1050 - Enough Rope (CBS)

Shout Outs to patrons!! 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I have a journey in Laurel Rovers Trains to get Avide.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I hope you will enjoy the chapel.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
That it will traill you a little and kill you
a little.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
So settle back, get a good grip on your nerve.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Where are we going?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
You'll find out when we get there.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
Well, greetings everybody, and welcome back to old time radio Mystery,
Suspense and Harbor. Your host here Dakota, and welcome to
episode number one thousand and fifty. I've got a good
one for you today from the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
But real quick, before we get into that, I want

(00:55):
to give a quick shout out to the folks that
are supporting the show at my Patreon. Thank you so
much to Chris Gonzalez, Mike, Julie Zeider, Kevin Corbett, plaid X,

(01:16):
Paul Chelson, and Rick Cortez. Thank you guys so much
for your five dollars a month donation. It really helps
out and anyone who has donated in the past, thank
you so much. Thank you so much to Gary Kelly,
who periodically sends some money my way to help support

(01:40):
the show, Thank you so much. I really appreciate what
you guys. Do to help keep the show going. There's
currently three hundred and fifty one completely ad free episodes
over at my Patreon that are available to my five
dollars a month subscribers, so if you are a subscriber,

(02:03):
be sure to check that out. And I just want
to say I hope everyone is doing well. As we
are halfway through the spooky month of October. I'm going
to try to shoot some scary and spooky plays you
guys's way here in the next few weeks, but for now,
let's go ahead and get into today's featured episode. The

(02:27):
title of this episode is enough Rope and this one
first aired December seventh of nineteen seventy six.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Enjoy Yes, Radio Mystery Theater Presents, come in. Welcome. I'm e. G. Marshall.

(03:08):
Everybody said Mark Twain talks about the weather, but nobody
does anything about it. That statement is all right as
far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.
For instance, there are those people who try to do
something about it, and are they successful? Some of them are,
so why haven't we heard about them? The answer is

(03:30):
most of them don't want us to.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Ma'am. Is there any way I can thank you It
was nothing. Nothing. Mob would have lynched me.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
Oh, they were somewhat angry that.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
That rope was around my neck, and you all by
yourself made.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Them let me go.

Speaker 5 (03:47):
Oh, I go around doing that all the time.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
What do you mean you go around doing it?

Speaker 5 (03:53):
It's my job?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, what kind of job?

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (03:56):
And I love it, of course. I haven't had time
to become bored with it yet. I've only been added
three hundred years, ma'am.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
What are you saying? Our mystery drama Enough Rope was
written especially for the Mystery Theater by Sam Dan and
stars Russell Forton. The concept of reality has intrigued, absorbed, challenged, and,

(04:45):
for all I know, even plagued philosophers throughout the centuries.
What is real? Is anything real? Who are we?

Speaker 5 (04:55):
What are we?

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Isn't each of us merely a brief pause in eternity?
Perhaps each of us is a dream. The philosophers get
bogged down, and at the end we're no wiser than
we were at the beginning, which, if you want to
look at it that way, could be the story of life. Well,
so much for philosophy. How about some action. A young

(05:19):
man is sitting on a horse. He has a rope
around his neck. The other end of the rope is
tied securely to the stout branch of a huge tree.
Watching the scene are several grim faced, determined men. Uncle
Billy best you false faith feven parmit epathetic excuse.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
For a human being.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
You've gotta have a thing to say before you hang
by the neck until you get your just desserts.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Well, I ain't ready for a just desserts, brother jeff Roe.
Seen as how, I ain't lived long enough to enjoy
the full messena.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
O boys, he's had his last word.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
Hold on you, release that man.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, man, this ain't none of your affairs.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
I just made it my affair. I will not permit
this lynching way.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
It ain't exactly a linch.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
Oh no, or what is it?

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Then? We've just dispensed justice. He had no right to
swindle us out of ten thousand dollars. We're all hard
working silverman and folk. We aim to have just a moment.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
Please that whitehead, gentleman, I believe he's some fifty yards
await for me. You her with a white bed and
the corn cop pipe in your mouth. I hold your
heart very setator, that's it. I don't move, y w
you have no call and shot the pipe out of

(06:52):
that gentleman's mouth to prove I can hit what I
aim at. Now, sir, I'm aim in this weapon directly
at your heart.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, you will never get away with this.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
Release the guest of honor at this lynching party, or
you'll join him on his journey.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Now do do not in history, ma'am?

