o do just that! It'll cost about sixty bucks to import this bird
here and when he gets here, it's nothin' but another mouth to feed. If
I had half the nerve of that big stiff De Vronde, I'd take a German
quartette over to London and make 'em sing the 'Wacht Am Rhein' in
front of Buckin'ham Palace!"

"He claims this valet's a friend of his, too," says the Kid. "I'll bet
he'll turn out to be another one of them sweet spirits of nitre boys,
eh?"

"If he is," growls Duke, "it won't be two days before he'll be sick and
tired of the movie game, you can bet two green certificates on that!"

A week later, me and the Kid is standin' near the entrance to Film City
talkin' to Miss Vincent, when a young feller blows in through the gates
and walks up to us. He's one of them tall birds, as thin as a dime,
and his clothes has been brushed right into the grain. When the light
hit him, I seen they was places where even the grain had quit. His
shoes is so run over at the heels that they'd of fit nice and snug into
a car track and he'd just gone and shaved himself raw.

One good look and this bird checked up as a member in good standin' of
one of the oldest lodges in the world. They got a branch in every
city, and they was organized around the time that Adam and Eve quit the
Garden of Eden for a steam-heated flat. The name of this order is "The
Shabby Genteels."

But what transfixed the eye and held the attention, as we remark in the
workhouse, was this guy's face. I might say he had the most
inconsistent set of features I ever seen off the screen. He ain't a
thousand miles from bein' good-looking and his chin is well cut and
square, like at one time he'd been willin' to hustle for his wants and
fight for 'em once he got 'em, but that time ain't _now_! His eyes is
the tip-off. They don't look straight into yours when he talks--the
liar's best bet!--or they don't look at the ground, but they stare off
over your shoulder into the air, like he's seein' somethin' _you_
can't, and it ain't pleasant to look at.

I've seen that look on beaten fighters, when the winner is settin'
himself for the knockout, and I've seen it on the faces of other guys,
when some smug-jowled judge has reached into their lives and took ten
or twenty years as a deposit on what they'll do with the rest. It's a
look you don't forget right away, take it from me!

Well, this feller that's walkin' up to us had that look. If a director
had yelled "Regis