s, and damages to
pay when the thing's thrashed out in court. You'll have to retake this
whole picture. Nice bunch of useless expense, I must say, when I've
been chasing nickels off the expense account of this company and
sitting up nights nursing profits! We'll have to cut salaries now, to
break even on this fluke. I've left the payroll alone so far. That's
the worst of a break like this. The whole company has got to pay for
every blunder from now on."

Luck's eyes hardened while he listened. He did not call his work a
blunder, and the charge did not sit well coming from another.

"Buy off Bently Brown," he advised crisply. "Offer him a new contract,
naming this stuff as comedy. Advertise them as the famous comedies of
Bently Brown, the well-known author. Show him some good publicity dope
along that line. Give him the credit of making the stories live ones.
This series will be a money-maker, and a big one, if ever they reach the
screen. You're old enough in the business to know that, Mart. You saw how
this film hit the bunch, and you know what it takes to rouse any
enthusiasm in the projection room. And take it from me, Mart--this is
straight!--that's the only way in God's world to make that series take
hold at all. As drama the stuff is hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. It's
only by giving it the twist I gave it that it will get over. You do that,
Mart. You kid this Bently Brown into being featured as the humorist of
the age, and pay him a little something for swallowing his disappointment
as a dramatic author. I'll go ahead with my boys, and we'll deliver the
goods. You do that, and you'll be setting up nights counting profits
instead of nursing them!"

Martinson began to stir up the litter on his desk,--another bad-weather
sign. "I can't waste time talking nonsense," he snapped. "I've got plenty
to do without that. That stuff has got to be retaken; every foot of it,
if you've gone on burlesquing the action. I happen to know that Brown
wouldn't consider such a compromise. You've made a bad break, and I
believe you made the first one when you brought that bunch of cowboys
back with you. If they can do straight dramatic acting, all right; if
not, you'd better let them out and start over with professionals."

For a peaceable man, Martinson was angry. He had taken some trouble in
smoothing down the ruffled temper of Bently Brown, even before viewing
the trial run of the picture. Martinson hated disputes as a cat hates to