Speaker 5 (07:10):
You there the one to want to hang.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
What's your name?

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Baxter, ma'am, Billy Baxter?

Speaker 5 (07:17):
Can you put your hands?

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Well? I think so, ma'am.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
That's fine.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
Now, gentlemen, don't any of you become restless. Remember, if
anyone reaches for a weapon, you'll lose mister jeth Row.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
I'll be careful, boys, he can't get far. We can
always capture him again.

Speaker 5 (07:37):
All right, Billy, reach up, loosen the noose around your neck. Yeah,
that's fine, now lift it off.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Sorry, mister redhair.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
But you forced me to shoot that revolver out of
your hand.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Boys, don't try no.

Speaker 5 (07:57):
Now, Billy Baxter, you just head for the territor, oh
your border, as fast as that horse can go. I'll
entertain these gentlemen long enough to give you a start.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Oh, I'm eternally grateful to you, ma'am.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
If ever the opportunity arises that I can never do something,
You're going to get moving, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am, give
me a horse hold on there? Who's there?

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Don't make move now?

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Oh boy, oh hei, there it's you.

Speaker 5 (08:34):
Good thinking.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Who are you?

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Who am I? Well?

Speaker 3 (08:38):
I mean, you're sure the prettiest gal I ever did see.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (08:43):
Pretty perhaps, dah oh? I don't think so. How old
would you say?

Speaker 1 (08:50):
I am? Uh?

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Nineteen?

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Come on, I tell you twenty five. Well, you can't
be a day over thirty.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
If I were still alive, i'd be what here is this?
Eighteen ninety one?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
What do you mean?

Speaker 2 (09:07):
If you were still alive?

Speaker 5 (09:08):
Let me have this up? Never really very good to
take you?

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Well, what do you mean if you were still alive?

Speaker 5 (09:15):
I was born in the year fifteen fifteen, so I
would see I.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Would be.

Speaker 5 (09:22):
A three hundred and seventy six years old, Do I
subject that?

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Right?

Speaker 5 (09:26):
Fifteen fifteen from eighteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
One, ma'am.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
That's impossible, right, three hundred and seventy six.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, nobody could possibly be alive at the age of
three hundred and seventy six.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
Well I didn't say I was alive.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Well, if you ain't alive, what are you?

Speaker 5 (09:44):
I have crossed that great device. I was born in
Germany in fifteen fifteen, the province of Clee.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Oh man, when you say that, I get cold, sheer.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
Bron Because I was a cousin of the Duke's daughter,
the Duke of Clee. Her name was Anne.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
You follow this, but no, no, ma'am.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Pay attention. My mother was Italian, so she named me Alida.
I grew up and I became a companion to my
cousin Anne, and you know she became Anna Clea.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
No, ma'am.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
I was the fourth wife of King Henry the eighth.
Did you ever hear of him, King Henry the eighth
of England?

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah, it seems they had themselves a king with a
lot of wives.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
Six three catherines tu Anne entertained.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, and he was always cutting off their heads.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
Only two of them, and Bolin and Kate Howard.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Poor girl.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Now, ma'am, what are you telling me?

Speaker 5 (10:38):
I was there when they met for the first time.
They looked at each other and each of them became singing.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Hear somebody says she's three hundred and seventy six years old.

Speaker 5 (10:47):
In the last six months, and they decided to call
it Quinn.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
She goes on about Henry the eighth.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
I was not only her lady in waiting, I was
also her closest friends. So you can take it from
me that marriage was never constant.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (11:01):
I don't know why you blush it.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Well, man, that that sort of thing. It just been
discussed in mixed company.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Because well, because it ain't refined.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
No, it ain't refined. No, Well was it refined of
you to swindle all those poor miners out of their
life savings?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well out, ma'am.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
When you see sheep, get out the scissors, because if
you don't share them, somebody else will.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (11:30):
I should have let those that giliantes hang you next time,
I will wow. It continued, and and I was at
home to clean.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
Both of us died the same year, fifteen fifty seven.
I caught a fever. So you see I'm really forty two.
How do I look for forty two?

Speaker 2 (11:50):
You look beautiful?

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Ah?

Speaker 5 (11:53):
Now what am I going to do with you?

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Billy?

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Do with me?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Well?

Speaker 2 (11:59):
You saved my life?

Speaker 5 (12:00):
Oh no, I preserved it. It remains to be seen
if I saved it?

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Man, why why did you save me?

Speaker 3 (12:08):
You don't know me?

