Kid Scanlan. Witwer Harry Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ he hollers. "Wonderful! Who directed that?"

      "I did!" pipes Duke, throwin' out his chest. "Some picture, eh?"

      "Joosta one minoote!" says Genaro, wakin' up, "joosta one minoote! It was under my supervision, Mr. Potts! I feexa the – "

      "Cut that strip of film off!" Potts interrupts, "and take four more reels based on the same idea! Get somebody to write a scenario around a fighter busting into the drama and playing Shakespeare! It's never been done, and if the rest of it is as funny as that it will be a knockout!"

      "But Reechard!" says Genaro. "What of heem?"

      "Drop it!" snaps Potts. "Everybody get to work on this and I'll stay here till it's finished!"

      I looked around and pipe the Kid – over talkin' to Miss Vincent, of course.

      "Say!" he wants to know. "Do we go to Oakland in that rabbit-chaser of yours this afternoon, Miss Vincent?"

      "Sir!" butts in De Vronde. "This lady and I are conversing!"

      "Now listen, Cutey!" smiles the Kid. "You know what happened yesterday, don't you?"

      De Vronde turns pale and Miss Vincent giggles.

      "Of course we're going to Oakland!" she laughs. "I'm going to be your leading woman next week in 'How Kid Scanlan Won the Title.'"

      "Suits me!" says the Kid. "But say, on the level now – I'm there forty-seven ways on that Shakespeare thing, ain't I?"

      CHAPTER II

      EAST LYNCH

      Success has ruined more guys than failure ever will. It's like a Santa Cruz rum milk punch on an empty stomach – there's very few people can stand it. Many a guy that's a regular fellow at a hundred a month, becomes a boob at a hundred a week. What beat Napoleon, Caesar and Nero – failure? No, success! Give the thing the once over some time and you'll see that I'm right.

      Success is the large evenin' with the boys at the lodge and failure is the mornin' after. As a matter of fact, they're twins. Often you can be a success without knowin' it, so if you been a failure all your life accordin' to your own dope, cheer up. But when you get up to the top where you can look down at all these other guys tryin' to sidestep the banana peels of life and climb up with you, knock off thinkin' what a big guy you are for a minute and give ten minutes to thinkin' what a tough time you had gettin' there. Give five minutes more to ruminatin' on how long the mob remembers a loser and you'll find it the best sixteen minutes you ever spent in your life.

      In these days when the world is just a great big baby yellin' for a new toy every second, any simp can beat his way to the top. The real stunt is stayin' there after you arrive!

      Kid Scanlan was a good sample of that. When the Kid was fightin' for bean money and the exercise, he never spent nothin' but the evenin' and very little of that. He didn't know whether booze was a drink or a liniment and the only ladies he was bothered about was his mother. But when he knocked out One-Punch Ross for the title and eased himself into the movies, it was all different. He begin to spend money like a vice-investigating committee, knock around with bartenders and give in to all the strange desires that hits a guy with his health and a bankroll. I stood by and cheered for a while until he crashes in love with this movie queen, Miss Vincent, that got more money a start than the Kid did in a season and more letters from well wishin' males than a newly elected mayor. Then I stepped in and saved the Kid just before he become a total loss.

      I was standin' by the African Desert one day watchin' them take a picture called "Rapacious Rupert's Revenge," when the Kid comes over and calls me aside. Since he had become a actor he had gave himself up to dressin' in panama hats, Palm Beach suits and white shoes. He reminded me of the handsome young lieutenant in a musical comedy. Every time I seen him in that outfit I expected to hear him burst into some song like, "All hail, the Queen comes thither!" Know what I mean?

      Well, havin' lured me away under the shade of some palm trees, the Kid tells me he's goin' over to Frisco on a little shoppin' expedition, and he wants me to come with him. I says I can't drink a thing because I have had a terrible headache since the night before when him and me and some camera men went to Montana Bill's and toyed with the illegal brew for a few hours.

      "That last round," I says, "which I'll always remember because it come to six eighty-five, was what ruined me. The bartender must have gone crazy and put booze in them cocktails, because I've had that headache ever since!"

      "It ain't the cocktails that give you the headache," the Kid tells me, "it was the check. And you must have had a bun on before that, anyhow, because you paid it! But that's got nothin' to do with this here trip to Frisco. I'm not goin' to stop anywheres for no powders. I'm gonna get somethin' I've needed for a long time!"

      "What is it," I asks him, "a clean collar?"

      "I wish you'd save that comedy for some rainy Sunday," he says; "that stuff of yours is about as funny as a broken arm! Since I been out here with these swell actors, I been changin' my clothes so often that I'll bet my body thinks I'm kiddin' it. Stop knockin' and come over to Frisco with me and – "

      I don't know what else he was goin' to say, because just at that minute a Kansas cyclone on wheels come between us and I come to in a ditch about five feet from where the Kid is tryin' to see can he really stand on his head. When I had picked up enough ambition to get to my feet, I went over and jacked up the Kid. About half a mile up the road the thing which had attacked us is turnin' around.

      "Run for your life!" I yells to the Kid. "It's comin' back!"

      Before we could pick our hidin' places, the thing has drawed up in front of us and we see it's one of them trick autos known to the trade as racin' cars. I recognized it right away as belongin' to Miss Vincent. The owner was in the car and beside her was Edmund De Vronde, the shop-girls' delight. The Kid and De Vronde had took to each other from the minute they first met like a ferret does to a rat. It was a case of hate at first sight. So you can figure that this little incident did nothin' to cement the friendship. Miss Vincent leaps out of the thing and comes runnin' over to us.

      "Good Heavens!" she says. "You're not hurt, are you?"

      She's lookin' right past me and at the Kid like it made little or no difference whether I was damaged or not.

      The Kid throws half an acre of California out of his collar and removes a few pebbles and a cigar butt from his ear.

      "No!" he growls, with a sarcastical smile. "Was they many killed?"

      She takes out a little trick silk handkerchief and wipes off his face with it.

      "I meant to step on the foot brake," she explains, "and I must have stepped on the gas by mistake!"

      "You must have stepped on the dynamite," I butts in, "because it blowed me into the ditch!"

      The Kid shakes a bucket or so of sand out of his hair and looks over at the car where De Vronde is examin' us through a pair of cheaters and enjoyin' himself scandalously.

      "I see you got Foolish with you," says the Kid to Miss Vincent. "What's the matter – are you off me now?"

      She smiles and wipes some mud off the Kid's collar.

      "Why, no," she tells him. "Genaro is putting on 'The Escapes of Eva' this morning and I'm playing the lead opposite Mr. De Vronde. I happened to pick him up on the road and I'm bringing him in, that's СКАЧАТЬ