Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/66

 called in his secretary and dictated a statement that caused the dumbfounded secretary's eyes to bulge. Then we got Mr. Westover, stopped at a notary public, and we all wrote our names on the dotted line. Mr. Westover signed with a flourish, but Mr. Tower's signature was shaky. Our next port of call was Sidney Rosenblum.

It goes without saying that Rosenblum was dazed when we had told him our little bedtime story, but he wasn't so dazed that he forgot to get his press agent busy on this new and sensational angle to the production of the play. There was little else in the newspapers the next morning, and, yes, my picture was there with the others. The thing burst like a bombshell on Broadway and the avalanche of publicity started "An Illegal Crime" on a two-year run on the Big Street alone. Robert Meacham Westover was made for life, of course. Why, he and this Rosenblum got $80,000 for the movie rights! I could have entered the chorus of any musical show on Broadway as the result of my photos being incessantly printed and the general notoriety I drew out of it, and even Mr. Tower got the best of the big exposure. He was highly praised for his sportsmanship in acting like he did, when he was legally entitled to claim authorship of the play.

Well, success brought about a great change in Robert Meacham Westover, the boy playwright. It went right