in God’s world to make that series take hold at all.  As drama the stuff is hopeless.  Absolutely hopeless.  It’s only by giving it the twist I gave it that it will get over.  You do that, Mart.  You kid this Bently Brown into being featured as the humorist of the age, and pay him a little something for swallowing his disappointment as a dramatic author.  I’ll go ahead with my boys, and we’ll deliver the goods.  You do that, and you’ll be setting up nights counting profits instead of nursing them!”

Martinson began to stir up the litter on his desk,—­another bad-weather sign.  “I can’t waste time talking nonsense,” he snapped.  “I’ve got plenty to do without that.  That stuff has got to be retaken; every foot of it, if you’ve gone on burlesquing the action.  I happen to know that Brown wouldn’t consider such a compromise.  You’ve made a bad break, and I believe you made the first one when you brought that bunch of cowboys back with you.  If they can do straight dramatic acting, all right; if not, you’d better let them out and start over with professionals.”

For a peaceable man, Martinson was angry.  He had taken some trouble in smoothing down the ruffled temper of Bently Brown, even before viewing the trial run of the picture.  Martinson hated disputes as a cat hates to walk in fresh-fallen snow, and the parting tirade of Bently Brown had affected him unpleasantly.

For a full two minutes Luck smoked and did not speak, and as he had done once before, Martinson repented his harshness when it was too late.  “Personally, your version struck me as awfully funny,” he began placatingly.

“Who gives a cuss how it struck you personally?” Luck stood up with unexpected haste.  “You trim and truckle to every one that comes along with a gold brick, and that’s why you have to sit up nights to nurse the profits.  If you had a little stiffening in your back, the profits would show up better.  You paid good money for this bunch of rot, and turned it over to me to whip into a profitable investment.  You can make the rounds of the studio and get a vote on whether I’ve done it or not.  Put it up to your Public; they’ll mighty soon let you know whether the film’s a money-getter.  If it is, your business as general manager and president of the Acme Film Company is to get Bently Brown in line for the production to go on.  A clause such as you mention in the agreement with him shows a bigger blunder on your part than anything I’ve done or ever will do.  If you’d had as much sense as Ted, you’d have kept that clause out.  If you’d had half as much brains as the comedy burro out in the corral you’d never have loaded up with that stuff, anyway; you’d have seen at a glance that it was rotten.