Speaker 2 (12:09):
You could have been killed.

Speaker 5 (12:11):
It's my job to save you.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Your job.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
Well, i'm your guardian angel, right what I believe you
heard me?

Speaker 2 (12:20):
My guardian angel?

Speaker 5 (12:21):
See you did hear me?

Speaker 2 (12:23):
You mean there is such a thing? Is it?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Is there?

Speaker 5 (12:27):
Work? What would I be doing here.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
A guardian angel?

Speaker 5 (12:32):
You see, I died, I went to heaven. What do
you want to do there as play a hard thing?
Be a guardian Angel? Well that's what I picked.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
I do believe you're serious.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
Well, actually I'm not old enough to be a full
time guardian Angel.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
You ain't old enough?

Speaker 5 (12:50):
Oh no, you need a few thousand years of experience.
So what I get now is released for you know,
when the regular the GA goes on vacation or any
time off.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I don't understand any of it.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
Who says you have to anyhow? I'm supposed to fill
in for your regular GA.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
For a wife.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
I didn't know I had one.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
No, everybody's gone.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
She never did anything for me.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
How do you know? Your guardian angel is only required
to make sure you get what you really dessert?

Speaker 2 (13:22):
And you decided I didn't deserve to hang.

Speaker 5 (13:24):
Well, not just a swimming by a way? Was that
swindle anyhow? I heard of it, ma'am say something about
ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
No, No, it wasn't that much.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
I don't know what them ruled.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
They're so upset about it. It's sold them one hundred
thousand acres of landed only a penny an acre.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
What kind of land?

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, it was.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Desert dessert like this?

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Uh, yes, ma'am, like this.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
Sandy Rocky? Does it really? Who gets even a penny
for the whole kitten kamoodler?

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Well, ma'am, I said there was very likely gold in it. See,
I heard about an Indian legend, so I sawted the
piece of it soft.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well, ma'am.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yes, you plant a few grains of gold in a
place where you think the suckers will kind of likely
to see it, and that's what you did.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
They must have seen it, because they sure were in
a sweat of buy of the lamb. They thought they
were swindling me. I see, well, now what happens?

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Now?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
You're gonna stay by.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
My side, will be in the vicinity to keep an
eye on you.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Hey, where are you going, Oh.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
I have a dinner date with my cousin Anna Leaves
and Henry the Eighth, the very friendly now of their
divorced night.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
That don't beat all, Huh.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
I could be dreaming.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
I could be dreaming this whole thing.

Speaker 6 (15:06):
Bar tender.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
I'm buying a drink for every man, woman and child
in the house.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Uh, this bunk or burbuster you your life?

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, it's Billy boy Baxter and where I am.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
The action is Hello, Billy boy, Bastern Chastity, Chastity Cleveland
Montrue Love.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Come on, sit down.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Have you been true to me?

Speaker 5 (15:32):
My ben is true to you, Billy? Have you been
true to me? Who is the woman?

Speaker 2 (15:36):
What woman?

Speaker 5 (15:37):
The woman who saved your life?

Speaker 2 (15:39):
We've never seen her before?

Speaker 5 (15:40):
You're lying to me, Billy.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yesterday, honey, it's the honest truth.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
That woman rode up to a lyncheon party of forty
seven armed and angry men all by herself. He shot
five of them out of the tattle. And no woman
to do that for me unless she was never loved
for him.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Well, she is my guardian angel.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
Are you trying to tell me the truth? If I
ever see her around here?

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Billy, honey, ain't she glad to see me.

Speaker 5 (16:08):
Oh, I just don't want to see any other woman
hanging around.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Baby, she's three hundred and seventy six years old.

Speaker 6 (16:14):
You stead me to believe that?

Speaker 1 (16:16):
All right, she's forty two, darling. Let's talk about you
and me and the money.

Speaker 6 (16:32):
But I go get long, Lily O there.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Oh, oh, it's you.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
Glad to see me? Yes, ma'am, all right, and Billy
business business, We have some unfinished business.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Uh meaning what ma'am?

Speaker 5 (16:51):
Oh call me mother, Billy sounds so much more intimate time.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Well, yes, ma'am, I mean a mother. What's the nature
of this unfinished business?

Speaker 5 (17:02):
Weather? It has to do with what the Bible calls
the root of all evil?

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, I assume you're talking about money, and you assume correctly.

