Kid Scanlan

When I seen Gladys deliberately walk back of the wrappin' booth, put her hand to her lips and kiss it herself – I pulled my hat down over my ears and went back to Film City.

The next mornin' they begin work on the first reel of "The End of the World," and Harold had a field day at bein' rotten. He got in everybody's way, ruined twenty feet of film by firin' off a cannon at the wrong time and made Genaro hysterical by gettin' caught in a papier mache tower and pullin' it down. Not content with that, he goes back of a interior to try out one of the Kid's cigarettes and by simply flickin' the thing into a can of kerosene he set the Maudlin Movin' Picture Company back about five hundred bucks.

They run him out of the picture, and he went, yellin' that it would be a farce without him in it.

About four o'clock me and the Kid is trottin' along the road outside of Film City like we did every day so's Scanlan could keep in condition, when we all but fell over Harold. He's sittin' on a rock and gazin' off very sad in the general direction of New York. His dashin', smashin', soft hat was yanked down over his home-breakin' face, and his dimpled chin was buried in his lily white hands. He looked like a guy that has worked twenty-seven years inventin' a new steamboat and then seen it sink the first time he tried it out.

The Kid runs over and slaps him on the back just hard enough to make his hat fall off.

"Cheer up, Cutey!" pipes Scanlan. "They can't hang a guy for tryin'!"

Harold retrieves his hat, smoothes it out carefully and lets loose the gloomiest sigh I ever heard in my life.

"Have you a cigarette?" he asks sadly.

The Kid pulls out a deck, and Harold takes two, droppin' one in his pocket.

"Alas!" he remarks, strikin' a match on my shoe. "Alas!"

"When can the body be seen?" asks Scanlan. "And is it a church funeral or will they pull it off at the house?"

"This is no time for levity," mutters Harold. "I'm ruined!"

"I only got ten bucks with me," the Kid tells him, "but I'll part with – "

"Poof!" sneers Harold, wavin' his hands like a head waiter. "Money! I am not in need of that. Why, my father – " He breaks off to take the bill from the Kid's hand and shove it in his pocket. "Rather than offend you!" he explains. "No," he goes on, "this is a more serious matter than money. I – " He flicks away the cigarette, jumps up off the rock and gives us both the up and down. "I am going to take you two into my confidence," he says, "and perhaps you will help me."

"Go on!" encourages the Kid. "I'm all worked up – shoot it!"

"Well, then," says Harold, with the air of a guy pleadin' guilty to save his old father. "In the first place, my name is not J. Harold Cuthbert!"

There was no answer from us, and Harold seemed peeved because we had not collapsed at his confession.

"What is it?" I asks, when the silence begin to hurt the ears.

"Trout!" pipes Harold, bitterly. "Joe Trout!"

"Yeh?" says the Kid. "Well, what's the matter with that? What did you can it for?"

"Ha, ha!" hisses Harold, with a "curse you!" giggle. "Where could a man get with a name like that?"

"In the aquarium!" yells the Kid. "I knew you'd fall!"

Harold shakes his head and blows himself to another sigh.

"Imagine a moving picture leading man named Trout!" he goes on. "I changed my name as a sacrifice to the movies, for – "

"Just a minute!" I butts in. "On the level now, where did you get your movin' picture experience?"

"As assistant bookkeeper in a grocery store!" he answers. "Now you have it!"

"But you said your father was a big man in Wall Street!" I busts out.

"He is!" answers Harold, lookin' over at the Santa Fe. "They don't come any bigger. He's a traffic policeman at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street and stands six foot four in his socks!"

"Sweet Cookie!" shouts the Kid, and falls off the rock.

When we recover from that, Harold has smoked the other cigarette, and he nods for my box. Then he asks us do we want to hear the rest.

"If you don't tell it," says the Kid, "you'll never leave here alive! Hurry up, I'm dyin' to hear it!"

