' Panama Hats in Peoria' would be. A couple of these would put the company on the blink, and I lose a ten-year contract at ample money a year!"

"Well," I says, "what are you gonna do--quit?"

"Your mind must be as clean as a baby's," he says, "because you got your first time to use it! No, I ain't gonna quit! I'm gonna show Miss Dorothy Devine that as a judge of movin' pictures, she's a swell-lookin' girl. I like these tough games, a guy feels so good all over when he wins 'em. She's startin' with all the cards--money, looks and, what counts more, she's just about the Big Boss here now. All I got is one good card and that's only a jack--Jack Adams, to be exact--and I'm gonna beat her with him!"

"I'll fall!" I says. "How?"

"Well," he tells me, "my argument is that all these thrillers we put on are sad, weary and slow compared to some of the things that happen in real life every day that we never hear about. They's many a telephone girl, for instance, makin' a man outa a millionaire's no-good son and many a sure-enough heiress bein' responsible for the first mate on a whaler becomin' her kind and a director in the firm! I claim it does _good_ and not harm, to feed this stuff to a trustin' public by way of the screen. Why? Because every shippin'-clerk that's sittin' out in front puts himself in the hero's place and every salesgirl dreams that she's the heroine. Without thinkin', they both get to pickin' up the virtues we pin on our stars, and it can't _help_ but do 'em good! I don't know who started the shimmy, but I know women and I know human nature, and knowin' 'em both, I'm gonna make a sportin' proposition to Miss Dorothy Devine!"

"What's the bet?" I says. "I may take some of it myself."