"Not no more!" says Alex, returnin' the grin. "From now on it's Delancey Calhoun – get that?"
"A nut is a funny thing," says O'Toole, pressin' the dough in his pocket. "But – sure, I'm Delancey Calhoun! That's a swell name at that – it sounds like a Lenox Avenue apartment house. What d'ye want me to do, outside of that?"
"How would you like to be a actor?" says Alex.
"Nothin' doin'!" says Delancey. "I got a steady job and I'm too fond of eatin'."
"Don't be a fool!" says Alex. "That stuff about actors not eatin' regular is a thing of the past. These days a actor makes more money than a banker. Did you ever appear on the stage anywheres in your life?"
"I did not!" snarls Delancey. "And I can lick the guy which claims I did!"
"Fine!" says Alex, lookin' at me. "Now of course you've seen movin' pictures, hey?"
"Sure!" says Delancey. "What d'ye think I am – ig'rant?"
"Not at all," says Alex. "Do you think if you had a chance and was well paid for it, you could do the things them heroes does in the movies?"
Delancey Calhoun, née Tim O'Toole, throws out his chest from here to South Dakota.
"Do I think so?" he says. "Why, say, pal – that stuff would be soft for me! I ain't no second Mary Pickford or the like and Chaplin might grab off more laughs to the reel than me, but when it come to this here cowboy and full dress stuff – Oh, lady!!!"
"You're hired!" hollers Alex, slappin' him on the back. "Startin' right now your salary is a hundred a week. Drive that truck back to where it belongs and throw up your job."
"A hundred a week, hey?" says Delancey, rollin' his eyes. "Oh, lady!! In a month I'll have Carnegie gnashin' his teeth!" He breaks off and swings around on Alex. "Look here!" he says, "I been drivin' this truck for two years. I got a good steady job from eight in the mornin' till ten at night, and I get twenty berries a week for it. I don't know nothin' about this nut job of yours, but if I don't get my hundred every week – well, they's gonna be a funeral with you bein' featured in it, get that?"
"That's all right," says Alex. "I'll deposit your first six months' salary in the bank for you – how's that?"
"What could be sweeter?" says Delancey. "They's just one other thing."
"Speak up!" says Alex.
"As long as I'm gonna be a movie actor," says Delancey, "do I get a dress suit to wear?"
"Sure!" says Alex. "Why?"
"Well," grins Delancey, "I never had one of them open faced suits on in me life and in fact I was savin' up to get one now. I'm simply nutty to put on one of them layouts and knock the innocent onlookers silly. If you hit a tough week, I might take ninety-five bucks and let the rest go over a few days, but I gotta have the dress suit and that goes!"
"It's yours," says Alex, diggin' me in the ribs.
"All right," says Delancey, "I'll go down now and make the boss faint by quittin'. I'll meet you anywheres you says to-morrow."
"You will not," says Alex. "I'll ride right down on that truck with you now!"
About two weeks later, Alex comes up to the flat and tells me to put on my hat and cane. He says he's gonna take me over to the studio and show me Delancey Calhoun's first picture.
"So you're really goin' through with it, hey?" I says. "What company did you get him landed with?"
"The Par-Excellence Feature Film Company," he says.
"I never heard tell of it," I says. "Who's in back of it?"
"A young feller by the name of Alex Hanley!" he comes back, grinnin'.
"What?" I hollers. "D'ye mean to say you started a movie foundry to put this guy over?"
"I'll leave it to you," he tells me, "when we get to the studio. Let's go!"
On the way over he shows me a lot of the advertisin' copy with which he's gonna introduce Delancy Calhoun to the waitin' world. I must say it was hot stuff! It claims that Delancey Calhoun is the sole heir to the $20,000,000 left by the late Artemus Calhoun which died twenty years ago. The will was given to his lawyers, Sandringham, Bellew and Fitch, with instructions not to open it for twenty years. When it was opened, it was found that them twenty millions was left to his only nephew, Delancey. Alex has opened a law office downtown under the name of Sandringham, Bellew and Fitch, so's to take care of the reporters and other guys of a inquisitive nature. Then comes the kick.
Delancey, a handsome and accomplished young giant, is tired of the "sham and deceit" of his own "exalted social set" and it's his ambition to wed a girl of the common people and let her enjoy some of the millions his hard-fisted uncle wrung from their toil. He also has another aim in life and that is to accomplish a sweepin' reform of the movie game. He's always been a great fan himself, but he's sick of the impossible plays which has been foisted on a innocent and nickel spendin' public. Therefore, he has organized his own movie company, will produce his own pictures from real life stories of the eternal struggle, and last but not least, he'll appear personally in them himself, to gratify a whim he's had since he first looked over the side of a cradle. He thinks the average movie hero is sickenin', and he wants to show the world how a real hero would act. He will appear in twelve pictures only. Each will be a episode in the greatest mystery story ever written entitled, "What was Hector's Choice?" Every single female in the country is invited to see this picture and send in their solution of the mystery. The one that comes nearest to the correct answer will become the bride of Delancy Calhoun and his twenty million bucks.