"Well," says the ex-J. Harold Cuthbert, "I am about to be married and at the eleventh hour Nemesis has gripped me. I told my fiancée that I was being featured in 'The End of the World' and that it would be exceedingly easy for me to get her a part in the picture – she having expressed a desire to that effect at various times. She will be here within the hour to watch me being filmed and to hold me to my promise to place her as leading woman opposite me." He stops and moans. "Gentlemen," he goes on, "picture for yourself the contretemps when she finds I am nothing but a super and that Genaro wouldn't give Sarah Bernhardt a job on a recommendation from me! My romance will be shattered, and the – the humiliation will kill me!"

There was a heavy silence for a minute, and then the Kid whistles.

"Well, pal," he says, "you have certainly balled things up a few, haven't you?"

Joe Trout just let loose another moan.

"Gimme one of them good cigarettes!" pipes the Kid to me. He lights it and looks over at friend Joe. "The first thing," he says, puffin' away; "the first thing, is this – just how much do you think of this dame, all jokes aside?"

Joe turns around and straightens up, for once in his life lookin' like the real thing.

"I love her!" he says. That was all – but the way he pulled it was a plenty!

The Kid grunts and tosses away the pill. Then he walks over to Joe and slaps him on the back.

"Listen!" he says. "You ain't a bad guy at that. I'm gonna give you somethin' I never took in my life – advice! Why don't you lay off lyin' about yourself, kid? Why don't you can that four-flush thing?"

The effect of them simple words on Joe was remarkable. He swung around on us so quick that we both ducked, thinkin' he was comin' back with a wallop – but his hands was sunk so deep in his coat pockets they liked to pushed through the linin' and his face was as hard and white as an iceberg.

"Because!" he shoots out through his teeth. "Because I can't!"

Y'know the change was so sudden, I remember lettin' out a little nervous laugh, and then sidesteppin' a vicious left the Kid sent at me. Scanlan had turned as serious as the other guy.

"What d'ye mean, you can't?" he says, grabbin' Joe by the arm and holdin' him fast. Joe's face showed how hard he was fightin' to keep from fallin' apart.

"You won't understand!" he answers in a hard voice. "But I'll tell you. The thing has grown upon me until I cannot shake it off! I guess I was born a liar and probably four-flushed my nurse when I was three days old. When I was a boy, my incessant lying, although it harmed no one but myself, kept me in countless scrapes. As I grew older, the habit grew stronger and I lost girls, jobs, friends and opportunities with breath-taking rapidity. Time after time I have sworn to rid myself of the thing and speak nothing but the undiluted truth, and the first time I open my mouth I find myself unconsciously telling the most astounding falsehoods about myself with an ease that nauseates me!" He tore himself loose from the Kid and kicked a innocent tomato can down the canyon. "I know I'm nothing but a big four-flusher," he winds up, "and I can't help it!"

Right then and there I warmed up to Joe Trout like I never had before. After all, Miss Vincent had the right dope – he was nothin' but a big kid at that, and any guy that will come right out in public and admit he's a false alarm, deserves credit!

"Well," he says after a minute, "I suppose you're both through with me now, eh?"

"Do I look like a quitter?" demands the Kid.

"I'm still here, ain't I?" I chimes in.

Joe coughs and took hold of our hands.

"Thanks!" he mutters. "And now – "

"Listen!" interrupts the Kid. "I got the whole thing doped out. When is this dame of yours due to hit Film City?"

"She'll be here on that one o'clock train," moans Joe.

"Fine!" says the Kid. "Now get this! De Vronde is supposed to do a fall from a horse in 'The End of the World' and the big yellow bum won't do it. They're lookin' for some guy that will take his place, just for that one flash, see? Now suppose I fix it so you get that chance and when the dame comes on, there you are playin' the lead as far as she can see, in the best part of the frolic. How's that?"

I thought Joe was gonna kiss him!

"I'll never forget it!" he hollers. "You have saved my life! What can I do to repay you?"

"Stop four-flushing," comes back the Kid, "and be on the level!"

