Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/241

 with Mr. Harold Lorraine still in ignorance of that "unprogramed" fire being carefully plotted and unceasingly rehearsed for weeks—while he was away from the lot! Harold thought he was a bona fide hero—and as a matter of fact he was!

Scoop Murphy, who, of course, had called out the fire department, plastered pictures and stories about Harold Lorraine, Thelma Tasty, Gordon Daft, the fire and the coming movie all over the front pages of the newspapers for one entire day. As they were New York newspapers, that was as good as having the incident run serially somewhere else. As for Mr. Daft, well, when he finally ceased congratulating me and thanking me for helping him out of the hole he was in with his temperamental star, he told me I could have anything I wanted.

"I don't care what it is—ask and it's yours!" he wound up, banging his fist on the top of the table in his office.

"Then I ask a contract—and a fair chance—for Hazel Killian!" I says promptly, while he gasps and stares at me in amazement. "I know you can make Hazel an actress—you can make anybody an actress! I've seen some of the dumbbells you've made famous on the screen, Mr. Daft—why can't you do the same thing for Hazel?"

"Why not for you?" demands Mr. Daft. "You're