 CHAPTER 10 OF SHADERED ILLUSIONS The next morning he sat a long time in the genial sunlight watching carpenters finish a scaffolding beside the pool that had once floated logs to a sawmill. The scaffolding was a stout affair supporting an immense tank that would evidently for some occult reason important to screen art hold a great deal of water. The sawmill was gone. At one end of the pool rode a small sailboat with one mast, its canvas flapping idly in a gentle breeze. Its deck was littered with rigging upon which two men worked. They seemed to be getting things ship-shape for a cruise. When he had tired of this he started off toward the high gear dance-hall. Something all day had been drawing him there against his will. He hesitated to believe it was the monagu girls kindly manner toward him the day before, yet he could identify no other influence. Probably it was that. Yet he didn't want to face her again even if for a moment she had quit trying to be funny, even if for a moment her eyes had searched his quite earnestly, her broad, amiable face glowing with that sudden friendly concern. It had been hard to withstand this yesterday. He had been in actual danger of confiding to her that engagements of late were not plentiful. Something like that. And it would be harder to day. Even the caller would make it harder to resist the confidence that he was not at this time overwhelmed with offers for his art. He had for what seemed like an interminable stretch of time been solitary and an outlaw. It was something to have been spoken to by a human being who expressed ever so fleeting an interest in his affairs, even by someone as inconsequent, as negligible in the world of screen artistry as this lightsome minx who, because of certain mental infirmities, could never hope for the least enviable eminence in a profession demanding seriousness of purpose. Still it would be foolish to go again to the set where she was. She might think he was encouraging her. So he passed the high gear where a four-horse stage watched by two cameras was now releasing its passengers, who all appeared to be direct from New York, and walked on to an outdoor set that promised entertainment. This was the narrow street of some quaint European village, scotch as he soon saw from the dress of its people. A large automobile was invading this remote hamlet to the dismay of its inhabitants. Rehearsed through a megaphone, they scurried within doors at its approach, ancient men hobbling on sticks, and frantic mothers grabbing their little ones from the path of the monster. Two trial trips he saw the car make the length of the little street. At its lower end, brooding placidly, was an ancient horse rather recalling Dexter in his generously exposed bones and the jaded droop of his head above a low stone wall. Twice the car sped by him, arousing no sign of apprehension nor even of interest. He paid it not so much as the tribute of a raised eyelid. The car went back to the head of the street where its entrance would be made. All right, ready came the megaphone order. Again the peaceful street was thrown into panic by this snorting dragon from the outer world. The old men hobbled affrightedly within doors. The mothers saved their children. And this time, to the stupefaction of Merton Gill, even the old horse proved to be an actor of rare merits. As the car approached, he seemed to suffer a painful shock. He tossed his aged head, kicked viciously with his rear feet, stood absurdly aloft on them, then turned and fled from the monster. As Merton mused upon the genius of the trainer who had taught his horse not only to betray fright at a motor-car, but to distinguish between rehearsals and the actual taking of a scene, he observed a man who emerged from a clump of nearby shrubbery. He carried a shotgun. This was broken at the breach, and the man was blowing smoke from the barrels as he came on. So that was it. The panic of the old horse had been but a simple reaction to a couple of charges of, perhaps, rock salt. Merton hoped it had been nothing sterner. For the first time in his screen career he became cynical about his art. A thing of shame, of machinery, of subterfuge. Nothing would be real, perhaps not even the art. It is probable that lack of food conduced to this disparaging outlook, and he recovered presently, for he had been smitten with a quick vision of Bula Baxter in one of her most daring exploits. She, at least, was real. Deaf to entreaty, she honestly braved her hazards. It was a comforting thought after this late exposure of a sham. In this slightly combative mood he retraced his steps and found himself outside the high-gear dance-hall, fortified for another possible encounter with the inquiring and obviously sympathetic Montague girl. He entered and saw that she was not on the set. The bar-room dance-hall was, for the moment, deserted of its ribbled crew while an honest inhabitant of the open spaces on a balcony was holding a large revolver to the shrinking back of one of the New York men who had lately arrived by the stage. He forced this man, who was plainly not honest, to descend the stairs and to sign at a table a certain paper. Then, with weapons still in hand, the honest Westerner forced the cowardly New Yorker in the direction of the front door until they passed out of the picture. On this the board director of the day