"Eddie," I says, "she ain't a mile off the track, at that! This--"
"Oh, she ain't, eh?" he snarls. "Well that shows that you and her knows as much about human nature as I do about makin' a watch! Miss Devine wants us to put on a movie that she committed herself, and, if we do, we'll be the laughin' stock of the world and Big Bend. It's got everything in it but a hero, a heroine, a villain, action and love interest. It's about as hot as one of them educational thrillers like 'Natives Makin' Panama Hats in Peoria' would be. A couple of these would put the company on the blink, and I lose a ten-year contract at ample money a year!"
"Well," I says, "what are you gonna do--quit?"
"Your mind must be as clean as a baby's," he says, "because you got your first time to use it! No, I ain't gonna quit! I'm gonna show Miss Dorothy Devine that as a judge of movin' pictures, she's a swell-lookin' girl. I like these tough games, a guy feels so good all over when he wins 'em. She's startin' with all the cards--money, looks and, what counts more, she's just about the Big Boss here now. All I got is one good card and that's only a jack--Jack Adams, to be exact--and I'm gonna beat her with him!"
"Well," he tells me, "my argument is that all these thrillers we put on are sad, weary and slow compared to some of the things that happen in real life every day that we never hear about. They's many a telephone girl, for instance, makin' a man outa a millionaire's no-good son and many a sure-enough heiress bein' responsible for the first mate on a whaler becomin' her kind and a director in the firm! I claim it does _good_ and not harm, to feed this stuff to a trustin' public by way of the screen. Why? Because every shippin'-clerk that's sittin' out in front puts himself in the hero's place and every salesgirl dreams that she's the heroine. Without thinkin', they both get to pickin' up the virtues we pin on our stars, and it can't _help_ but do 'em good! I don't know who started the shimmy, but I know women and I know human nature, and knowin' 'em both, I'm gonna make a sportin' proposition to Miss Dorothy Devine!"
"What's the bet?" I says. "I may take some of it myself."
"The bet is this," he tells me. "Here's this boy Adams, who, bein' De Vronde's valet, is undisputed low man in Film City. He's disgusted with life, he ain't got the ambition of a sleepin' alligator, or nerve enough to speak harshly to _himself_. All right! If Miss Devine will follow my orders for a couple of weeks without Adams knowin' who or what she is, I claim that bird will make good! All that guy needs is a reason for tryin', and she can make herself it!"