Kid Scanlan Part 9

His shoulders does one of them muscle dances.

"Ask me!" he says. "I couldn't tella you! He'sa know nothing about art! Joosta money--that's all. He'sa tella me girl saving leading man from lynch lika that is old as he'sa fren' Methuselah! He'sa want something new for finish that picture--bran' new, he'sa holler or no picture! All morning I worka, worka, worka, he'sa maka faces at everything I do!"

"Well!" I says. "If you--"

I happened to look up just then and I seen the well known gates of Film City about a hundred yards away, and if we was makin' a mile an hour, we was makin' fifty. I leaned over and tapped the Kid on the shoulder.

"Don't you think you had better slow up a trifle?" I asks him.

"I don't _think_ nothin' about it!" he throws over his shoulder. "I _know_ it! I been tryin' to stop this thing for the last fifteen minutes and there's nothin' doin'!"

"Throw her in reverse!" I screams, as them great big iron gates looms up over the front mud guards.

"I can't!" he shouts. "The darned thing's stuck in high and I can't budge it!"

One of them gates was open and the Kid steers for it, while I closed my eyes and give myself over to prayer. We shot through leavin' one lamp, both mudguards and a runnin' board behind.

"Hey!" yells Genaro. "What's a mat? Thisa too fasta for me! Stoppa the car before something she'sa happen!"

"Somethin' she'sa gonna happen right now!" I says. "Be seated!"

The Kid swings around a corner and everybody in Film City is either lookin', runnin' or yellin' after us. I often wondered what a wide berth meant, and I found out that afternoon. That's what everybody in the place give us when we come through there hittin' on six as I.

Markowitz would remark. A guy made up like a Indian chief jumped behind a tree and we only missed him by dumb luck.

"Hey!" he yells after us. "Are you fellows crazy? Look out for the Moorish Castle!"

I yelled back that we wouldn't miss nothin' of interest, if we could help it and the gas held out, and just then I got a flash at the Moorish Castle. It had been built the day before for a big five reel thriller that Genaro was gonna produce and I understand he was very partial to it. As soon as he sees it he jumps up in the back of the car and slaps the Kid on the shoulders.

"Hey, crazee man!" he hollers. "Stoppa the car, I, Genaro, command it!

Don't toucha my castle!" his voice goes off in a shriek.

"_Sapristi_!--I--"

That was all he said just then, because we went through the Moorish Castle like a cyclone through Kansas, and as we come out on the other side the whole thing tumbled down, bringin' with it a couple of Chinese paG.o.das that had just come from the paint shop. All we lost was half of the radiator and the winds.h.i.+eld. The Kid pulls a kind of a sick grin and licks his lips.

"Some car, eh?" he says, takin' a fresh grip on the steerin' wheel.

I missed Genaro and lookin' back through the dust I seen him draped over a fence with his head touchin' the ground and his feet up in the air. A lot of daredevils was runnin' towards us and yellin' murder.

"Where's Genaro?" asks the Kid, as we miss a tree by a half inch.

I s.h.i.+vered and told him.

"The big quitter!" snarls the Kid. "Left us flat the minute somethin'

happened, eh? I always knew that guy was yellah!"

We shot across the African Desert and comin' around another turn we bust right into "The Escapes of Eva." There's about two hundred supers dressed like cowboys and Duke, Genaro's a.s.sistant, is up on a little platform with the Big Boss Potts, directin' the thing. De Vronde is under a tree with a rope around his neck and another one that don't show in the picture under his arms so's he can be pulled up and it will look like he was bein' lynched. A little ways up the road is Miss Vincent on a horse, ready to make her dash to save De Vronde's life.

As all this comes into view, the Kid swings around on me and shoves somethin' big and round in my face.

"Now!" he hollers. "We're up against it for real! The steerin' wheel come off!"

I pushed open the door on the side and stood on the runnin' board.

"Let me know how you make out!" I yells. "I got enough!"

With that I jumps.

