"Hole on," I says, "ef you please, suh. The onliest way I could do it," I says, "would be fur you to tell me jest whut you wanted done an' 'en you'd have to mek all hands stand back an' keep quiet whilst I wuz tryin' to do it. It sho'," I says, "would git me all razzle-dazzled to have some gen'elman yellin' at me th'ough 'at megaphome ever' half secont or so." "There's another idea that's worth experimenting with," he says. "I've thought the same thing myself before now. You stay right here a minute." Well, to make a long story no longer, he goes over and whispers something to the director and first-off the director he shakes his head like he's dead set against the proposition but Mr. Simons keeps on arguing with him and after a little bit the director flings up both hands sort of despairful and goes over and sets down at a little table, looking very sulky. Then, Mr. Simons he tells the blacked-up man to take off his apron and his jacket and tells me to put 'em on me and then he tells me very slow just what he wants me to do, but he says I'm to do it my own way and if, as I goes along, I thinks of anything else which a real colored waiter would do under such-like circumstances, why, I'm to stick that in, too. "Try to forget that it's all pretending," he says, "and try to forget that there's a camera grinding in front of you. Just remember that you're a waiter in a cheap dump serving a couple of young people that have run away from home to be married and are in a hurry to get something to eat. Try to register your expectations of getting a nice big tip from the young fellow. And when you slip the girl the note that'll tip her off to the fact that her old sweetheart is waiting outside and wants to see her, you want to make sure that the man at the table with her can't see you, but that people sitting out in the audience watching the show will see the note pass. Get me? We won't have any rehearsals--too much preliminary stuff might make you self-conscious. I'll have 'em start shooting just as soon as you come on. Now go to it!" Which I does it all according to orders. I must've gave utter satisfaction, too, because when we gets through, everybody setting round claps their hands and applauses me same as if they was at a regular show--that is, everybody does so except the director; which he continues to act peevish. This here Mr. Simons he goes yet farther than applausing; he comes over to me and he says I has put him under obligations to me by helping him out and if ever I feels like doing some more moving-picture work just to call on him either down at his office or up here at the studios, because he says there ain't no telling when he may have another show with a part in it for a smart spry colored person. And with that he slips his card into my hand and along with it a ten dollar bill, which that is more money than ever I has earned before in my whole life for a light job, let alone just acting natural for about five or six minutes.