He didn't uncap the pen until he had read the whole thing, and while he pored over the fine print I had time to catch my breath. His play competed rather well with the high average output of most professionals I knew--not exactly terrific, but a relatively safe gamble, as gambles go on the street of bright lights. Well, I made a mental note to pass the script around a bit before I signed the contract myself. After all, he might have cribbed the whole thing somewhere. He finished reading, signed the contract and handed it back to me with an air of expectancy. I stalled, "I, uh, will have the check for you in a few days. Meanwhile, you'd better get yourself an agent and an attorney and fix up that affidavit of authorship. Normally, I don't deal with free-lance playwrights, you see." "But I don't need any agent," he protested. "You be my agent, Mr. Crocker--" He was studying my reaction, and after a moment he said, "You still don't quite believe that I wrote _Updraft_, do you, sir? Now that you've met me you want more time to check up, don't you?" I said, "Frankly, yes, Hardy. _Updraft_ is a mature piece of writing, and unless you are a genius--well, it's just business son." "I don't blame you," he said smiling that fresh-air smile. "And I'll admit I'm no genius, but I can explain everything. You see, I've read 38 books on how to write plays--" "Tut!" I said. "Format technique is just a fraction of producing an appealing play." "Perhaps," he admitted. "But _I've memorized all 38 books_. What's more, I've been reading and memorizing plays, novels, poetry and history since I was 13. I have a storehouse of--" "Memorizing?" "Yes, sir. I'm a student of _mnemonics_, you know, the art of memory perfection. My real ambition is to develop absolute recall. All my reading and memorizing have been just exercises to expand my power of complete recall." "You mean that playwriting is just a hobby?" "Not--exactly. I need money, lots of it, to continue my research. Psychiatrists come high." Well, I suppose good plays have been written for screwier reasons, and I was in no mood to look a gift-author in the mouth. I did pass _Updraft_ around to a brace of critics, and none of them could hang a plagiarism charge on Hardy. So I wrote out his check and started the wheels going on the production. The boy prodigy dropped out of sight for the time being, taking no further interest in his brain-child. _Updraft_ did all right in the sticks, but it was when we opened on Broadway that it began to coin money. * * * * *