"They certainly did laugh," Luck lazily interrupted. "And believe me, Mr.
Brown, it takes real stuff to collect a laugh out of that bunch. It will
be a riot with the public; you can bank on that. By the time I get a few
more made and released, you can expect to see your name in the papers
without paying advertising rates." Whatever possessed Luck to talk that
way to Bently Brown, I cannot say. He surely must have seen that the
little, over-costumed author was choking with spleen.

"It was a farce!" The small, yellow mustache of Bently Brown was
twitching comically with the tremble of his lips beneath. "A bald,
unmitigated farce!"

"Surest thing you know," Luck agreed, with that little chuckle of his.
"At first I was afraid the crowd wouldn't get it; I didn't know but they
might try to take it seriously. Now, I know for certain that it will get
over. It will be the cleanest, funniest, farce-comedy series that has
ever been filmed." Luck sat up straight and pulled a cigar from his
pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. "Say, those boys of mine are
certainly real ones! I wouldn't trade that bunch for the highest-salaried
actors you could hand me. Do you know what made that picture such a
scream? It was because there wasn't a bit of made-to-order comedy
business in the whole film. Those boys didn't think about acting funny
just to make folks laugh. They were so doggoned busy having fun with the
story and showing up its weak points that they forgot to be
self-conscious. If I'd had a regular comedy company working on it,
believe me, Mr. Brown, it might have turned out almost as rotten a farce
as it would be as a drama!"

Had Bently Brown owned under his pink skin any of the primitive instincts