He starts on away then but suddenly he turns round like a notion had just hit him between the eyes and he comes back to me and says he wants to speak to me a minute and I follows him back around a corner where nobody won't be liable to hear us. "I want to ask you about something," he says, when we arrives there. "You seem to be a person who keeps his eyes and his ears open; besides, you're colored yourself and what I need here, I think, is somebody who can look at a proposition from a colored man's slant rather than from a white man's. And finally, my guess is that you haven't been away from your own part of the country very long and that probably means you haven't lost your perspective. Do you get my drift?" I wouldn't know a perspective if I met up with one in the big road but I ain't aiming to expose my ignorance before this strange gentleman. I tries to look like I'm mighty glad that I've been so careful as not to lose it and I tells him yes, sir, I gets his drift. "Good," he says. "Well, making it snappy, the idea is just this: New York City is full of colored actors--not merely singers and dancers but real artists, some of 'em, who can act and are especially strong in comedy. That's point number one. In nearly every good-sized town in this country, North and South, there's at least one moving-picture house catering to your people. That's point number two. But day after day and night after night those patrons see nothing but pictures written by white people, directed by white men, and acted by white people. That's point number three. Now, I've been carrying round a scheme in my head for quite awhile--a scheme to try the experiment of turning out a line of two-reelers, say, done by colored casts, and selling them, if I can, to these three or four thousand houses run by colored people and playing to colored people. I've got the studio right here--I've got the organization and the equipment. And at any time I need it I can put my hand on plenty of acting material--colored people, I mean--who'll only need a little training to make 'em fit for my purposes. Some of 'em have already had some training--as extras around the local plants. As I dope it out, if I can produce pictures which will appeal particularly to your people I'll have a steady market through the big exchanges; because, if I know anything about the tastes of the general public, white people will enjoy all-colored comedies--if they're done right--almost as much as colored people will. And that's point number four. Now then, give me your idea of the value of the notion?"