"I'll do it, if it kills me!" promises Joe – and I don't know whether he meant the fall or the other.

"Can you ride a horse?" the Kid asks him as we start back.

"Can I ride a horse?" repeats Joe, stoppin' short. "What a question! Why at home I was the champion – "

"Now, now!" butts in the Kid. "There you go again!"

"Pardon me!" says Joe, gettin' red – and he quits!

Well, the Kid fixed it all right, so's Joe could double for De Vronde in that one place where he did the fall. I don't know how he did it any more than I know how Edison come to think of the phonograph, but he did! All my suspicions as to who the dame was come true when Gladys hops off the one o'clock train that afternoon. I seen her talkin' to Eddie Duke near the African Desert, and I immediately went scoutin' around for Joe, because Eddie liked him the same way the brewers is infatuated with the Anti-Saloon League and I knowed if Eddie got a chance to harpoon Joe with Gladys, he'd do that thing.

About half a hour later, Genaro asks me to go over and find Potts, because they're ready to start shootin' the picture and when I got near the hotel I seen a couple of people blockin' the little narrow passage in back of it. They was Gladys O'Hara and Joe Trout and when I got close up I heard Joseph talkin'. He was goin' like a house on fire and his little old lyin' apparatus was hittin' on all cylinders and runnin' smooth without a break. He explains to Gladys that he went on only in the important part of the picture which she would see in a minute, and that De Vronde was only one of the cheap help who played the part while he was restin' for the big scene. As soon as that come up – and he said the whole picture was built around it – they give De Vronde the gate and in went the darin' Joe.

He was all dressed up in a Stetson hat, a cute little yellow silk handkerchief twisted around his manly neck and more chaps than any cow puncher ever wore on his legs outside of a movie. He looked like what he'd liked to have been.

" – and not only that," he winds up, "but they are going to feature my name on all the advertising for the picture!"

"Is that all?" asks Gladys in a queer little voice.

Joe looked surprised. I guess it was the first time anybody had asked for more!

"Well – no!" he starts off again briskly. "Of course, I am – "

"Wait!" says Gladys, grabbin' his arm. "Don't tell me any more lies! They are not featuring you in this or any other picture! You are not the leading man, you are only a super! Your father is not a millionaire and you cannot get me a job with the Maudlin Moving Picture Company! You're simply a big four-flusher and that lets you out!"

Say! On the level, I thought Joe was gonna pass away on his feet! If I was give to faintin', I'd have been stretched out cold, myself. He got white and then he got red, then he got white again and red again for fully a minute. He tried eighteen times by actual count to say something but that well known tongue of his had laid down at last and quit! He couldn't even raise a whisper.

"I knew you were four-flushin' the first time you started to hand me that stuff!" goes on Gladys, sweetly. "I happen to know the folks here, includin' the leadin' man, De Vronde. He was hangin' around that shirtwaist counter before you knew whether they made pictures here or sponge cake. Also, some of your friends come over from time to time and tipped me off about you, so that I was all set when you started!"

Joe whirls around on her at that, and although this bird had beat me to the wire with Gladys, I felt sorry for him right then. The poor kid was hangin' on the ropes waitin' for somebody to throw in the sponge.

"If you knew all that," he says, kinda choked, "why – why did you let me come over and continue to – to mislead you?"

Gladys coughs and places three or four stray hairs exactly back of her little white ear, gazin' at her wrist watch like it's the first time she ever seen one, and she's wonderin' can it really go. The big boob stands there lookin' at her and the chance of a couple of lifetimes is slippin' away. What? Say, listen! I don't know much about women – fighters is my line – but there was a look on Gladys's face that I'd seen Genaro work two hours one time to put on Miss Vincent's when they was takin' a big picture. So you can figure she wasn't registerin' hate!

"Well, why?" demands Joe again.

"This stuff is all new to me," says Gladys, with a sigh, "but I guess I've got to do it!" She gazes at the ground and gets kinda red. "It was not your conversation that made the hit with me!" she winds up softly.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," pipes Senseless Joe.

