usiness!" he snaps. He gives the Kid the up and down.
"Champion of the world!" he sneers. "Huh!"

"Go 'way!" the Kid warns him. "I got enough work yesterday!"

"I think you're a big bluff!" persists the gloomy guy, puttin' up his
hands and circlin' around the Kid. "Come on and fight or acknowledge
yore master!"

He makes a pass at the Kid and the Kid steps inside of it and drops
him, just as a big auto comes roarin' past and stops. Out hops friend
Potts, the guy that practically give us our start in the movies. In
other words, the thirty thousand dollar kid!

"Well, well!" he pipes, lookin' at the gloomy guy on the turf and then
at us. "What does this mean, sir? Are you trying to annihilate all my
employees? Do you know you cost me a small fortune yesterday by
ruining that Richard the Third picture?"

"I'm sorry, boss," the Kid tells him, proddin' Gloomy Gus carelessly
with his foot, "but all your hired men jumped at me at once and a guy
has to protect himself, don't he?"

"Nonsense!" grunts Potts. "You assaulted Mr. De Vronde and temporarily
disabled several of my best people! I had made all arrangements for
the release of that Shakespeare picture in two days, and you have put
me in a terrible hole!"

"Now, listen," I butts in, "I tried to--"

"Not a word!" he cuts me off, wavin' his hands. "One of the camera
men, another infernal idiot, kept turning the crank while this
disgraceful brawl was at its height and I have proof of your villainy
on film! I'll use it as a basis to sever my contract with you and--"

"Slow up!" I says. "If you lay down on the thirty thousand iron men,
I'll pull a suit on you!"

Along comes a guy and touches Potts on the arm.

"They're waiting for you in the projecting room," he says.

"Come with me--both of you!" barks Potts, "and see for yourself the
damage you caused!"

We followed him around to a little dark room with three or four chairs
in it and a sheet on one wall. De Vronde, Miss Vincent, Duke and
Genaro are there waitin' for us.

Well, they start to show the picture, and everything is all right up to
the time the Kid busted into the drama. Now I hadn't seen nothin' out
of the way at the time it actually happened, but here in this little
room it was a riot when they showed it on the sheet. You could see
Scanlan wallop De Vronde and then in another second the massacre is on
full blast!

On the level, it was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time.