before called loudly, now boys, in your places, you've heard a shot, you're running outside to see what's the matter. On your toes now, try it once. From rear doors came the motley frequenters of the place led by the elder Montague. They trooped to the front in two lines and passed from the picture. Here they milled about, waiting for further orders. Rotten, called the director, Rotten and then some. Listen, you came like a lot of children marching out of a public school. Don't come in lines. Break it up. Push each other. Fight to get ahead and you're noisy too. You're shouting. You're saying, what's this? What's it all about? What's the matter? Which way did he go? Say anything you want to, but keep shouting. Anything at all. Say, there's gold in them hills, if you can't think of anything else. Go on now, boys. Do it again and pep it. See? Turn the juice on. Open up the old mufflers. The men went back through the rear doors. The late collar would here have left, being fed up with this sort of stuff, but at that moment he described the Montague girl back behind a light standard. She had not noted him, but was in close talk with a man he recognized as Jeff Baird, arch-perpetrator of the infamous Buckeye comedies. They came toward him, still talking as he looked. We'll finish here tomorrow afternoon, anyway, the girl was saying. Fine, said Baird. That makes everything Jake. Get over on the set whenever you're through. Come over to-night, if they don't shoot here, just to give us a look in. Can't, said the girl. Soon as I get out of this dump, I gotta eat on the lot and everything and be over to Baxter's layout. She'll be doing tank stuff till all hours, shipwreck and murder and all like that. Gosh, I hope it ain't cold. I don't mind the water, but I certainly hate to get out and wait in wet clothes while Sig Rosenblatt is thinking about a retake. Well, Baird turned to go. Take care of yourself. Don't dive and forget to come up. Come over when you're ready. Sure, so long. Here the girl, turning from Baird, noted Merton Gill beside her. Well, well, as I live, the acting kid wants more. Say, you're getting to be a regular studio hound, ain't ya? For the moment he had forgotten his troubles. He was burning to ask her if Bula Baxter would really work in a shipwreck scene that night at the place where he had watched the carpenters and the men on the sailboat, but as he tried to word this he saw that the girl was again scanning him with keen eyes. He knew she would read the collar, the beard, perhaps even a look of mere hunger that he thought must now be showing. Say, see here, trooper, what's the shootin' all about, anyway? You up against it? Yes. There was again in her eye the look of warm concern and she was no longer trying to be funny. He might now have admitted a few little things about his screen career, but again the director interrupted. Ms. Montague, where are you? Oh, well, remember, you're behind the piano during that gunplay just now and you stay hid till after the boys get out. We'll shoot this time, so get set. She sped off with a last backward glance of questioning. He waited but a moment before leaving. He was almost forgetting his hunger in the pretty certain knowledge that in a few hours he would actually behold his Wonder Woman in at least one of her daring exploits. Shipwreck. Perhaps she would be all but drowned. He hastened back to the pool that had now acquired this high significance. The carpenters were still puttering about on the scaffold. He saw that platforms for the cameras had been built out from its side. He noted, too, and was puzzled by an aeroplane propeller that had been stationed close to one corner of the pool just beyond the stern of the little sailing-craft. Perhaps there would be an aeroplane wreck in addition to the shipwreck. Now he had something besides food to think of, and he wondered what the Montague girl could be doing in the company of a really serious artist like Bula Baxter. From her own story she was going to get wet, but from what he knew of her she would be some character not greatly missed from the cast if she should, as Baird had suggested, dive and forget to come up. He supposed that Baird had meant this to be humorous, the humor typical of a man who could profane a great art with the atrocious buckeye comedies, so called. He put in the hours until nightfall in aimless wandering and idle gazing, and was early at the poolside where his heroine would do her sensational acting. It was now a scene of thrilling activity. Immense lights, both from the scaffolding and from a tower back of the sailing-craft, flooded its deck and rigging from time to time as adjustments were made. The rigging was slack and the deck was still littered, intentionally so he now perceived. The gallant little boat had been cruelly buffeted by a gale. Two sailors and piratical dress could be seen to emerge at intervals from the cabin. Suddenly the gale was on with terrific force. The sea rose in great waves and the tiny ship rocked in a perilous manner. Great billows of water swept its decks. Merton Gill stared in amazement at these phenomena so dissonant with the quiet starlet night. Then he traced them without difficulty to their various sources. The gale issued from the swift revolutions of that airplane propeller he had noticed a while ago. The flooding billows were spilled from