"Heavens!" remarks Gladys. "There's enough concrete between your neck and your hat to build a bridge over the bay! I can safely say you're the first man I ever proposed to, but somebody's got to do it and I guess I'm the goat!"

"What!" screams Joe, comin' to life at last. "You – you – forgive – you – " The poor simp gets all excited and once again he can't talk and – I don't blame him. You never seen Gladys, and you don't know how she looked right then!

"Say!" says Gladys. "Am I bein' kidded or – "

Joe might have been a tramp as a movie lover, but take it from me, as the real thing he was no slouch! I hadda stand there and watch it, because I couldn't get past till they got away and if they'd ever seen me, I guess Joe would have bought a gun. Finally, they break, Gladys pushin' Joe away and holdin' him off.

"You've got to promise me you'll stop lyin' and four-flushin'!" she tells him. "Tell the truth and don't kid yourself that you'd have been President, if you hadn't been jobbed. That stuff is poor and will get you nowheres. Make good and you won't have to tell anybody about it – it'll be in the papers! As far as I can see, the best thing about you right now is ME! If you can't get over with that, I'll see that you do!"

"We'll get married to-night!" yelps Joe. "There's a minister in Film City and – "

"Don't crowd me!" interrupts Gladys, lettin' herself be kissed. "Do you promise?"

"Anything!" grins Joe.

"Just what are you supposed to do in this picture?" she asks him.

"Fall off a horse!" says Joe.

"Is that all?" asks Gladys.

Joe nods.

"Well," Gladys tells him, "you won't do it! I don't want no crippled bridegroom at my weddin'. Now listen to me! If you could write that stuff you've been wastin' on the air around here, you ought to make a pretty good press agent. Mr. Potts, the man who owns the company and the fellow you or your father never palled around with, has a man on his payroll named Struther. He's head of what they call the publicity department, it says so on ten of his cards I have. He once claimed he'd do anything for me in such a loud voice that the floorwalker had to speak to him. I'm goin' over to the office now and ask him to give you a job back in New York. To be perfectly truthful with you, that's what I came over here for to-day in the first place!"

"But – but," stammers Joe. "I can't have you asking favors for me, Gladys, and – and, why New York?"

"Because," she says, "that's where I come from, and I want to look at it again – I'm simply crazy to yell down a dumbwaiter and throw a quarter in my own gas meter!"

Well – that's about all. They had a big weddin' right in the middle of Film City and everybody sent in and bought 'em a present. Potts got a flash at Gladys, moans regretfully and has the ceremony filmed, givin' the result to Joe as a special gift. Of course Gladys got Joe that job. That dame could have got frankfurters and sourkraut in Buckingham Palace! Before they left for New York, I tried Joe out.

"It'll be terrible here, when you're gone!" I says, "because you know more about makin' movies than Rockefeller does about oil."

Joe shakes his head and grins.

"No!" he says. "I guess I don't know much about anything!"

I pronounced him cured to myself and shook his hand. The Kid went to the train with him and his bride. I didn't feel up to seein' that guy goin' away with Gladys.

I met the Kid as he was comin' up from the railroad station, and seein' he was laughin', I asked him if the happy pair got off all right.

"Yeh!" he says. "Everything went fine. Me and Miss Vincent waited till the train was pullin' out. Gladys was inside and Joe was standin' on the steps of the Pullman, talkin'. Just before the thing pulled out, I shook Joe's hand and said I hoped he got past in New York, because it was a big burg and a tough one for losers." The Kid stops and laughs some more.

"Well," I says, "what's the joke?"

"Sweet Papa!" says the Kid, wipin' his eyes. "Joe's face lights all up and that old glitter comes back in his eyes!

"'Make good?' he yells to me. 'Well, I ought to make good – my father owns half the town, and I was the biggest thing in it when I left!'"