Speaker 5 (17:11):
I have in my mind the sum of ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
It's the sum you stole from mister Jethrow and his
friends in the silver mining community of Dead Man's Goat.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Oh that money, Yes, indeed, Well.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
What about it?

Speaker 3 (17:34):
What about it?

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Billy?

Speaker 5 (17:38):
I want it?

Speaker 1 (17:45):
She wants it? Is this a way for a guardian
angel to talk? Now you happen to be in possession
of practically all of the facts and the case here,
who is our friend a leader? We know who she
says she is, but is it true? On the other hand,
why should we doubt her? But then why does she

(18:05):
want the money? We keep getting in deeper. Who knows
how much further we'll go in the second act? What

(18:29):
is reality? Well, the first approach is to consult the dictionary.
Here we are told it is the state or the
quality of being real, for which we thank mister Webster
very much. He also says factual, true to life? What
is a fact?

Speaker 3 (18:48):
And what is life?

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Does it become clearer when he tells us fidelity to nature? Well,
let's just go along with his story and see what happens.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
You you want the money, Billy, I must remind you
of a promise?

Speaker 3 (19:06):
What promise?

Speaker 5 (19:07):
At that very dramatic moment, when you were able to
lift that news from your nest and ride away to freedom,
you said to me, if there's ever anything I can
do for you?

Speaker 1 (19:18):
You remember, Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
I remember.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
So that's why you did it. For the money.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
The money was important.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
You want the money for yourself?

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Oh no, no, no, not for me.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
But you said you wanted the money.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
I want the money returned, return to its rightful owners.
Mister Jeffroo and his friends.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Oh well, no, yes, Billy, but they're born suckers.

Speaker 5 (19:49):
I want the money return Listen.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
We have to to fulfill our destiny.

Speaker 5 (19:55):
Don't turn my patience now.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
If a man's destiny is to be a sucker, he's
gonna be unhappy if you rob him of the opportunity
turn the money. Somebody else will only swindle them out
of it. I told you that before.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
If that somebody else won't be my guardian angel responsibility
return the money.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
I don't. I don't have it, Billy. That is Chastity's
holding it for me.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
About girls like Chastity, Billy.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
I know, I know, But you see I gave her
the money for safe keeping. Understand, take it back from her.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Half of it belongs to her.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
None of it belongs to her. All of it belongs
to those citizens of dead Man'scott.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
But if I tell her I don't want to give
the money.

Speaker 5 (20:38):
Billy, that's the end of the subject.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
It can't be done.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
I should have let me to Jethro and his friends.
Hang you, you know the.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Next time I will What do you mean next time
you will?

Speaker 5 (20:50):
That should be obvious. What do you mean, Billy. It's
always a matter of time for a man in your profession?
Is it sooner? Only the flim lamb falls flat, and
the marks, the suckers, the robes, whatever they put the
rope around your neck.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Don't even joke about it.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
Oh, I'm absolutely serious. And so you must mend your weight.
You must return the money, and you must seek honest employment.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
All right, a carrier very well.

Speaker 5 (21:23):
A week from now, a month from now, a year
from now, the scene shall be re enacted. Oh, the
place will be elsewhere, the supporting cast will be different,
but the central character will still be you, and the
rope will be around your neck. And this time I
shall stand by, unseen and silent.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
You mean you won't save me.

Speaker 5 (21:49):
Oh, yes, I shall save you, truly save you, Save
you from a further life of crime, Escort you from
this world of temptation and sin mhm into a higher,
pure place. No, then you must return the money.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
But Chastity's got it. What can I say to Chastity?

Speaker 5 (22:10):
Something will occur to you.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Oh, you don't know.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Chastity.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
When she gets her hands on a silver dollar, she
strangles the eagle to death.

Speaker 5 (22:24):
You're crazy.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Now, chaste, you've been out in the sun to love.

Speaker 5 (22:28):
Believe you've been eating some of that local weed out
in the desert.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Now listen to smoke, chastity. This will be red cast
upon the waters. You never read the good book.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
Red cast upon the water boats, but hard currency.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Sinks, Darling, half faith in?

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Who you mean?

Speaker 5 (22:48):
What's the scheme?

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Scheme?

Speaker 5 (22:50):
I know you, billy, You ain't giving this money back
to the sucker out of the goodness of that stony hot.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Let me hear, darling, I have seen the light.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Oh where am I heading? That's what I wanta know,
toward a rope, toward a certain fatal sunrise and a
hanging tree. Chastity, he'p save me. I'm frightened. Don't mock me.
I am looking into the awful face of fear. Don't
leave him.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Hang me.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
Who's gonna hang me?

