Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1922)

■ // was astonishing how much legal advice Dan discovered a pretty girl really needs OUR LEADING CITIZEN [Copyright 1922 by Famous Players-Lasky Corp.] ^y Qeorge <iAde Fictionized by Randolph Bartlett He was brave but lazy. His real trouble was that he hadn't struck the right job — but it took a pretty girl to prove it to him OF all the lawyers in Wingfield, "Lazy Dan" Bentley was the best fisherman. Nobody tried to discourage him because there were still enough lawyers regularly on the job to get everybody into trouble who had ambitions that way. About all the law practice Dan had was when somebody was accused of something and hadn't any money to prove it wasn't so. Then the court usually appointed Dan to defend the accused, and the expensive lawyers used to remark that Dan was almost as lucky as he was lazy, for he managed to get his man off with astonishing frequency. In the "Not guilty" column his batting average was away above .500, but in the "Not working" column he held all the records. Lots of Wingfield's best people supported the theory that Dan was really a clever lawyer, and they would have given him their business, only it was sort of awkward to have to corner him somewhere along BlackRiver and have your business conference interrupted by his battles with bass. Cale Higginson, on the other hand, maintained against all comers that as good a fisherman as Dan Bentley had no business to have any other business. He himself, in choosing a career, had hit upon that of night watchman as the one which would offer the minimum of interference with his real profession of fishing. And when Dan did happen to have a law case forced upon him, Cale would behave like an orphan with the mumps until the pesky thing was settled, and he and Dan could live a normal life again. The only thing that ever jarred Dan loose from fishing for any serious length of time was the war. When that came on, Dan didn't stop to have himself examined for dandruff, ingrown mosquito bites, or hang-nails. He enlisted, and in that way had quite a jump on the lads who weren't so impetuous about it, so that first thing he knew he was a major with a lot of strange shaped hardware across his bosom. He swore he didn't know how it ever got there, but his men could tell the world and did so. For a lazy man, Major Dan Bentley turned out to be the "darndest fightin'est cuss" in his whole division. Somehow this fact reached the French government, which sent instructions accordingly to the proper official at the embassy in Washington, so that quite a neat and nifty little reception was waiting at the station the day Dan was due back in town. Not the least interested person was Katherine Fcndle. Although she was one of the richest citizens of Wingfield, her brother Oglesby being the other, she had gone to France in the same thoughtless way that Dan did — just decided it was the thing to do and did it. Her work for the Red Cross brought her into contact with Dan's troops many times, and when she reached home again, beating Dan by several weeks, she informed Wingfield that it was her personal belief that Dan Bentley won the war. OGLESBY FENDLE could only look upon his sister's enthusiasm with a cold and clammy eye, but decided it would be as well not to try to choke it off for the present. Other* at the depot to do honor to the returning hero were the editor of the Wingfield Courier, bursting witli unripe adjectives; Sam de Mott, a politician with a convenient ability to lean toward any party