Just as I hit the ground, I hear Duke yellin' through a megaphone.

"C'mon, now--gimme action! Hey! Get two of those cameras at an angle.

When I say 'Shoot!' you, Nelson, and Hardy pull that rope so De Vronde swings about five feet clear of the ground! Be sure the rope is under his arms, too! Hey, you extra people--a little ginger there! This is a lynching not a spelling bee! Dance around some--yell! That's it.

Now, all ready?" He blows the whistle. "Shoot!" he yells, "and gimme all you got!"

Well, the Kid did what he could--he blowed the little trick horn on the side of the car about a second before he shot into the mob. Them bloodthirsty outlaws just melted away before him, and them that was slow-witted was picked up and tossed to one side before they knowed what hit 'em. They's a big stone wall at the other side of the tree and that's where the Kid was headed for. Just as he sails under De Vronde, who's hangin' from the rope over his head, the Kid sees the wall, grabs De Vronde by the legs and hangs there, lettin' that crazy, six cylinder A. G. F. proceed without him. De Vronde and the Kid crashes to the ground and the car dashed its brains out against the wall.

While great excitement is bein' had by all, Duke jumps from the platform to tell the camera men to cease firin' and a handful of actors runs over to jimmy the Kid and De Vronde apart. I thought this Duke guy was gonna explode, on the level it was two minutes before he could speak.

"What d'ye mean, you ivory-headed simp?" he screams at the Kid, finally. "What d'ye mean by that? You've ruined a hundred feet of film, you--"

I hear somebody puffin' along beside me as I come runnin' up and I see it's Potts. He's red in the face and mumblin' somethin' to himself as he waddles along. I felt real sorry for the Kid--car and job, both gone! Potts rushes up and grabs Duke by the shoulder.

"There!" he yells, pointin' to the Kid. "There stands a man that knows more about the picture game than the whole infernal lot of you!

_That's the kind of a finish I've been trying to get for this picture all morning_!"

CHAPTER III

PLEASURE ISLAND

Speakin' of b.o.o.bs, as people will, did you ever figure what would happen if the production of 'em would suddenly cease? Heh? Where would this or any other country be, if all the voters was wise guys and the suckers was all dead?

In the first place, there wouldn't have been no ex-Land of the Rave and Home of the Spree, if Queen Isabella hadn't been b.o.o.b enough to fall for Columbus's stuff, about would she stake him and his gang of rough and readys to a couple of ferryboats and they'd go out and bring back Chicago. Even old Chris himself was looked on as Kid Stupid, because he claimed the earth was round. The gang he trailed with had it figured as bein' square like their heads.

The guy that invented the airs.h.i.+p was doped out as a b.o.o.b until the thing begin to fly, the bird that turned out the first steamboat was called a potterin' old simp and let him alone and he'd kill himself--and that's the way it goes.

The sucker is the boy that keeps the wise guys alive. He'll try anything once, and it don't make no difference to him whether it's three-card monte or a new kind of submarine. He's the guy that built all the fancy bridges, the big buildin's, fought and won the wars that the wise guys started, and fixed things generally so that to-day you can push a little trick electric b.u.t.ton and get anything from a piece of pie to a divorce. He's the simp that falls for the new minin'

company stock, grins when the wise guys explain to him just how many kinds of a sucker he is, and then clips coupons while _they're_ gettin'

up early to read the want ads. He's the baby that's done everything that couldn't be did.

That's the b.o.o.b!

The b.o.o.b is the guy that takes all the chances and makes it possible for old Kid World to keep goin' forward instead of standin' still. Any burg that's got a couple of sure enough eighteen-carat b.o.o.bs in it, known to the trade as suckers, has got a chance.

So the next time somebody calls you a big b.o.o.b, don't get sore--thank him. He's boostin' you!

Gimme ten b.o.o.bs in back of me and I'll take a town, because they'll take a chance. Gimme a hundred wise guys and the town'll take _us_, because them birds will have to stop and figure what's the use of startin' somethin'.