"Oh, no! That's awfully cheap. That would stamp it as a melodrama before any of the picture appeared on the screen."

Robert Grant Burns had not been serious; he had been testing Jean's originality. "Well, what will we call it, then?"

"Oh, we'll call it--" Jean nibbled the rubber on her pencil and looked at him with that unseeing, introspective gaze which was a trick of hers. "We'll call it--does it hurt if we use real names that we've a right to?" She got a head-shake for answer. "Well, we'll call it,--let's just call it--Jean, of the Lazy A. Would that sound as if--"

"Great! Girl, you're a winner! Jean, of the Lazy A! Say, that title alone will jump the releases ten per cent., if I know the game. Featuring Jean herself; pictures made right at the Lazy A Ranch. Say, the dope I can give our publicity man--"

Thereupon Jean, remembering Gil Huntley's lecture on the commercial side of the proposition, startled his enthusiasm with one naive question.

"How much will the Great Western Film Company pay me extra for furnishing the story I play in? "

"How much?" Robert Grant Burns blurted the words automatically.

"Yes. How much? If it will jump your releases ten per cent. they ought to pay me quite a lot more than they're paying me now."