SEIZE THE DAY
309
"I know,"
said Venice firmly. "I'm going to be happy. When
I saw that drawing, the breath of fate breathed on me. I felt it
over my entire body."
"Say, it strikes a bell suddenly," Wilhelm had said. "Aren't you
related to Martial Venice the producer?"
Venice was either a nephew of the producer or the son of a first
cousin. Decidedly he had not made good. It was easy enough for
Wilhelm to see this now. The office was so poor, and Venice bragged
so nervously, and identified himself so scrupulously-the poor guy.
He was the obscure failure of an aggressive and powerful clan. As
such he had the greatest sympathy from Wilhelm.
Venice had said, "Now I suppose you want to know where you
come in. I seen your school paper, by accident. You take quite a
remarkable picture."
"It can't be so much," said Wilhelm, more panting than
laughing.
"You don't want to tell me my business," Venice said, "Leave
it to me. I studied up on this."
"I never imagined ... Well, what kind of roles do you think I'd
fit?"
"All this time that we've been talking, I've been watching. Don't
think I haven't. You remind me of someone. Let's see who it can
be ... one of the great old-timers. Is it Milton Sills? No, that's not the
one. Conway Tearle, Jack Mulhall? George Bancroft? No, his face
was ruggeder. One thing I can tell you, though, a George Raft type
you're not-those tough, smooth, black little characters."
"No, I wouldn't seem to be."
"No, you're not that flyweight type, with the fists, from a
nightclub, and the glamorous sideburns, doing the Tango or the
Bolero. Not Edward G. Robinson, either ... I'm thinking aloud. Or
the Cagney fly-in-your-face role, a cabbie, with that mouth and
those punches."
"I realize that."
"Not suave like William Powell, or a lyric juvenile like Buddy
Rogers. I suppose you don't play the sax? No. But ..."
"But what?"
"I have you placed as the type that loses the girl to the George
Raft type or the William Powell type. You are steady, faithful, you
