me into
town, though, and let me take you to hear some real, bang up, classical
music."

"Not me!" grunts Spiller. "I can make all the music I want myself."

"How about plays, then?" says Chunk. "Now, wouldn't you like to see the
best show on Broadway?"

"No, sir," says he, prompt and vigorous. "I ain't never seen any shows,
and don't want to seen one, either."

And, say, along about that time, what with the stale cookin' and bilge
water scents that was comin' from the stuffy cabin, and this charmin'
mood that old Spiller was in, I was gettin' restless. "Say, Chunk," I
breaks in, "you may be enjoyin' this, all right; but I've got enough.
It's me for shore! Goin' along?"

"Not yet," says he. "Have the boat come back for me in about an hour."

It was nearer two, though, before he shows up again, and his face is
fairly beamin'.

"Well," says I, "did you adopt the old pirate, or did he adopt you?"

"Wait and see," says he, noddin' his head cocky. "Anyway, he's promised
to show up at my office to-morrow afternoon."

"You must be stuck on entertaining a grouchy old lemon like that," says
I.

"But he's a genius," says Chunk. "Just what I've been looking for as a
head liner in a new vaudeville house I'm opening next month."

"What!" says I. "You ain't thinkin' of puttin' that old sour face on the
stage, are you? Say, you're batty!"

"Batty, am I?" says Chunk, kind of swellin' up. "All right, I'll show
you. I've made half a million, my boy, by just such batty moves as that.
It's because I know people, know 'em through and through, from what
they'll pay to hear, to the ones who can give 'em what they want. I'm a
discoverer of talent, Shorty. Where do I get my stars from? Pick 'em up
anywhere. I don't go to London and Paris and pay fancy salaries. I find
my attractions first hand, sign' em up on long contracts, and take the
velvet that comes in myself. That's my way, and I guess I've made good."

"Maybe you have," says I; "but I'm guessin' this is where you stub your
toe. Hot line that'll be for the head of a bill, won't it--an accordion
player? Think you can get that across?"

"Think!" says Chunk, gettin' indignant as usual, because someone suggests
he can fall down on anything. "Why, I'm going to put that over twice a
day, to twelve hundred-dollar houses! No, I don't think; I know!"

And just for that it wouldn't have taken much urgin' for me to have put
up a few yellow ones that he was makin' a wrong forecast.