ers all prints pictures of 'em
both, Alex gettin' the lucky dame's by photographin' his stenographer.
A couple of papers didn't get neither and runs pictures of Brisbane,
Australia, so's to be on the job anyways. Then Alex collects the
thousand bucks I bet him that he couldn't make a movie star outa a
truck driver and prepares to break the news to his wife and mine that
he has done the same. He figures this will kill forever their wild
infatuation for Carrington De Vire, the idol of the screen.

At that point, Delancey Calhoun walks into the office.

"Ah, Delancey," says Alex, "I was just gonna send for you. Now that
our original contract has expired, let me congratulate you. You done
great and far better than even I expected. You're famous the world
over and must have a good sized bankroll if you've stayed in at nights
and kept away from race tracks and the like. I only intended this as a
experiment, but it has gone over so big that I want you to sit down
here and sign a contract for five years at the biggest salary you ever
heard of. We'll make the greatest pictures the world--"

"Wait a minute!" butts in Delancey. "Don't rave no more. My name is
Tim O'Toole again and not Delancey, which sounds like a collar. I'm
sick and tired of movin' pictures and that big salary stuff is as much
bunk as the rest of it. I ain't goin' around rescuin' nutty dames,
beatin' up supes which is supposed to be the desperate smugglers and
divin' off bridges no more! I'm goin' to make a honest livin' and I've
bought out the truckin' business I was workin' for when you come along
and made a movie star and a simp outa me. I'll be takin' in money
there long after the movies is gone and all the pictures I'll ever move
from now on will be loaded on one of my wagons. Fare-thee-well, and I
hope they's no hard feelings. If they is, I ain't gonna sob out loud
over it!"

For a minute Alex was speechless. Then he comes to and works a hour
tryin' to get the ex-Delancey Calhoun to change his mind. They was
nothin' doin'. In fact, Delancey walked out and left us flat in the
middle of Alex's wail.

Well, anyways, Alex still had one satisfaction left and that was to
prove to Eve and the wife that he had put over a truck driver as a
movie star. He done it after dinner that night and if he caused any
sensation, I failed to see it with the naked eye.

"Well," says Eve, "that proves my argument."

"Proves _your_ argument?" hollers Ale