Oh, boy!!!
"Alex," I says, "I'll tell the world this is great stuff! It must be gonna cost you a bunch of money. Where do you get off?"
"Your head and glue is the two thickest things I ever seen," he says. "Where do I get mine, hey? I get it from the sale of the pictures this bird makes. In a coupla months they'll be riots in theatres all over the country to see this guy in the movies!"
"Maybe," I says. "But how are you gonna pull 'em in? Right off the bat he's gotta compete with Chaplin, Mary Pickford and the like."
"I didn't wanna spring my ace so soon on you," he says, "but I guess I got to. How am I gonna pull 'em in? This way —single women will be admitted free at every theatre where this picture is shown!"
Wheee!!!!
"You're there, Alex!" I admits. "But suppose the men and married women stays away?"
"Stays away?" he says. "They'll break their way in! The married women will wanna see Delancey and get a idea of what they missed, and the men will wanna see what this big fathead looks like, if only to kid him."
"What kind of a actor is he?" I says.
"Wait till you see him," says Alex. "He's got the studio standin' on its ear! He thinks he's the greatest actor the world ever seen and everybody else from the director to the camera men is dubs. He refuses to fake any of the fight scenes and I gotta pay supers ten bucks a day to take his wallops. The first time he had a love scene with the leadin' lady he thought it was on the level and went out and got a marriage license. He argued two hours in favor of real bullets for the duel he fights with the villain and refused to play a scene supposed to be in Alaska because the studio's in Jersey. He claims the guy which wrote the scenario escaped from a lunatic asylum and he plays the second two reels his own way. I've had three different casts work with him because he gets them all sore by his kiddin' them about art. He takes everything in dead earnest and tried to beat up the villain on the street twice because he's supposed to hate him in the picture. But – this first episode is some film!!!"
I seen the picture in the private projectin' room and Alex told the truth when he called it "some film." In fact that there would of been as good a title for the whole picture as the one they had. They was more adventures happened to Delancey Calhoun in them five reels than Robinson Crusoe, Columbus, Kit Carson and Davy Crockett had in their combined lives! He was a heart-breaker one second and a head-breaker the next. He had insisted to Alex that one villain wasn't enough for him to foil, so they had about a dozen and he trimmed 'em all. They was also several heroines for him to save and clasp on his manly bosom, which same he did in evenin' clothes only. It was nothin' for him to save a maiden in distress from a sinkin' ship and the next second appear in a lifeboat with a dress suit on, rowin' for shore. No matter if the scene was mornin' or night, Alaska or the Sahara Desert, Delancey was there in his little dress suit. He would of parted with that and his left eye with the same willingness.
Apart from the film itself, which might of been good or might of been bad, but certainly was excitin' for your life, Delancey was a riot! He was the handsomest thing I ever seen on a screen and I don't blame all the dames in the studio for fallin' for him. In that treasured dress suit of his which cost Alex as much as a limousine, they ain't no woman on earth that wouldn't get a thrill when she looked at him, provided he didn't start no conversation. He looked class – that's all they is to it!
When we come out from seein' the picture, Delancey is walkin' around the studio, still with the dress suit on. He's tellin' one of the best directors in the country how to properly produce a movie and said director is takin' it hard. He breaks off when he sees us.
"Hello!" he says. "Well, what d'ye think of me? I'm a knockout, hey?"
"Easily that," I admits, shakin' his hand. "How d'ye like bein' a actor?"
"Rotten!" he says. "This stuff is the bunk and them actors gimme a pain. I think they're all nutty. How they get money for this hop is past me! All I do all day is pretend I'm this and pretend I'm that and the foreman of this layout keeps yellin', 'Register fear!' and stuff like that at me. I don't know why this friend of yours is givin' me money for this, but I bet they's a catch to it somewheres!"
"Isn't he simply delicious?" says the leadin' woman, with a fond glance at Delancey.
"Delicious, hey?" he snorts. "What d'ye think I am – a pie?"
They is a vampire there and she turns up her nose.
"I think he's impossible!" she says. "He hasn't the slightest conception of art."
"Lemme alone!" growls Delancey. "I'm as good a actor as you guys is, if not better. Where d'ye get that art stuff?"
"Heavens!" says the vampire. "You must have worked all your life to acquire ignorance, for no one was ever born as stupid as you! All you have is your looks."
"Yeh," snarls Delancey. "And all Rockefeller's got is a billion!"
At this point Alex stepped in and prevented bloodshed.