Speaker 3 (23:19):
They will sooner or later. I'm mending my ways. I'm
gonna labor for my daily bread. You're gonna what live
by the sweat of my brow and the fruits of
my toil.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
I'll love.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
I work in a store, I dry good stove.

Speaker 5 (23:34):
Really, I never heard you talk like this before.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, and I never heard me talk like this either.

Speaker 5 (23:41):
Which come over you.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
I don't know. It's a kind of new spirit. You
mean you take a job, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
In a store. You don't have to work in a store.
You can own a store. We got ten thousand silver dollars.

Speaker 6 (23:58):
We can buy a store.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Oh, yesterday.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Stolen money cannot lay a secure foundation for an honest life.

Speaker 5 (24:06):
You mean we have a little house and little children.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, we would obey the commandment to be fruitful and multiply.

Speaker 6 (24:18):
Oh, it's a wonderful.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
If it had old Billy Baxter, honest day, just the
man I'm looking for.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Why are you looking for me? Honest real?

Speaker 1 (24:39):
This is something right up your alley.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Honest dave. You see what I'm doing. I'm taking my
wallet out of my pants pocket, placing it in my
shirt pocket and holding my hand over my heart and
feeling it securely.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, I did love a good joke. Yes, let me
buy a drink.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Oh, then you are series.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
This is the hustle of a lifetime. Not interested in out.
I won't even listen the dreams situation. Only the best
people you me fingers McNaughty. When I went into I
see they're certain to graze sheep in this county dreams situation,
Sand Francisco.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
It's gonna rouse up the cattle foat the.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Cover is no time respectable brokerage house.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Lad, I don't want to run.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Well, they're conservative in town.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
They'll be shooting and buy.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Mining stock from us all in print. It's a shame
the way they're gonna kill each other. Well, we have
to buy the name, the good will of the company,
and that's why I'm gonna get me a job.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
In the store. Now.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Plus we have to Greece a palm here.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
And then I'll sell to both sides.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Oh, we need startup money, say fifty thousand, and they'll
be fine of us. Each man share ten grand. Now
you must have ten grands.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
I turned over new leaf, abe, then.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
The leopard chains and spots. Think it over.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
There ain't nothing to think about.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
And sleep on it and see if you still don't
want to tell me that in the morning. Oh it's you.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
May I come in?

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Oh well, would it.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Be proper enough for you to come inside a gentleman's room?

Speaker 5 (26:40):
Close the door. I just chasted to leave here. After
she brought in several very large, very heavy leather bags.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, she's a big girl.

Speaker 5 (26:53):
I assume it's the ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Uh yeah, Then I.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
Assume we are ready to return to dead Man's sculpture.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
We are we are we well?

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Are we?

Speaker 5 (27:09):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (27:10):
No? No, we ain't.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
For what reason?

Speaker 2 (27:13):
But for the reason.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
But I decided I ain't gonna give back the money.
I changed my mind.

Speaker 5 (27:18):
You changed your mind? Honest, Aide's been talking to you,
hasn't her.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
How did you know? Oh?

Speaker 5 (27:25):
I saw the two of you with your heads together
in the saloon last evening. What if he soldier?

Speaker 3 (27:32):
You're a guardian angel, You're supposed to know everything. If
you're so smart, you tell me.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Let me tell you what I see in the future.
I see a jail, a fel and I see you inside.
And that is the finale of the scheme. Are the
grubby details important?

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Now?

Speaker 5 (27:50):
You stay away from her.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
I can't stay away from it.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
Did you see the look on Chastity's face this morning?

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (27:57):
She's ready for our new life, A beautiful life, the
life she's always dreamed.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Oh she won't be happy either.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Who we kidd and Chastity and me? We are confidence operators,
the two of us.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
It's in the by give it a chest.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Oh sure, the leopard can't change his spots. I'm a hustler.
That's how I was made. That's all I know. It's
all I can do.

Speaker 5 (28:20):
Even if it gets your rope around your neck.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
It's my destiny.

Speaker 5 (28:24):
Billy, what do you want?

Speaker 3 (28:27):
I told you I want to be left alone.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
No out of life.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
I don't want to think about it.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
Well, everybody thinks about it, even a hustler.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
ABC News Present Issues and that.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
All time, the biggest hustle ever conceived by the mind
of man.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
That's what I want to pull off and suposedy then what.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Then I would die happy?

