el it. Would
such a tremendous ability necessarily be good? Something about its
immensity frightened me, and I didn't care to consider it for my own use
at all.

I said, "Don't get me wrong. If this is what's going into your
playwriting, I'm all for it. And what you do with your money is your own
business. What do you propose?"

"Can you absorb more of my work?" he asked abruptly.

"I'm your agent, aren't I? I'll peddle it if I can't use it myself," I
told him, not that I was so eager for the broker's 10% so much as I
wanted to have the pick of his output for my own productions.

I didn't know what I was taking on. He turned out his third play in just
ten days. _Ten days_, I said. I read to the bottom of page two and
decided to hell with peddling this one. I'd produce it myself.

Before I got into second gear on _Beach Boy_, however, Hillary sends a
messenger over with _Madame President_, a satire so sharp I knew it
would make _Call Me Madame_ look like _Little Women_.

What do you do? There are just so many legitimate theaters in the city.

While I'm pondering this and negotiating with a Hollywood agent to maybe
take _Beach Boy_ off my hands, along comes _Red Rice_, an epic novel of
Communist China that out-Bucked Pearl a hundred heart-wrenches to one.

One phone call sold that one to McMullin, and when they got a look at
the manuscript they raised the advance to $10,000. This was not bad for
a first novel, and I didn't resent my $1000 agent's fee.

Before the summer was over I was about ready to give up show business
and become a one-author agent. Hillary was keeping four secretaries busy
taking dictation and transcribing. He never researched, never revised,
never even glanced at the copy. I've known some prolific writers, but
none could grind it out like Hillary Hardy.

And it was good! Every piece was better than the last. His characters
were strictly 3-D right on paper, and word pictures! When he mentioned
bedbugs, you itched and bled; when the villain slugged the hero a
low-blow, you felt it in your guts; and when boy got girl--brother, turn
up the house-lights, quick.

I got so involved trying to produce five plays at once, making dickers
with publishers and motion picture studios, fighting off television
people and answering mail demanding a chance at foreign rights, that it
was mid-November before I realized that it was over a month since I'd
heard from the golden goose.

In fact Ellie drew my att