Page:Spider Boy (1928).pdf/256

 factory. They buy names to put class into the vivace postcards and then they engage hash-throwers and yeggs like me to take it out. There isn't a bird out here—no matter how hard-boiled on the surface—who wouldn't get sentimental and put the carpet down for class. They don't recognize it when they see it—they have to be told about it—but when they once believe in it, they get down on their knees and worship. You represent class to these plumbers and they think your bloody name smeared all over a picture will make it classy. Well, I'm telling you if they feel like that, let 'em. I'm also telling you that your name will be the classiest thing—the only classy thing—about this lovely old bastard opus when it is finished, and I'd make these second-storey guys pay for it.

It seems dishonest, Ambrose responded doubtfully, like taking money under false pretences.

Dishonest! False pretences! You wouldn't look for a roulette wheel in a baseball game, would you?

After a little more argument in this vein, specious though it sounded, Ambrose consented reluctantly to permit Philip Lawrence to go ahead with the continuity of the script known as Spider Boy which related the love of an equestrienne for a ceiling-walker in the circus.