I don't know what your idea about a contract is, but--" Merton Gill quickly interrupted.

"Well, you see I'd hardly like to sign a contract with you, not for those mere comedies you do.

I'll do anything to earn a little money right now so I can pay back this young lady, but I wouldn't like to go on playing in such things, with cross-eyed people and waiters on roller skates, and all that.

What I really would like to do is something fine and worth while, but not clowning in mere Buckeye comedies." Mr.Baird, who had devoted the best part of an active career to the production of Buckeye comedies, and who regarded them as at least one expression of the very highest art, did not even flinch at these cool words.

He had once been an actor himself.