Late that afternoon he returned to Jack Berners’ waiting rooms. He had an idea about a man who meets a girl in an office and he thinks she’s a stenographer but she turns out to be a writer. He engages her as a stenographer, though, and they start for the South Seas. It was a beginning, it was something to tell Jack, he thought — and, picturing Pricilla Smith, he refurbished some old business he hadn’t seen used for years.

He became quite excited about it — felt quite young for a moment and walked up and down the waiting room mentally rehearsing the first sequence. ‘So here we have a situation like It Happened One Night — only new. I see Hedy Lamarr —’

Oh, he knew how to talk to these boys if he could get to them, with something to say.

‘Mr Berners still busy?’ he asked for the fifth time.

‘Oh, yes, Mr Hobby. Mr Bill Costello and Mr Bach are in there.’

He thought quickly. It was half-past five. In the old days he had just busted in sometimes and sold an idea, an idea good for a couple of grand because it was just the moment when they were very tired of what they were doing at present.

He walked innocently out and to another door in the hall. He knew it led through a bathroom right in to Jack Berners’ office. Drawing a quick breath he plunged . . .

‘ . . . So that’s the notion,’ he concluded after five minutes. ‘It’s just a flash — nothing really worked out, but you could give me an office and a girl and I could have something on paper for you in three days.’

Berners, Costello and Bach did not even have to look at each other. Berners spoke for them all as he said firmly and gently:

‘That’s no idea, Pat. I can’t put you on salary for that.’

‘Why don’t you work it out further by yourself,’ suggested Bill Costello. ‘And then let’s see it. We’re looking for ideas — especially about the war.’

‘A man can think better on salary,’ said Pat.

There was silence. Costello and Bach had drunk with him, played poker with him, gone to the races with him. They’d honestly be glad to see him placed.

‘The war, eh,’ he said gloomily. ‘Everything is war now, no matter how many credits a man has. Do you know what it makes me think of? It makes me think of a well-known painter in the discard. It’s war time and he’s useless — just a man in the way.’ He warmed to his conception of himself, ‘— but all the time they’re carting away his own paintings as the most valuable thing worth saving. And they won’t even let me help. That’s what it reminds me of.’

There was again silence for a moment.

‘That isn’t a bad idea,’ said Bach thoughtfully. He turned to the others. ‘You know? In itself?’

Bill Costello nodded

‘Not bad at all. And I know where we could spot it. Right at the end of the fourth sequence. We just change old Ames to a painter.’

Presently they talked money.

‘I’ll give you two weeks on it,’ said Berners to Pat. ‘At two-fifty.’

‘Two-fifty!’ objected Pat. ‘Say there was one time you paid me ten times that!’

‘That was ten years ago,’ Jack reminded him. ‘Sorry. Best we can do now.’

‘You make me feel like that old painter —’

‘Don’t oversell it,’ said Jack, rising and smiling. ‘You’re on the payroll.’

Pat went out with a quick step and confidence in his eyes. Half a grand — that would take the pressure off for a month and you could often stretch two weeks into three — sometimes four. He left the studio proudly through the front entrance, stopping at the liquor store for a half-pint to take back to his room.

By seven o’clock things were even better. Santa Anita tomorrow, if he could get an advance. And tonight — something festive ought to be done tonight. With a sudden rush of pleasure he went down to the phone in the lower hall, called the studio and asked for Miss Pricilla Smith’s number. He hadn’t met anyone so pretty for years . . .

In her apartment Pricilla Smith spoke rather firmly into the phone.

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t possibly . . . No — and I’m tied up all the rest of the week.’

As she hung up, Jack Berners spoke from the couch.

‘Who was it?’

‘Oh, some man who came in the office,’ she laughed, ‘and told me never to read the story I was working on.’

‘Shall I believe you?’

‘You certainly shall. I’ll even think of his name in a minute. But first I want to tell you about an idea I had this morning. I was looking at a photo in a magazine where they were packing up some works of art in the Tate Gallery in London. And I thought —’