Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/83

 not the goat yet and you won't be if you listen to teacher. All you have to do is give Jimmy the sugar, watch his stuff for the next thirty days, and you'll get a true to life masterpiece for your drama—probably a play that will show the making of a financial, scientific or artistic Napoleon! If you can't get a play out of the effect of sudden wealth on a lowly bellhop, then you got no business in the same room with a typewriter!"

Guy rubs his chin, smooths back his wavy hair and gazes out of the window at New York City.

"By Jove!" he busts out suddenly, slapping his hands together, "the thing is fantastic—grotesque—but I'll do it!"

So it came to pass that the next day Guy, Jimmy Burns, and myself met by appointment in the cashier's office of the Plumbers & Physicians National Bank. As I was on my lunch hour and minutes were at a premium, there was little time squandered on preliminaries, Guy making his proposition to the thunderstruck James in simple words of one syllable. At first, M. Burns refused to believe he wasn't being kidded, then he got hysterical with delight. When the startled cashier solemnly asked for his signature and handed him a bank book showing there was $25,000 to his credit in the vaults, Jimmy broke down and cried like a baby!