the big tank at the top of the scaffold, and the boat rocked in obedience to the tugging of a rope, tugged from the shore by a crew of helpers that ran to the top of its mast. Thus had the storm been produced. A spidery, youngish man from one of the platforms built out from the scaffold now became sharply vocal through a megaphone to assistance who were bending the elements to the need of this particular hazard of hortense. He called directions to the men who tugged the rope, to the men in control of the lights, and to another who seemed to create the billows. Among other items he wished more action for the boat and more water for the billows. See that your tank gets full up this time, he called, whereupon an engine under the scaffold, by means of a large rubber hose reaching into the pool, began to suck water into the tank above. The speaker must be Miss Baxter's director, the enviable personage who saw her safely through her perils. When one of the turning reflectors illumined him, Merton saw his face of a keen Semitic type. He seemed to possess not the most engaging personality. His manner was aggressive. He spoke rudely to his doubtless conscientious employees. He danced in little rages of temper, and altogether he was not one with whom the watcher would have cared to come in contact. He wondered, indeed, that so pure sent a star as Bula Baxter should not be able to choose her own director, for surely the presence of this unlovely, waspishly tempered being could be nothing but an irritant in the daily life of the Wonder Woman. Perhaps she had tolerated him merely for one picture. Perhaps he was especially good in shipwrecks. If Merton Gill were in this company he would surely have words with this person, director or no director. He hastily wrote a one real scenario in which the man so far forgot himself as to speak sharply to the star, and in which a certain young actor, a new member of the company, resented the ungentlemanly words by pitching the offender into a convenient pool and earned even more than gratitude from the starry-eyed Wonder Woman. The objectionable man continued active, profuse of gesture and loud through the megaphone. Once more the storm. The boat rocked threateningly, the wind roared through its slack rigging, and giant billows swept the frail craft. Light, as from a half clouded moon, broke through the mist that issued from a steam pipe. There was another lull, and the semitic type on the platform became increasingly offensive. Merton saw himself saying, Allow me, Miss Baxter, to relieve you of the presence of this bounder. The man was impossible. Constantly he had searched the scene for his heroine. She would probably not appear until they were ready to shoot, and this seemed not to be at once if the rising temper of the director could be sought an indication. The big hose again drew water from the pool to the tank, whence at a sudden release it would issue in billows. The big lights at last seemed to be adjusted to the director's whim. The aeroplane propeller whirred, and the gale was found acceptable. The men at the rope tugged the boat into grave danger. The moon lighted the mist that overhung the scene. Then at last Merton started, peering eagerly forward across the length of the pool. At the far end, half illumined by the big lights, stood the familiar figure of his Wonder Woman, the slim little girl with the wistful eyes. Plainly he could see her now as the mist lifted. She was chatting with one of the pirates who had stepped ashore from the boat. The wonderful golden hair shone resplendent under the glancing rays of the arcs. A cloak was about her shoulders, but at a word of command from the director she threw it off and stepped to the boat's deck. She was dressed in a short skirt, her trim feet and ankles lightly shod and silken clad. The sole maritime touch in her garb was a figured kerchief at her throat, similar to those worn by the piratical crew. Already Hortense, already Jose and Gaston, get your places! Miss Baxter acknowledged the command with that characteristic little wave of a hand that he recalled from so many of her pictures, a half-humorous, half-mocking little defiance. She used it often when escaping her pursuers as if to say that she would see them in the next installment. The star and the two men were now in the cabin hidden from view. Merton Gill was no seaman, but it occurred to him that at least one of the crew would be at the wheel in this emergency. Probably the director knew no better. Indeed, the boat, so far as could be discerned, had no wheel. Apparently when a storm came up all hands went down into the cabin to get away from it. The storm did come up at this moment with no one on deck. It struck with the full force of a tropic hurricane. The boat rocked, the wind blew, and billows swept the deck. At the height of the tempest, Bula Baxter sprang from the cabin to the deck, clutching wildly at a stanchion. Buffeted by the billows, she groped a painful way along the side at risk of being swept off to her death. She was followed by one of the crew who held a murderous knife in his hand, then by the other sailor who also held a knife. They, too, were swept by the billows but seemed grimly determined upon the death of the heroine. Then, when she reached midships and the foremost fiend was almost upon her, the mightiest of all the billows