Well, Delancey is as big a success as a movie star as Boston is as a town, and within a month he's swept the country like a new dance. That stuff about him bein' a millionaire and willin' to marry the girl which guesses the answer to the mystery in "What Was Hector's Choice?" caught on with the ladies like cold cream and his handsome map did the rest. His picture is plastered all over the country and kids which barely knowed their A, B, C's, is familiar with his name. His mail arrives daily in freight cars and Alex had four guys workin' on nothin' but autographin' his photos for "A Admirer" and "Your Unknown Friend." Alex got a quarter the each for said photos to cover the "wrapping and mailing charges" and made a nice little profit on the side.
With all this success, though, Delancey Calhoun kept his head. He never appeared at no banquets, addressed meetin's on "The Future of the Motion Picture Industry," or as much as glanced at the daily slew of mail. When the dames around the studio cast languishin' glances at his handsome form, he glared at 'em like a infuriated turtle. If one of 'em remarked that it was a nice day by way of startin' a slight flirtation, Delancey would answer that he couldn't help it, and walk away. He never spent a nickel foolishly or at all, and when the auto agents swooped down on him, he borrowed cigars from them and beat it.
The most astonishin' thing, though, was the way he acted about the movies durin' his career as a star. He never stopped claimin' that the whole thing was the bunk and that it was idiotic for a grown person to put on a wig and take off the old banker or the like, when they was only a fifty buck a week actor. He insisted that anything as silly as the movies was could never last and they was more real money in the truckin' business for a man that knew the game as he did and had plenty of wagons. When Alex argues with him and says that many of the big stars makes fifty thousand a year, he tells Alex to stop usin' opium because it'll get him in the end.
At the end of three months, Delancey has made Alex pay him a percentage of the receipts and a salary of a thousand a week, but his opinion of the movie business is unchanged. He explains the fact that he's makin' plenty of money out of it by sayin' that Alex must be takin' it out of his own pocket and is simply makin' pictures to cover up his real game, which is prob'ly safe crackin'. Alex throws up his hands and lets him be after that one.
Fin'ly the last picture is made and Alex gives out the information to a expectant world that a girl in Brisbane, Australia, has won the guessin' contest and Delancey Calhoun's hand, and the famous star will sail immediately to wed her. The newspapers all prints pictures of 'em both, Alex gettin' the lucky dame's by photographin' his stenographer. A couple of papers didn't get neither and runs pictures of Brisbane, Australia, so's to be on the job anyways. Then Alex collects the thousand bucks I bet him that he couldn't make a movie star outa a truck driver and prepares to break the news to his wife and mine that he has done the same. He figures this will kill forever their wild infatuation for Carrington De Vire, the idol of the screen.
At that point, Delancey Calhoun walks into the office.
"Ah, Delancey," says Alex, "I was just gonna send for you. Now that our original contract has expired, let me congratulate you. You done great and far better than even I expected. You're famous the world over and must have a good sized bankroll if you've stayed in at nights and kept away from race tracks and the like. I only intended this as a experiment, but it has gone over so big that I want you to sit down here and sign a contract for five years at the biggest salary you ever heard of. We'll make the greatest pictures the world – "
"Wait a minute!" butts in Delancey. "Don't rave no more. My name is Tim O'Toole again and not Delancey, which sounds like a collar. I'm sick and tired of movin' pictures and that big salary stuff is as much bunk as the rest of it. I ain't goin' around rescuin' nutty dames, beatin' up supes which is supposed to be the desperate smugglers and divin' off bridges no more! I'm goin' to make a honest livin' and I've bought out the truckin' business I was workin' for when you come along and made a movie star and a simp outa me. I'll be takin' in money there long after the movies is gone and all the pictures I'll ever move from now on will be loaded on one of my wagons. Fare-thee-well, and I hope they's no hard feelings. If they is, I ain't gonna sob out loud over it!"
For a minute Alex was speechless. Then he comes to and works a hour tryin' to get the ex-Delancey Calhoun to change his mind. They was nothin' doin'. In fact, Delancey walked out and left us flat in the middle of Alex's wail.
Well, anyways, Alex still had one satisfaction left and that was to prove to Eve and the wife that he had put over a truck driver as a movie star. He done it after dinner that night and if he caused any sensation, I failed to see it with the naked eye.
"Well," says Eve, "that proves my argument."
"Proves your argument?" hollers Alex. "Didn't you claim movie stars was born, and didn't I take a truck driver and make him famous at it?"
"Yes," says Eve. "And then he went back to the trucking business, because he wasn't born an artist and the whole thing seemed silly to him. He couldn't stand the make-believe any longer, because he had no imagination, no art – nothing but the stupid ability to make money!"
Alex sinks down in a chair and throws up his hands.
"Can you beat a woman?" he asks me.
"Not in this state," I says. "It's against the law."
"Come!" says Eve. "You boys are just in time. Carrington De Vire is down at the Palace in 'The Arctic Sunflower.' I'm crazy to see it. I think he's wonderful!"
THE END