"No!" snarls Duke. "But I'll concede that as an actor you're a crackerjack bartender! D'ye mean to tell me that you got away with that kind of stuff in the studios back East?"
"I introduced it!" says Harold, proudly. "As a director for some of the largest film companies in the world, I have put on hundreds of--"
"The only thing you ever put on was your hat!" interrupts Duke. "And I bet that give you trouble on account of the size of your head. I suppose you're gonna tell me that you're also a scenario writer, a camera man and the guy that got Nero's permission to film the burnin' of Rome, eh?"
"The last is something of an exaggeration," pipes Harold, "but as far as the other things you mentioned are concerned, I must confess that there are few people in the business who have approached me!"
"Ain't that rich?" whispers the Kid to me. "You got to hand it to this bird!"
"You'd be a wonder as a press agent!" I says to Harold.
"Now that's odd you should remark that," he smiles. "For, as a matter of fact, I excel in _that_ field! I did all the press work for--"
"Columbus!" yells Duke, wavin' him off. "Good-by!" he goes on. "I got enough! You got a liar lookin' like George Washington!"
Harold looks after Duke as he went into the office.
"Heavens!" he says. "I can't stand that man with his petty little jealousies! Now when I--"
I don't know what the rest of it was, because me and the Kid left him to tell it to the African Desert.
Well, Genaro bein' afraid to get in dutch with Potts, which accordin' to Harold was a ex-roommate of his, give this guy a crack at everything from directin' to supin', and Harold hit .000 at 'em all. The only thing he seemed to be any good at was talkin' about himself, and he was champion of the world at that! He was willin' to concede that Wellington beat Napoleon and it was Fulton who doped out the steamboat, but _he_ was the guy that had put over everything else. His favorite word only had one letter in it, and that's the one that comes right after H. No matter what subject would come up anywheres where Harold could get a earful of it, he was the bird that invented it!
We went down to Montana Joe's one afternoon to deal prohibition a blow, and the Kid gets talkin' about drinkin' as a art, carelessly lettin' fall the information that, before he had put the Demon Rum down for the count, he had been looked on as a champion at goin' through the rye. He winks at Joe and orders a tumbler of private stock. Harold never bats a eye, but says he's got a roomful of lovin' cups which was give him for emptyin' bottles. Joe sets down a mixin' glass full of booze before the Kid, and Scanlan looks at Harold and asks Joe what was the matter with the shaker. Harold coughs and raps on the bar. "You may let me have a seidel of gin!" he says, sneerin' at the Kid--and we all fainted!