to the world, here's a lonely, proud, wonderful, awful symbol of independence, power, strength, shrewd animal cunning, the true democrat, the individual brought to its peak, all thunder and big lightning. Dinosaur: Joe Clarence. Joe Clarence: Dinosaur. Man embodied in Tyrant Lizard!»
Mr.Glass sat down, panting quietly.
Terwilliger said nothing.
Clarence moved at last, walked across the room, circled Glass slowly, then came to stand in front of Terwilliger, his face pale. His eyes were uneasy, shifting up along Terwilliger's tall skeleton frame.
«You said that?» he asked faintly.
Terwilliger swallowed.
«To me he said it. He's shy,» said Mr.Glass. «You ever hear him say much, ever talk back, swear? anything? He likes people, he can't say. But, immortalize them? That he can do!»
«Immortalize?» said Clarence.
«What else?» said the old man. «Like n statue, only moving. Years from now people will say, „Remember that film. The Monster from the Pleistocene?“ And people will say, „Sure! why?“ „Because,“ the others say, „it was the one monster, the one brute, in all Hollywood history had real guts, real personality. And why is this? Because one genius had enough imagination to base the creature on a real-life, hard-hitting, fast-thinking businessman of A-one caliber.“ You're one with history, Mr.Clarence. Film libraries will carry you in good supply. Cinema societies will ask for you. How lucky can you get? Nothing like this will ever happen to Immanuel Glass, a lawyer. Every day for the next two hundred, five hundred years, you'll be starring somewhere in the world!»
«Every day?» asked Clarence softly. «For the next ?»
«Eight hundred, even; why not?»
«I never thought of that.»
«Think of it!»
Clarence walked over to the window and looked out at the Hollywood Hills, and nodded at last.
«My God, Terwilliger,» he said. «You really like me that much.»
«It's hard to put in words,» said Terwilliger, with difficulty.
«So do we finish the mighty spectacle?» asked Glass. «Starring the tyrant terror striding the earth and making all quake before him, none other than Mr.Joseph J. Clarence?»
«Yeah. Sure.» Clarence wandered off, stunned, to the door, where he said, «You know? I always wanted to be an actor!»
Then he went quietly out into the hall and shut the door.
Terwilliger and Glass collided at the desk, both clawing at a drawer.
«Age before beauty,» said the lawyer, and quickly pulled forth a bottle of whiskey.
At midnight on the night of the first preview of Monster from the Stone Age, Mr.Glass came back to the studio, where everyone was gathering for a celebration, and found Terwilliger seated alone in his office, his dinosaur on his lap.
«You weren't there?» asked Mr.Glass.
«I couldn't face it. Was there a riot?»
«A riot? The preview cards are all superdandy extra plus! A lovelier monster nobody saw before! So now we're talking sequels! Joe Clarence as the Tyrant Lizard in Return of the Stone Age Monster, Joe Clarence and/or Тугаnnosaurus Rex in, maybe, Beast from the Old Country ?»
The phone rang. Terwilliger got it.
«Terwilliger, this is Clarence! Be there in five minutes! We've done it! Your animal! Great! Is he mine now? I mean, to hell with the contract, as a favour, can I have him for the mantel?»
«Mr.Clarence, the monster's yours.»
«Better than an Oscar! So long!»
Terwilliger stared at the dead phone.
«God bless us all, said Tiny Tim. He's laughing, almost hysterical with relief.»
«So maybe I know why,» said Mr.Glass. «A little girl, after the preview, asked him for an autograph.»
«An autograph?»
«Right there in the street. Made him sign. First autograph he ever gave in his life. He laughed all the while he wrote his name Somebody knew him. There he was, in front of the theatre, big as life. Rex Himself, so sign the name. So he did.»
«Wait a minute,» said Terwilliger slowly, pouring drinks. «That little girl…?»
«My youngest daughter,» said Glass. «So who knows? And who will tell?»
They drank.
«Not me,» said Terwilliger.
Then, carrying the rubber dinosaur between them, and bringing the whisky, they went to stand by the studio gate, waiting for the limousines to arrive all lights, horns and annunciations.
