takin' a long count. Now
whether he needs to be helped or kicked to his feet, I don't know, but
I'm the baby that's gonna stand him up!"

"Well," I tells him, "go to it! But the thing I can't figure, is what
d'you care if he gets over or not--who pays _you_ off on it?"

He looks me over for a minute, registerin' deep thought.

"I'm gonna give you the works!" he says finally. "And if you ever
mention a word of this to anybody, they'll have to identify your body
afterwards by that green vest you got!"

"Rockefeller's three dollars short of havin' enough money to make me
tell!" I says.

"Fair enough!" says Duke. "Did you notice that strange dame which was
with Miss Vincent in the car just now?"

"The blonde that would of made Marc Anthony throw away Cleopatra's
'phone number?" I asks. "Yeh--I noticed her. Easily that!"

"Well," he says, "this dame, which was such a knockout to you, is Miss
Dorothy Devine. When her father died last year, she become a orphan."

"Well, that's tough," I says. "Me and the Kid will kick in with any
amount in reason and--"

"Halt!" said Eddie. "Her dear old father only left her a pittance of
fifty thousand a year and two-thirds control of the company we're all
workin' for out here. Now besides bein' several jumps ahead of the
average dame in looks, Dorothy is a few centuries ahead of the movies
in ideas. She claims we're all wrong, and she's gonna revolutionize
the watch-'em-move photo industry. That's what she's here for now!"

"Well," I says after a bit, "what d'ye expect _me_ to do--bust out
cryin'?"

"Not yet!" he says. "I'll tell you when. Accordin' to Dorothy, all
the pictures we put out are rotten. Our heroes and villains are
plucked alive from dime novels and is everything but true to life. Our
heroines belong in fairy tales and oughta be let stay there. _She_
claims that no beautiful girl with more money than the U. S. Mint would
fall for the handsome lumberjack, and that no guy who couldn't do
nothin' better than punch cows would become boss of the ranch through
love of the owner's daughter. All that stuff's the bunk, she says.
Her dope is that a real man would boost himself to the top, girl or no
girl, and the woman never lived which could put a man over, if he
didn't have the pep himself. As a finish, she tells me that no
healthy, intelligent girl would stand for the typical movie hero. A
bird which would go out and ride roughshod over all the villains