descended and swept her off into the cruel waters. Her pursuers, saving themselves only by great effort, held to the rigging and stared after the girl. They leaned far over the ship's rocking side, and each looked from under a spread hand. For a distressing interval the heroine battled with the waves, but her frail strength availed her little. She raised a despairing face for an instant to the camera, and its agony was illumined. Then the dread waters closed above her. The director's whistle blew, the waves were stilled, the tumult ceased. The head of Bula Baxter appeared halfway down the tank. She was swimming toward the end where Merton stood. He had been thrilled beyond words at this actual side of his heroine in action, but now it seemed that a new emotion might overcome him. He felt faint. Bula Baxter would issue from the pool there at his feet. He might speak to her, might even help her to climb out. At least no one else had appeared to do this. Seemingly no one now cared where Miss Baxter swam to, or whether she were offered any assistance in landing. She swam with an admirable crawl stroke, reached the wall, and put up a hand to it. He stepped forward, but she was out before he reached her side. His awe had delayed him. He drew back then for the star, after vigorously shaking herself, went to a tall brazier in which glowed a charcoal fire. Here he now noticed for the first time the prop boy Jimmy, who had almost certainly defaulted with an excellent razor. Jimmy threw a blanket about the star's shoulders as she hovered above the glowing coals. Merton had waited for her voice. He might still venture to speak to her, to tell her of his long and profound admiration for her art. Her voice came as she shivered over the fire. Murder that water's cold! Rosenblatt swore he'd have it warmed, but I'm here to say it wouldn't boil an egg in four minutes. He could not at first identify this voice with the remembered tones of Bula Baxter, but of course she was now hoarse with the cold. Under the circumstances he could hardly expect his heroine's own musical clearness. Then, as the girl spoke again, something stirred among his more recent memories. The voice was still hoarse, but he placed it now. He approached the brazier. It was undoubtedly the monogue girl. She recognized him even as she squeezed water from the hair of wondrous gold. Hello again, kid. You're everywhere, ain't you? Say, what'd you think of that Rosenblatt man? Swore he'd put the steam into that water and take off the chill. And he never. She threw aside the blanket and squeezed water from her garments, then began to slap her legs, arm, and chest. Well, I'm getting a gentle glow anyhow. What did you think of the scene? It was good. Very well done indeed. He hoped it didn't sound patronizing, though that was how he felt. He believed now that Miss Baxter would have done it much better. He ventured a question. But how about Miss Baxter? When does she do something? Is she going to be swept off the boat, too? Baxter? Into that water? Quit your kidding. But isn't she here at all? Won't she do anything here? Listen here, kid. Why should she loaf around on the set when she's paying me good money to double for her? You double for Bula Baxter? It was some more of the girl's nonsense and a blasphemy for which he could not easily forgive her. Why not? Ain't I a good stunt actress? I'll tell the lot she hasn't found any one yet that can get away with her stuff better than what I do. But she—I heard her say herself she never allowed any one to double for her. She wouldn't do such a thing. Here sounded a scornful laugh from Jimmy the Prop Boy. Bunk! said he at the laugh's end. How long you've been doubling for her, Miss Montague? Two years, ain't it? I know it was before I come here and I've been on the lot a year and a half. Say he ought to see some of the stuff you'd done for her out on location, like jumping into the locomotive engine from your auto and catching the brake beams when the train's moving, and going across that quarry on the cable, and riding down that lumber flume sixty miles per hour, and riding some of them outlaw buck-jumpers. He ought to see some of that stuff, hey, Miss Montague? Miss Wright, Jimmy, you tell him all about me. I hate to talk of myself. Very wonderfully Merton Gill divined that this was said with a humorous intention. Jimmy was less sensitive to values. He began to obey. Well, I don't know. There's that motorcycle stuff. Pretty good, I'll say. I wouldn't try that. No, sir, not for a cool million dollars. And that chase stuff on the roofs downtown where you jumped across that court that wasn't any too darn narrow, and say I wished I could skin up a tree the way you can. And then there was that time, all right, all right, Jimmy, I can tell him the rest some time. I don't really hate to talk about myself. That's on the level. And say, listen here, Jimmy, you're my favorite sweetheart, ain't you? Yes, ma'am, assented Jimmy warmly. All right, beat it up and get me about two quarts of that hot coffee and about four ham sandwiches, two for you and two for me. That's a good kid. Sure exclaimed Jimmy and was off. Merton Gill had been dazed by these revelations, by the swift and utter destruction of his loftiest ideal. He hardly cared to know now if Bula Baxter were married. It was the monogue girl who had most thrilled him