lesladies and bankers sittin' around us gasps out loud, he speaks up
and says it's all faked with a trick camera and they ain't none of them
really doin' nothin' at all. He claims he's got a friend which used to
sell tickets for a movie theatre and he told him all about it. The
more stunts the hero of this picture does, the worse the lovely
Wilkinson gets, and it ain't long before he has captured the goat of
friend Alex, which is champion moving picture fan of the United States
and Coney Island. When the lovely Wilkinson claims that nobody in real
life could do the tricks this movie hero was pullin' off, Alex butts in.

"How do _you_ know them things can't be done?" he says.

"Anybody but an idiot could see that!" says Wilkinson. "The idea of
trying to make intelligent people believe that this fellow with his
hair brushed back like a rabbit's could sell one of those wealthy
millionaires gold mines and the like. Why, he'd be thrown out of the
office and--"

"No wonder you ain't a success!" butts in Alex.

The lovely Wilkinson shows a little spirit.

"How do you know I ain't a success?" he says. "I'm making my good
twenty-five dollars each and every week."

"Yeh?" sneers Alex. "I once heard tell of a feller which was makin'
thirty, but I ain't sure of it because none of the newspapers said a
word about it." He turns around and lowers his voice on account of
some hisses comin' from fans in the back. "Look here!" he says. "All
jokes to one side, they ain't nothin' that this feller done in the
picture that can't be done by anybody. A man can do anything he wants
to, _anything_, they ain't no limit--if he's got enough sand to fight
his way through whatever stands in his way! I don't care what the
thing is he wants, a man can get anything if he keeps tryin' and--"

"You hate yourself, don't you?" butts in the lovely Wilkinson,
peevishly. "I suppose you think _you_ could do anything--"

"I do not," says Alex. "I _know_ it! I ain't talkin' about myself
though, I'm talkin' about you. You're a young married feller with a
sweet, beautiful, and, for all I know, sensible little wife. You
people are just startin' out, and I want to see you make good. I think
you got the stuff in you somewheres, but not to be rough or nothin' of
the sort, I must say you have been a success at concealin' it so far.
Twenty-five dollars a week ain't enough wages for nobody--as long as
they's somebody makin' twenty-six--understand