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Well, I mean I would live happily ever after?

Speaker 5 (28:57):
And would you'll retire?

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
No more worlds to conquer, nothing more to prove.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
All right, Billy, I'll help you, help me, help me
do work. If you promise to retire immediately afterwards, I'll
help you bring off the biggest hustle in history.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Listen to who's talking. You heard of marriages that were
made in heaven, But swindles con games, hustles. Well, a
word of caution. It's all a matter of how these
things are defined. And we're going to have some definitions
when I returned shortly with that three. A swindle of

(30:04):
some proportion is about to be perpetrated. Usually these things
are the work of the devil, but here we're about
to see one that's the work of an angel, a
guardian angel. To be accurate, Can this be true? Did
we hear her? Right?

Speaker 5 (30:22):
Let's check back, Billy, I'll help you bring off the
biggest hustle in history.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
You can't be serious.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Why, Well, you're my guardian angel.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
I know.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
But you see, Billy, you're an infectious person. Your enthusiasm
it's hard toism. But a swindle, well, it'll be a
kind of a borderline swindle.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
You know. But now, won't you get into trouble?

Speaker 5 (30:52):
Probably not most a reprimand I'll.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Tan say, why why are you doing this for me?

Speaker 5 (31:00):
First? Ask me what I'm doing for you? Well, first
you'll return the money. Yeah, the question.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
Is just hand it over.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Huh.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
No, you see you sold land?

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Worthless land?

Speaker 5 (31:18):
What's that land? Created by the Lord?

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yes, ma'am us.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
Since everything created by the Lord is pressures, then there
is no such thing as worthless land.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Well, in the manner of speaking, however, it ain't rained
on that land since the year one.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Well, that's true, and it ain't never going to rain
there either.

Speaker 5 (31:36):
Who says something?

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Well, who says so, well, they ain't ever likely to
it could?

Speaker 5 (31:43):
How if somebody put in a good word to the
rain maker.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
The rainmaker, he's a friend of mine.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Are you sure you know what you're talking about?

Speaker 5 (31:56):
Certainly? What does it take to make a land of
milk and honey?

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Well?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
I never thought about it, one way or another.

Speaker 5 (32:05):
Rain rain creates a land of green valleys and blue waters.
Rain yields up the treasure of the earth.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 5 (32:15):
Well are still over those people and say it?

Speaker 2 (32:19):
But no, no, what's the swindle?

Speaker 5 (32:21):
Why you swindle them once when you sold them worthless land,
now swindle them again by buying it back.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Well, how is that a swimdle?

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Because it will be worthless land no longer. Now, my
friend the rain maker, I'll ask him for a little rain,
But will.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
They give it to me?

Speaker 5 (32:41):
The best parties upstairs are given by Henry the Eighth,
and they're very exclusive. Not everyone who wants to gets
to go. I could arrange for him to be invited,
so he could just as easily arrange for a little
range of.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Farll you need more than a little.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
I know, tar and cloud burst of cord and.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Those hundred thousand acres.

Speaker 5 (33:04):
Right in the middle.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, and once the grass grows and.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
The tree, what's that land will be worked?

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Get it back for a penny an acre. I'll sell
it for for millions a million.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
The land of milk and a hundle.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
The hustle, the greatest hustle in history, and it's mine.

Speaker 6 (33:26):
Allie, Billy, you sure you wanted to do this?

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yes, yesterday, darling.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
Will they too late to hit the San Francisco I
spoke to honest aids. It's chanting, they chanting.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
I know.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
She said it could be the hustle of a lifetime.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Put it behind you, darling.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
Billy, you're going to be strong enough to go through
with it. Yeah, we'll be strong and up for two
because I'm going to weaken chastity.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
You just think of that little cottage, the little curly
headed babies.

Speaker 5 (34:09):
Yes, Bimny, that's what I'm doing it. That's when I'm
starting to weaken healthy chastity.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Have faith.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Hey, it's Billy Buster in a rope.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Now hold on, uh huh? Why should we hold on,
Billy Baxter? Why shouldn't we hang you right here now,
because because I got something to say.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
Is enough to say to us, Sir, you look like
a god hearing man. Billy Boxter has learned there is
something greater than the grubby crystal games. Billy Boxter has
found you manatee.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Eh, what does that mean?

Speaker 3 (34:49):
I'll tell you what it means. Yes, I lied to you. Yes,
I stole your money. Yes I deserved I hang.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
But I was spared. You were there, you saw me spared.
Wasn't it a miracle?