CHAPTER V
"EXIT, LAUGHING"

Every time I see one of them big, fat, dignified guys that looks like they have laid somebody eight to five they can go through life without smilin' once, I wonder just how much they'd give in American money to be able to put on a suit of pink pajamas and walk down Fifth Avenue some crowded afternoon, leadin' a green elephant by a string!

I'll bet they's many a bank president, brigadier-general and what not, that would part with their right eye if they could only force themselves to let down for five minutes, can this dignity thing and give a imitation of what a movie comedian thinks is humor. The best proof of this is that the first chance any of them birds gets —that's just what they do!

Y'know, you've seen in the papers lots of times where Archibald Van Hesterfeld has been among the starters in the bazaar for the relief of the heat prostration victims in Iceland, or words to that effect. Or, if it wasn't Archibald it might have been General Galumpus or Commodore Fedink – or all of them. Away down at the bottom of the page, if it's a copy of the Succotash Crossing Bugle, or right up in the headlines, if it's a big town sheet, after readin' what dignity and so forth the "distinguished guests lent to the affair," you'll see that at midnight they was large doin's on the dance floor. It is even bein' whispered around that the general, commodore or governor fox-trotted with the girls from the Follies and one-stepped with such of the fair sex as cared practically nothin' for the neighbors. Along about the time the milkman was sayin', "Well, here's another day!", the well known distinguished guests was actin' like a guy who knows a Harvard man does, after they have beat Yale or vice versa.

One of them birds acts so dignified at the office all day that not even the most darin' of his clerks would think of a joke in the same room with him. He'll breeze home on baby's birthday with a trick lion or a jumpin' jack for the kid, and spend three or four hours on the dinin'-room floor makin' it go, while friend infant wishes to Heaven father would call it a day and commence readin' the papers, so's he could toy with it for a while.

The rest of the family stands around and tells each other that the old man must have a good heart at that, because look how he goes out of his way to amuse the baby. Father growls up at 'em and prays that they'll all go to bed, includin' the one that's just learnin' to walk, so's he can be let alone to really enjoy the thing himself!

We're all babies at heart, and the reason most of us don't admit it and give in to our childish desires is because we're afraid the people in the next flat will think we're nutty or have found a way to beat prohibition. Now and then some extry brave guy sneers at the neighbors and lets himself loose, and shortly afterward a committee is appointed to look after his money. Finally, he is shipped f.o.b. to some sanitarium where a passin' nod from the head doctor is listed at twenty-five bucks and where the victim is fed strange foods and tucked in bed at the devilish hour of nine.

This is naturally very discouragin' to the rest of us which was about to tear loose ourselves, so we sigh, growl at the universe – and lay off!

I feel sorry for the guys that have to have their comedy served up to them in disguise, like lobster a la Newburg, for instance. These birds claim they like stuff you got to study for five minutes before you get it, and then at a given signal you pull a nice lady-like laugh, the while remarkin', "How subtle!" You don't want to cackle too loud or the people across the hall will get the idea that you're a tribe of lowbrows, and it'll get said around that your great-grandfather was known to go in hysterics over the funny sheet of the Sunday papers!

They think the vaudeville or movie cut-up that does the funny falls is a vulgar lunatic who ought to be in jail, and their idea of the height of humor is the way a iceman pronounces décolleté, or somethin' like that.

I like my own comedy straight! I want it to wallop me right on the laugher, so's I can get it the first time and giggle myself sick. I'm extry strong for the loud and common guffaw, and I claim that because I go into hysterics over the fat-man-on-the-banana-peel stuff, it don't prove that I'm a heavy drinker, beat my wife and will probably wind up in jail. On general principles I'm infatuated with the bird that can make me laugh, and I don't care how he does it as long as he makes good. I care not whether he laughs with me or for me, as long as they's a snicker in there somewheres. I can even stand him laughin' at me, because, if his stuff is funny enough – I'll laugh too!

No guy who can look around him, no matter how things is breakin' for him and see somethin' to laugh at as the mob goes by, is beat. That bird is just gettin' ready to pull a new punch from somewheres and he's the baby you want to watch! The guy that can't see nothin' funny in life, whether he's eight or eighty, is through!

