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--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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