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Wasn't it the work of the Lord. Answer? Brother Jethro answered, well, why.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Was I spared? Because I prayed?

Speaker 3 (35:13):
I prayed, Lord spare me, and I shall change my
sinful ways.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
I have sinned.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
I shall repent. Gentlemen and ladies of Pitman's coach. I
sold you workless lands, barren, rocky, sandy waste. What can
I do to atone? I shall buy it back. I
stand ready to buy it back. I have your stolen
ten thousand dollars. Let me buy it back from you
and get myself in right with the Lord.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Love. Oh uncle Birbasty, sit down, and now I don't
understand Jeffro to buy back this outrageous desert.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
I sold you, but no one wants to talk to me.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Well, I know, well, can you blame them? You know
your reputation. Yeah, but folks are confused these things. It's
a trick for what kind of a trick?

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (36:16):
No, nobody believes Bunko'billy wants to buy worthless land.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
I'm telling you, Jeff Rowe, I seemed a light.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
I believe you, son, but we got some hard customers
out there.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
What am I gonna do?

Speaker 3 (36:33):
I promised the Lord I'd make good.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Lord.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
You know what the land's like? What could I possibly
have up my sleeves?

Speaker 1 (36:40):
It beats me. But folks around here so snake bitting
on the subject of Billy Baxter. He just can't think straight.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Well, now, if a criminal wants to reform, shouldn't honest.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Folks help him?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yes, Billy, Well.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Help me, Jeff row help me. I swear I'm sincere.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Well, I'll try to talk to the man. I don't
know what I can do. I'm willing to buy back
my agrey.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, but I need everybody.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
I'll tell you what's killing it for everybody. You see
you ride in here, and what you propose is an even.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Swap I want to give back the money.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
That ain't bunkobilly style.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yeah, but I ain't bunco billy no more. I'm William
Baxter Junior about to become a dry goods clerk.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Old billy. You'll always be bunkobilly.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
But it ain't fair.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Life ain't fair. Give him a profit.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
A profit.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Offer us more.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Than what we paid for. Oh, I see je throw.
You're holding me up, I swave goes. Why because we're
in the driver's See.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Uh, you're doing it out of fear. I could say
forget it, you can. You're not buying land throws.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
No, what do you think?

Speaker 1 (38:12):
I'm buying salvation? You're saving your soul? All right?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
All right? How much you want?

Speaker 1 (38:21):
How much you.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Got with a ten thousand? It's all I got in
the world.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
The ten is all you have to show for all
the years of hustling and swindling.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Why else do you suppose I want to go straight?

Speaker 1 (38:33):
We bought for a penny an acre, we'll sell for
two cents.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
But that's another ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
You're getting off cheap.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Where can I raise ten thousand?

Speaker 1 (38:45):
I understand your friend honest age, and then well, why.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Would he give me ten grand? Hustling?

Speaker 1 (38:53):
But no sucker like another hustler? Is that?

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Look?

Speaker 3 (38:59):
I swear to this ten grand is all I have.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
One hundred thousand acres and two cents an acre. Twenty
thousand knocks it down.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Oh you're a hard man, Jethro.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
This week the price is two cents a maker. Next
week it rises to three billy.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Oh, oh, I was looking for you.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
They're holding me up.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Wow they expected what am I going to do? Oh?

Speaker 5 (39:33):
You can raise another ten billy for honest eadebe Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Maybe Jefro may be right.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
There's no sucker like a flame flam artist.

Speaker 5 (39:42):
It's because you want to believe in your own hustle.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Well, even at twenty thousand, it's far and away the
greatest swindle of all time.

Speaker 5 (39:52):
You said, thunder, I didn't hear anything.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
It might have been my imagination.

Speaker 5 (39:57):
Then again, may not be I did speak to my
friend the rainmaker, and he may be prepared.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Well, I don't don't let it rain now. Of course,
you'll kill it not till I get the deeds, all right, The.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
Very next day after you buy the line back, there
is going to be a rainstorm the like of which
you have never seen.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
I could have sworn I heard thunder.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Let it happens out in the desert. Maybe no, I
must ave. I'm sure I meant no. It was thunder
got around canons firing Florida patche forty five miles away.
I'm quet listen. I told you the story.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
Everything ah sounds crazy. It was a miracle. Oh, I
wish it could have seen her.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
I got in Enab.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
You know that crowd in dead Man's gold Well, they'd
as soon shoot you down as look at you. They
had that rope around my neck. They had blood in
their eyes. And she rode up just as calm as
you please. But she shot the pipe out of Jack
the Stranger's mouth, Jack the s and nobody made a move.
Now could a human woman scare him like that? Oh?

