nderstand the
nature of my proposal. I wish to engage the services of Kid Scanlan,
the present incumbent of the welterweight title. We want to make a
five-reel feature, based on his rise to the championship. I am
prepared to offer you first class transportation to our mammoth studios
at Film City, Cal.; and twenty thousand dollars when the picture is
completed! What do you say?"

"Have a cigar!" I says, when I get my breath. I throwed a handful of
'em in his lap and give the water cooler a play.

"No, thanks!" he says, layin' 'em on the desk. "I never smoke."

"Well," I tells him, "I ain't got a thing to drink in the place, you
gotta be careful here, y'know! But to get back to the movie thing,
what does the Kid have to do for the twenty thousand fish?"

He takes a long piece of paper from his pocket and lays it down in
front of me. It looked like a chattel mortgage on Mexico, and what
paragraphs didn't commence with "to wit," started off with "do hereby."

"All that Mr. Scanlan has to do," he explains, "will be told him by our
director at the studios, who will produce the picture. His name is Mr.
Salvatore Genaro. Kindly sign where the cross is marked!"

"Wait!" I says. "We can't take a railroad ride like that for twenty
thousand, we got to have twenty-five and--"

"All right!" he butts in. "Sign only on the first line!"

"Thirty thousand, I meant to say!" I tells him, "because--"

"Certainly," he cuts me off, handin' over his fountain pen. "Don't use
initials, sign your full name!"

I signed it.

"How do I know we get this money?" I asks him.

"Aha!" he answers. "How do we know that the dawn will come? My
company is worth a million dollars, old chap, and that contract you
have is as good as the money! Be at my office at two this afternoon
and I will give you the tickets. _Adios_ until then!"

And he blows out of the office.

I closed down the desk, went outside and climbed into my Foolish Four.
In an hour I was up to the trainin' camp near Rye where Kid Scanlan was
preparin' for his collision with Hurricane Harris. Scanlan is trainin'
for the quarrel by playin' seven up with the room clerk from the Beach
Hotel, and when I bust in the door he takes a look, throws the cards on
the floor and makes a pass at his little pal so's I'll think he's a new
sparrin' partner. I pulled him off and dragged him to one side.

"How would you like to go in the movies?" I says.

"Nothin' doin'!" the K