Me and Kid Scanlan saved one of them guys. His name was Jason Van Ness.

I was sittin' in Genaro's office one afternoon about seven or eight months after me and the Kid had decided to give the movies a boost, when the door opens and in comes a guy which at first glance I figured must at least be the governor of the state. He's there with a cane, a high hat and the general makeup of a Wall Street broker in a play where he won't forgive his son for marryin' the ingenue. Also, he's built all over like a heavyweight champ, except his face, the same runnin' to the dignified lines of the bloodhounds, them big, flabby, over-lappin' jaws – get me?

"I say, old chap – are you Mister Genaro?" he pipes.

"Nope!" I says. "I'm Johnny Green, manager of Kid Scanlan, welterweight champion of the world."

"Really!" he remarks.

"Well," I says, "d'ye wanna see the contract or will we go over to a notary so's I can swear to it?"

At that he frowns and waves a finger at me.

"Come, my man," he says, "no chaffing now! You may tell Mister Genaro I have arrived! Of course you know who I am?"

That "my man!" thing was a trifle more than I could take! I throws my feet up on Genaro's desk and give this guy a long, careless once over, puttin' everything I had on the stare.

"I ain't got no more idea who you are," I tells him finally, "than a oyster has of roller-skatin'. Who are you? I never seen your face on no postage stamps!"

"Oh, I say!" he busts out, registerin' wild indignation. "Don't you ever read the newspapers?"

"Sure!" I says. "But then, escapin' convicts don't get much space in 'em any more! At that, I think I know you now, though."

"I should think you jolly well would!" he comes back, calmin' down some. "Why – "

"Yes!" I goes on. "I got you. I've met so many from your lodge it's funny I didn't recognize the high signs right away. You're a big, tinhorn four-flusher!"

Sweet Cookie!

His face did a Georgie Cohan, gettin' red, white and blue by turns, and he pawed the air, gaspin' for breath like a fat piano mover. Before he can get set for a comeback, they's a loud crash outside the door, followed by the well known dull thud. In another minute Kid Scanlan walks in, draggin' somethin' after him by the back of the neck.

"Look what I found!" chirps the Kid, droppin' the thing on the floor.

"By Jove!" squeals the big guy. "He's killed my dresser!"

I got up from the chair and took a flash. Sure enough, the thing the Kid had dragged in was a human bein'. He was a long, lean guy, lookin' like he'd been over here about long enough to tell the judge that George Washington discovered America, was president now and stopped the Civil War, and can he please have his first papers, so's he can vote against suffrage.

His one good eye opens and examines the room. Then he hops off the floor, shoots a hand inside his pocket and yanks it out with a thing that looked like a undeveloped spear.

"Sapristi!" he remarks loudly – and makes a dive at the Kid.

The chair I throwed at him was wasted, because Scanlan stepped aside and flattened the assassin with a left hook to the jaw. The big guy gives one yell and rushes out of the office.

"Who's your friend?" I asks the Kid, pointin' to the sleepin' beauty on the floor.

The Kid glares down at the body and prods it with his foot.

"The big stiff!" he says. "I should have murdered him!"

"Well," I tells him soothin'ly, "it ain't too late yet! What started the mêlée?"

He sits on the side of the desk and lights a cigarette.

"This hick is standin' outside here," he begins, "when I come along as peaceful as the Swiss navy. I see right away he's a Eyetalian, and I'm anxious to show him I can talk his chatter so – "

"Wait a minute!" I butts in. "Since when have you been able to speak Eyetalian?"

"What?" he snorts. "Another one, eh? Ain't Miss Vincent been teachin' me English, French, Eyetalian and what to do with the oyster fork?"

"Is she?" I comes back. "That's all new to me. The last flash I got you was just takin' up how to enter a room!"

"Well, I'm past that," he explains, "and next week I begin on manners. Anyhow, I see this boob standin' there, and I says to myself, here's a chance to pull a little Eyetalian. So with that I stands in front of him and says, 'Bomb Germo, Senorita – a vostrican salute!'"