(41:18):
But they filled her presence. Come on, get in on
the ground floor.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
For ten thousand.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
This tennis for San Francisco. O.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
It's for the land of Milk and honey.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
And it's gonna rain the after we make the deal.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
The very next day after we.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Make that deal. Oh there you are, hello, chest Didy Darling.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
Hello, what are you doing here, William, Why aren't you
showing up for work in the store.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
This work in a starbuler.

Speaker 5 (41:57):
His name is will Now.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Honey said to sit down and have drink.

Speaker 5 (42:02):
I thought there was supposed to be no more drinking,
no more dressing. Oh you'll be quiet, honest abe, and
no more sitting around low places like that.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Well angely, I mean, honey.

Speaker 5 (42:15):
You were supposed to have bought that the last when.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
I did, I got the titles right here in my pocket, and.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
Then you were supposed to report to mister Cadawalla start
and take a job.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Well there's been a slight changeing plan. What change you see?
We now own one.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Hundred thousand acres.

Speaker 5 (42:33):
Of worthless there and desert.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
No correction, soon to become a land of milk and honey.

Speaker 5 (42:39):
What are you saying?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
You heard me?

Speaker 5 (42:41):
A land of milk and honey, then one hundred thousand acres.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
A very sane Oh you've been in the sunlight. It
will become a land of milk and honey. The rains
will come, they will nourish the earth, and slowly, slowly,
the land will become fertile.

Speaker 6 (42:57):
He's crazy, my j there's.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
Cray and it's all going to start today today, which
is exactly twenty four hours after I brought back the land,
and at any moment the skyes will open and there
shall be rain afternoon, Brother Willi, oh, jeeth Row, it's
a pleasure to see. What are you doing in this
sinful town.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I made a little profit, our little land deal, and
I just thought i'd have me a good time.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Well you do that, Jethro, You enjoy yourself.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
I hope you brought a raincoat and a pump show
and brutes.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Whatever for you'll find out. You'll find out what I
find out, Brother William. Oh, oh, there's my wife. I's
colder to meet me here. I like to introduce you
Alida Alena Honey over here, A leader, lovely woman is she?

Speaker 5 (44:04):
Henry, Jethro? What are you doing in a low dive.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Like this, Ahleider? I like you to meet a nice
young fellow by the name of Bunco Billy Baxter.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
How do you do, sir?

Speaker 3 (44:17):
But she's.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
She's beautiful, of course, but she's more than that. She's
my guardian angel. And in the end, it's the con
man who becomes the biggest sucker of them all, because
the soul he Sells is always his own. His ultimate

(44:44):
victim must be himself.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I hope you.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Don't think I'm conning you when I insist I shall
return shortly. We have endeavored to present an exercise in reality?

(45:09):
How to determine its existence? Well? Would you like to
get bogged down even deeper? What could be more real
than a court of law? What could be more real
than a specifically worded statute? Okay, So how come the
highest group of judges in the land can actually split

(45:30):
right down the middle on reality? However, all of you
should reach a unanimous decision to tune us in seven
times each week. Our cast included Russell Horton, Robert Dryden,
and E. V. Jester. The entire production was under the
direction of Hyman Brown, and now a preview of our

(45:56):
next tale.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
You pretended to.

Speaker 7 (45:58):
Be my I did not pretend none of this is true.

Speaker 5 (46:01):
I'm kind of which I think you are, and have
been weaving spills up there alone in your room.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Missus Holt.

Speaker 5 (46:09):
You know you've always known that my daughter could never
marry a son of yours. It's unthinkable.

Speaker 7 (46:19):
But I had had nothing to do with it, nothing
at all, Or had I had everything to do with it.
I don't know, and I have thought long and hard
about it.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
I'm reduced to.

Speaker 7 (46:33):
Calling it fate.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
It's simply fate.

Speaker 7 (46:38):
Or call it the machinations of some spirit, some spirit
perhaps lodged in me, a spirit whose name I don't know.
If such a spirit chose to work through me, it
was without my knowledge or my will.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
I swear that's true.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
This is E. G. Marshall inviting you to return to
our Mystery Theater for another adventure in the macabre. Until
next time, Pleasants Dreams