for two years. Yet almost as if from habit, he heard himself asking, is, do you happen to know if Bula Baxter is married? Baxter married? Sure. I should think you'd know it from the way that sick rose and black balls everybody out. Who's he? Who is he? Why, he's her husband, of course. He's Mr. Bula Baxter. That little director up on the platform that yells so? This unspeakable person to be actually the husband of the Wonder Woman, the man he had supposed she must find intolerable even as a director. It was unthinkable, more horrible somehow than her employment of a double. In time he might have forgiven that, but this. Sure, that's her honest to God husband, and he's the best one out of the three that I know she's had. Sigg's a good scout even if he don't look like Buffalo Bill. In fact, he's all right in spite of his rough ways. He'd go further for you than most of the men on this lot. If I wanted to favor, I'd go to Sigg before a lot of Christians I happen to know. And he's a bully director if he is noisy. Baxter's crazy about him, too. Don't make any mistake there. I won't, he answered, not knowing what she said. She shot him a new look. Say, kid, as long as we're talking, you seem kind of up against it. Where's your overcoat a night like this? And when did you last? Miss Monogue, Miss Monogue, the director was calling. Excuse me, she said. I got to go entertain the white folks again. She tucked up the folds of her blanket and sped around the pool to disappear in the mazes of the scaffolding. He remained a moment staring dully into the now quiet water. Then he walked swiftly away. Bula Baxter, his Wonder Woman, had deceived her public in Peoria, Illinois, by word of mouth. She employed a double at critical junctures. She'd be a fool not to, the Monogue girl had said. And in private life, having been unhappily wed twice before, she was Mrs. Sigmund Rosenblatt, and crazy about her husband. A little while ago he had felt glad he was not to die of starvation before seeing his Wonder Woman. Being under the first shock of his discoveries, he was now sorry. Bula Baxter was no longer his Wonder Woman. She was Mr. Rosenblatt's. He would have preferred death, he thought, before this heart-withering revelation. CHAPTER XI He came to life the next morning, shivering under his blankets. It must be cold outside. He glanced at his watch and reached for another blanket, throwing it over himself and tucking it in at the foot. Then he lay down again to screen a tense bit of action that had occurred late the night before. He had plunged through the streets for an hour after leaving the pool, striving to recover from the twin shocks he had suffered. Then, returning to his hotel, he became aware that the hazards of hortense were still on. He could hear the roar of the airplane propeller and see the lights over the low buildings that lined his street. Miserably he was drawn back to the spot where the most important of all his visions had been rent to tatters. He went to the end of the pool where he had stood before. Mr. Rosenblatt hardly could he bring his mind to utter the hideous syllables, was still dissatisfied with the sea's might. He wanted bigger billows and meant to have them if the company stayed on the set all night. He was sane as much with peevish inflections. Merton stood warming himself over the fire that still glowed in the brazier. To him from somewhere beyond the scaffold came now the Montague girl and Jimmy. The girl was in her blanket, and Jimmy bore a pitcher, two tin cups, and a package of sandwiches. They came to the fire and Jimmy poured coffee for the girl. He produced sugar from a pocket. Help yourself, James, said the girl, and Jimmy poured coffee for himself. They ate sandwiches as they drank. Merton drew a little back from the fire. The scent of the hot coffee threatened to make him forget he was not only a successful screen actor but a gentleman. Did you have to do it again? He asked. I had to do it twice again, said the girl from over her tin cup. They're developing the strips now, and then they'll run them in the projection room. And they won't suit Sig one little bit, and I'll have to do it some more. I'll be swimming here till daylight doth appear. She now shot that familiar glance of appraisal at Merton. Have a sandwich and some coffee, kid. Give him your cup, Jimmy. It was Merton Gill's great moment, a heart-gripping climax to a two-days drama that had at no time lacked tension. Superbly he arose to it. Consecrated to his art, Clifford Armitage gave the public something better and finer. He drew himself up and spoke lightly, clearly, with careless ease. No thanks. I couldn't eat a mouthful. The smile with which he accompanied the simple words might be enigmatic. It might hint of secret sorrows, but it was plain enough that these could not ever so distantly relate to a need for food. Having achieved this sensational triumph, with all the quietness of method that should distinguish the true artist, he became seized with stage fright a mounting to almost panic. He was moved to snatch the sandwich that Jimmy now proffered, the cup that he had refilled with coffee. Yet there was but a moment of confusion. Again he wielded an iron restraint. But he must leave the stage. He could not tarry there after his big scene, especially under that piercing glance of the girl. Somehow there was