He raised his hands dramatically and began talking in a voice that rolled out over Wilshire Boulevard and drowned out the noise of the traffic.
“I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia!” he boomed. “I know the answer to all questions. I know the distance to the moon and the sun. I can name all the presidents and vice presidents. I can recite the batting averages of every major league baseball player. I am the Human Encyclopedia, the walking compendium of human knowledge.”
There were twenty or thirty people already hanging around the gates when Quade began talking. Inside of thirty seconds the number had doubled. A crowd draws a larger crowd. This is true, anywhere. In Hollywood it is doubly so. Hollywood has more freaks than any other city in the country; and they always have time to listen to another freak.
Quade thundered on: “I know the answers to all questions. I bar no holds. I’ll answer any question on history, science, mathematics, business or sports. Try me out, someone. Make me prove what I say. Ask me a question!”
“Is it going to rain today?”
“It hasn’t rained here in 224 days,” Quade retorted. “So the chances are it won’t rain today. But that’s not a fair question. The answer doesn’t require any encyclopedic knowledge. I’m not a fortune teller and can’t make guesses. I’m an exponent of learning. Any question anyone can ask me—”
“I’ve got a question!” someone yelled. “Referring to a number of animals, would you say, a herd of lions, a flock — or what?”
Quade’s eyes brightened. “Now, that’s the type of question I like. It would stump practically anyone in this audience. But, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t phase me. The answer is — a pride of lions. And just for fun, I’ll give you extra measure. In referring to geese you would say a gaggle of geese; pheasants, a nide of pheasants. Try those on your friends, sometime… All right, someone else ask me another question, any subject at all.”
It came instantly. “What are felt hats made of?”
“Rabbit fur,” Quade shot back. “The fur is sheared from the pelt, put through certain processes and emerges as ‘felt.’… Next!”
A youth snapped: “A man boiling a kettle of water on top of Mt. Everest stuck his bare arm into the boiling water and wasn’t scalded. Why not?”
Quade cried, “You’re getting tricky now. The answer to that question is because of the low boiling point of the water at that altitude. The boiling point of water at sea level is 212 degrees, but it drops one degree for every five hundred feet of altitude. Therefore, the boiling point of water at the top of Mt. Everest, which is 21,000 feet, would be only 172 degrees — not enough to scald a person.”
They came fast and furious after that.
“Who was Machiavelli?”
“How far is it from the earth to the moon?”
“Who won the heavyweight championship from Tommy Burns?”
Quade tossed back the answers swiftly and accurately. The game continued for ten minutes, then Quade called a sudden halt.
“That’s all, folks. Now, I’m going to tell you how you, each and everyone of you, can learn the answers to every question that was asked here today — and ten thousand others. Any question anyone can ask you at any time. They’re all here!” He holds out his hand and Charlie Boston, who had lugged a valise from the car across the street, tossed him a book.
Quade ruffled its pages. “Here it is, The Compendium of Human Knowledge. The knowledge of the ages, condensed, classified, abbreviated, all in one volume. A complete high school education, available to every man, woman and child in this audience.
“Yes, I’m selling this amazing book, the compendium of all knowledge acquired by man since the beginning of time. But what am I asking for this college education in one book… $25.00? Cheap at the price! But no! Not even $5.00, but a mere, paltry, insignificant $2.95!”
Charlie Boston stepped up beside Oliver Quade and hissed: “Scram, Ollie! A cop!”
A man in a blue uniform pushed through the crowd. “Hey, you!” he said. “Mr. Slocum wants to talk to you about that voice of your’n.”
Oliver Quade drew himself up to his lean frame and fixed the policeman with an icy stare. “Since when is a citizen of this glorious country denied the right of free speech? Are you not a servant of the people? So by what right do you dare order one of your employers not to speak!”
The cop grinned sickishly. “I’m not complaining about your talk. It’s Mr. Slocum. He wants to see you in his office, right away.”
Quade waved his hands to the audience. “You see, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what happens to a humble citizen when one of our millionaire movie moguls turns his thumb down. My voice raised in honest speech, in a humble endeavor to earn a livelihood, annoys Mr. Slocum, yonder in his plush-lined office and so I am arrested.”
“Who said anythin’ about arresting anyone?” the policeman demanded. “I only said Mr. Slocum wants to talk to you. He heard your voice and sent me out to bring you in. Hey, you didn’t think I was a regular cop, did you?”
Quade brightened. “Of course not, my good man! I see it all now. Mr. Slocum is a motion picture producer; he heard my resonant voice and — yes, of course. He wishes to talk contract with me. Lead on, officer! I’ll talk to your Mr. Slocum.”
The crowd was already dispersing. The policeman pushed his way through and Quade followed. Behind him came Charlie Boston, still protesting at walking into a lion’s den.
The main studio building was a maze of corridors and private offices. The uniformed man led Quade and Boston down the row of offices and finally opened the door of an office that only a Hollywood mogul or a blue-sky promoter could afford.
There were two or three girls in the office and a couple of sleek-haired young men.
“Miss Hendricks will announce you to Mr. Slocum,” said the policeman to Quade. “Miss Hendricks, this is the man from outside, the man whose voice Mr. Slocum heard.”
A woman who looked like a middle-aged schoolteacher said, “Mr. Slocum will see you.”
“Wait here, Charles,” Quade said, and passed through the portals of Mr. Tommy Slocum’s inner sanctum.
He went into a room that looked like a newspaper morgue. A short, slight young man, who wore baggy trousers and a soiled shirt, got up from behind a littered desk and snapped at Quade:
“Can you bark?”
Quade had seen and heard many things in his life. He was almost never surprised. But his mouth fell open now.
“Can I bark?” he repeated inanely.
“Yeah, sure. Like a dog. Let’s hear you.”
Quade’s eyes hardened. “You mean like this?” He barked. “Arf! Arf!”
Tommy Slocum sawed the air impatiently. “No, no, no! Bark like the biggest, maddest dog you ever heard in your life. Put feeling into it!”
Quade fixed the little man with a deadly stare, took a deep breath… and barked. He barked like a St. Bernard dog whose tail had been stepped on by a fat man.
Tommy Slocum cried. “Splendid! I thought you had the stuff when I heard you bellowing out there on the street. You’ll do, fella, you’ll do!”
Deliberately Quade looked about the room. “Where’s the keeper?” he asked. “This is the crazy house, isn’t it?”
Tommy Slocum guffawed. “Don’t you know? This is the Slocum Studios. We make the Desmond Dogg animated cartoons.”
Quade looked sick. “Desmond Dogg! And I–I barked like Desmond Dogg?”
“Sure, that’s why I wanted you. Pete Rice, who usually dubs in the voice for Desmond, has laryngitis and won’t be able to bark for three-four days. We need the voice tomorrow. Come in here at nine o’clock. It’ll only be a couple of hours’ work and you’ll get fifty dollars. Oke?”