a chance to make twenty thousand dollars. Do you want it?" 

 "Who give you the horse?" I asks him, playin' safe.  "I got to know where this tip come from!" 

 "Horse?" he mutters, lookin' surprised.  "I know nothing of horses!" 

 "Well," I tells him, "I ain't exactly a liveryman myself, but before I put any of Kid Scanlan's hard-earned money on one of them equines, I got to know more about the race than you've spilled so far! What did the trainer say?" 

 He was a fat, middle-aged hick that would soon be old, and he wears half a pair of glasses over one eye. He aims the thing at me and smiles. 

 "I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about!" he says. "But I fancy it's a pun of some sort! Very well, then, what did the trainer say?" 

 I walked over and laid my arm on his shoulder. 

 "Are you endeavorin' to spoof me?" I asks him sternly.  "Or have you got me confused with Abe Levy, the vaudeville agent? Either way you're losin' time! I don't care for your stuff myself, and if that's your act, I wouldn't give you a week-end at a movie house!" 

 He takes off the trick eye-glass and begins to clean it with a handkerchief. 

 "My dear fellow!" he says.  "It is plain that you do not understand the nature of my proposal. I wish to engage the services of Kid Scanlan, the present incumbent of the welterweight title. We want to make a five-reel feature, based on his rise to the championship. I am prepared to offer you first class transportation to our mammoth studios at Film City, Cal.; and twenty thousand dollars when the picture is completed! What do you say?" 

 "Have a cigar!" I says, when I get my breath. I throwed a handful of 'em in his lap and give the water cooler a play. 

 "No, thanks!" he says, layin' 'em on the desk.  "I never smoke." 

 "Well," I tells him, "I ain't got a thing to drink in the place, you gotta be careful here, y'know! But to get back to the movie thing, what does the Kid have to do for the twenty thousand fish?" 

 He takes a long piece of paper from his pocket and lays it down in front of me. It looked like a chattel mortgage on Mexico, and what paragraphs didn't commence with "to wit," started off 

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