ter despair!" at him, he could of just looked natural
and they'd of thought he was another Mansfield.

And he's _young_! Get that?

"Pardon me!" he says, takin' off his hat. "Where can I find Mister De
Vronde?"

The Kid puts his hand on his arm and swings him around,

"You'll pro'bly find him over behind the Street Scene in Venice," he
tells him. "If he ain't there, look around the Sahara Desert for
him--know him when you see him?"

The other guy looks at us for a minute like he thinks he's bein'
kidded. Then he pulls a slow, tired grin.

"I think so," he says. "Thanks!"

When he walks away, I turns to Miss Vincent.

"That's prob'ly Cutey De Vronde's new guardeen," I says. "I guess he--"

"You and the Kaiser is the same kind of guessers!" butts in the Kid.
"He guessed we wouldn't scrap! If that guy we was just talkin' to is a
lady's maid for Cutey, I can sing like Caruso!"

"He doesn't look like a valet," says Miss Vincent, kinda doubtful.

"I don't blame him!" says the Kid. "And lemme tell you, he never got
them muscles from brushin' clothes and buttonin' vests. I felt his arm
when I swung him around that time, and this guy is just about as soft
as the Rock of Gibraltar!"

"I can't understand," says Miss Vincent, "how a strong, healthy man can
be a valet--ugh!" she winds up, with a little shiver.

"That's easy," sneers the Kid. "A _man_ can't!"

Well, a man _did_! Gimme your ears, as the deaf guy said.

The next mornin' it turns out that I can guess like a rabbit can run.
The new entry on the payroll borrehs a match from me, and durin' the
tete-a-tete that folleyed, I find out that his name is John R. Adams
and, as far as the world in general and America in particular is
concerned, it could of been George Q. Mud. Durin' the lifetime of
twenty-nine years he's been on earth, he's tried his hand at everything
from bankin' to bartenderin', and so far the only thing he's been a
success at is bein' a failure. At that he leads the league. And now,
to top it all off, he's a valet for a movie hero!

"It's all a matter of luck!" he says, bitterly. "A man who tries these
days is not an ambitious hustler, but a _pest_ to the powers above him!
I defy a man to stand on his own feet and make good without influence.
It's not _what_ do you know any more, but _who_ do you know! I've been
a bookkeeper, a printer, a salesman, a chauffeur, a bank clerk, and,
yes, even a chorus man. At every one of those