The Kid stops and bangs his fist down on the table.

"What d'ye think the big hick said?" he asks me.

I passed.

"He grins at me, waggles his shoulders and pipes, 'No spika da Engleesh!"

"'What d'ye mean English!' I says. 'That ain't English, that's Eyetalian, Stupid! Bomb Germo Senorita!'

"'No spika da Engleesh,' he pipes again.

"I grabs him by the shoulder and swing him around.

"'What part of Italy was you born in?' I inquires. 'Hoboken?'

"'No spika da Engleesh!' he grins.

"By this time my goat was runnin' around wild. I grabbed his other shoulder and looked him in the eye.

"'I'll give you one more chance,' I says; 'cut the comedy now and come through or you're gonna have some bad luck. Bomb Germo Senorita!'

"'No spika da Engleesh!' he says.

"With that, havin' took all a human bein' could stand, I let him fall!"

"Just a minute!" I says, as Scanlan starts for the door. "I want to ask you a question about the Eyetalian language, as long as you know so much about it. Just what does Bomb Germo mean?"

The Kid stops and scratches his chin.

"To tell you the truth," he admits, "I don't know!"

At that the door opens and in blows Genaro with the big dignified guy and "Bomb Germo" arises from the floor again, rubbin' the back of his head.

"What's a mat?" asks Genaro, lookin' very excited from me to the Kid. "Why you knock him down Meester Van Ness bureau?"

"Dresser!" corrects Van Ness, puttin' a round piece of glass over one eye and glarin' at us.

"'Scuse a me!" pipes Genaro, makin' a bow. "Why you knock him down Meester Van Ness dresser?"

The Kid growls at "Bomb Germo" who hisses back at him like a snake and backs out of range of that left.

"I asked him 'Bomb Germo,'" explains Scanlan, "and he started to kid me!"

"Bomb Germo? Bomb Germo?" repeats Genaro. "What is she that Bomb Germo?"

Scanlan grunts at him in disgust.

"You're a fine Eyetalian, you are!" he snorts. "I'll bet you and that other guy don't know whether spaghetti is a outfielder or a race horse!"

Van Ness removes the one-cylinder eyeglass for a minute and cleans it with his "for display only" handkerchief.

"Maybe," he remarks. "Maybe the fellow means to say 'Buona Juerno!'"

"Oh!" grins Genaro. "Si! He'sa mean 'Good morning!' No?"

"Yes!" says the Kid. "Correct! Step to the head of the class. I told that to Stupid there and he says, 'No spika da Engleesh!'"

"Well," chirps Genaro, pattin' the Kid on the back, "let's all be the friend now, no? What's the use hava the fight?" He turns to Van Ness and takes his hand, "Meester Van Ness," he goes on, "thisa Meester Kid Scanlan. He'sa tougha nut – but nica fel'. He'sa fighting champion of the world. He'sa taka his fista so," he stops and waves his arms around, "everybody she'sa falla down!" He swings around on the Kid. "Meester Kid Scanlan," he pants, "thisa Meester Van Ness. He'sa greata bigga actor. Oh, of the A numbera seven!"

"Yeh?" says the Kid, registerin' "I-should-worry!" and gazin' over at "Bomb Germo." "Well, that ain't my fault, is it? Who's the other guy?"

"Guy?" says Genaro. "Whata guy?"

"The phoney wop!" pipes the Kid, pointin' to the long, thin bird.

"Oh, heem!" snorts Genaro, snappin' his fingers. "He'sa nobody. Justa what you call the dresser for the granda Meester Van Ness."

"He's got a name, ain't he?" asks the Kid.

"Joosta Tony," answers Genaro.

"Good enough!" comes back Scanlan, walking across the room. "Hey, Tony!" he says. "They tell me you claim to be a Eyetalian."

"That'sa right!" pipes Tony, forgettin' himself and scowlin'.