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Cleopatra.”
    “Really?” Colin’s dark eyebrows lifted, and
he looked less dubious. “That’s better, I suppose. At least the
Hunchback’s good literature.” He eyed the script he clutched with
something that looked mightily like loathing.
    “Oh, yes. And we’re not merely looking to
great literature, either. Think of the magnificence of this vast
country of ours, Colin. Don’t you think people the world over would
flock to see some of its glories? New York City! The Grand Canyon!
The Pacific and Atlantic oceans! The sweeping plains and the bleak
deserts! Think of the possibilities.”
    Colin thought. “Hmmm. We’re already having
trouble absorbing all of the immigrants flocking to the United
States. We’d better not look too grand and glorious, or we’ll have
even more problems.”
    Brenda could tell that Martin didn’t fully
appreciate Colin’s practical approach to the moviemaking process.
He frowned. “That’s not the point. The point is that pictures are
the first universal means of communication ever invented.”
    After thinking about it for a moment or two,
Colin nodded slowly. “I see what you mean. They’re purely visual,
and the human story is more or less the same the world over, I
suppose. Very well, I’ll grant you that point, but the point I want
to make is that this script is nonsense.”
    Martin heaved a gigantic sigh. “Colin, when
you were a boy did you ever read The Adventures of Robin
Hood ?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “ Tom Sawyer ?”
    Colin shook his head.
    Patently confounded by such lapses in his
companion’s early childhood education, Martin said, “ Horatio
Hornblower ? Five Weeks in a Balloon ? A Tale of Two
Cities ? David Copperfield ?”
    The dents above Colin’s nose deepened. “I
didn’t read fiction as a rule. I was too busy studying.”
    Martin sat back in his chair, lifted his
hands in the air, and let them fall, stunned. “I can’t believe you
grew up without stories.”
    Brenda couldn’t believe it, either. Heck,
the only thing that had kept her going during her early years were
the books her father read to her. The wonderful, fantastic stories
she still loved today.
    “Oh, I had plenty of stories,” Colin said
quickly. “But they were true. They weren’t—made up.”
    Shaking his head, Martin muttered, “How
bleak your life must have been.”
    Colin sat up as if he were offended. “Not at
all. Merely because my parents didn’t believe in filling their
children’s heads with applesauce didn’t make my childhood bleak. It
was quite interesting, actually.”
    “I see.” Martin considered Colin in silence
for a second.
    “Um, I don’t suppose you had much use for
fun when you were growing up?’
    “Fun?” Colin had taken to scowling again.
“I’m not sure what you mean. We went to the zoological gardens to
study the animals quite often. And we all enjoyed going to the
Museum of Natural History when we visited my aunt in New York City.
The Boston Symphony is famous for its quality, and we always had
season tickets to hear the symphony.”
    “I see.” With an enormous sigh, Martin rose
from his chair. “I’ll tell you what, Colin. If you can try to
remember that this picture we’re doing is only for fun—er, that is,
that it’s fiction, since you don’t understand fun—and doesn’t have
much to do with reality, I think we’ll all be better off.”
    Colin didn’t like it. He rose, too. “Well .
. .”
    “I promise you that we’ll endeavor to stick
as much to reality as we can, but there are some elements of the
story that just have to be in the picture, and that’s that.” An
idea struck him and he smiled. “Tell you what: You help me in this
picture, and I’ll set you to work on some more ambitious and more
educational Peerless pictures after this one’s over. Will that suit
you? I can almost see a sweeping saga documenting the Indians of
the United States.”
    Still frowning, Colin murmured, “I suppose
it will have to