incredulity in it. Well, I guess I'll have to be going, he remarked jauntly and turned for his exit. Say, kid, the girl halted him a dozen feet away. Say, listen here, this is on the level. I want to have a talk with you tomorrow. You'll be on the lot, won't you? He seemed to debate this momentarily, then replied. Oh, yes, I'll be around here somewhere. Well, remember now, if I don't run into you, you come down to that set where I was working today. See, I got something to say to you. All right, I'll probably see you sometime during the day. He had gone on to his hotel, but he had no intention of seeing the monogue girl on the morrow, nor of being seen by her. He would keep out of that girl's way whatever else he did. She would ask him if everything was Jake, and where was his overcoat, and a lot of silly questions about matters that should not concern her. He was in two minds about the girl now. Beneath an unreasonable but very genuine resentment that she should have doubled for Bula Baxter, as if she had basely cheated him of his most cherished ideal, there ran an undercurrent of reluctant but very profound admiration for her prowess. She had done some thrilling things and seemed to make nothing of it. Through this admiration there also ran a thread of hostility because he himself would undoubtedly be afraid to attempt her lightest exploit. Not even the trifling feat he had just witnessed, for he had never learned to swim. But he clearly knew, despite this confusion, that he was through with the girl. He must take more pains to avoid her. If met by chance she must be snubbed, upstaged, as she would put it. Under his blankets now, after many appealing close-ups of the sand which Jimmy had held out to him, he felt almost sorry that he had not taken the girl's food. All his being, save that part consecrated to his art, had cried out for it. Art had triumphed, and now he was near to regretting that he had not been beaten down. No good thinking about it, though. He reached again for his watch. It was seven-thirty and time to be abroad. Once more he folded his blankets and placed them on the pile, keeping an alert glance the while for another possible bit of the delicious bread. He found nothing of this sort. The Crystal Palace Hotel was bare of Provender. Achieving a discreet retirement from the hostelry, he stood irresolute in the street. This morning there was no genial sun to warm him. A high fog overcast the sky, and the air was chill. At intervals he shivered violently. For no reason except that he had their last beheld actual food he went back to the pool. Evidently Mr. Rosenblatt had finally been appeased. The place was deserted and lay bare and ugly in the dull light. The gallant ship of the night before was seen to be a poor, flimsy makeshift. No wonder Mr. Rosenblatt had wished billows to engulf it and missed to shroud it. He sat on a beam lying at the ship-end of the pool, and stared moodily at the pitiful make-believe. He rounded his shoulders and pulled up the collar of his coat. He knew he should be walking, but doubted his strength. The little walk to the pool had made him strangely breathless. He wondered how long people were in starving to death. He had read of fasters who went for weeks without food, but he knew he was not of this class. He lacked talent for it. Doubtless another day would finish him. He had no heart now for visions of the gash-wiler table. He descended tragically to recalling that last meal at the drug-store, the bowl of soup with its gracious burden of rich, nourishing ketchup. He began to alter the scenario of his own life. Suppose he had worked two more weeks for gash-wiler. That would have given him thirty dollars. Suppose he had worked for a month. He would have existed a long time on sixty dollars. Suppose he had even stuck it out for one week more, fifteen dollars at this moment. He began to see a breakfast, the sort of meal to be ordered by a hungry man with fifteen dollars to squander. The shivering seized him again and he heard his teeth rattle. He must move from this spot for ever now to be associated with black disillusion. He arose from a seat and was dismayed to hear a hail from the Montague girl. Was he never to be free from her? She was poised at a little distance, one hand raised to him, no longer the drenched victim of a capricious rose-and-blatt, but the beaming joyous figure of one who had triumphed over wind and wave. He went almost sullenly to her while she waited. No good trying to escape her for a minute or so. Hello, old trooper. You're just in time to help me hunt for something. She was in the familiar street suit now, a skirt and jacket of some rough brown goods and a cloth hat that kept close to her small head, above hair that seemed of no known shade whatever, though it was lighter than dark. She flashed a smile at him from her broad mouth as he came up, though her knowing gray eyes did not join in the smile. He knew instantly that she was taking him in. This girl was wise beyond her years, he thought, but one even far less knowing could hardly have been in two minds about his present abject condition. The pushed-up collar of his coat did not entirely hide the once-white collar beneath it. The beard had reached its perhaps most distressing stage of development, and the suit was rumpled out of all the naddiness for which it had been advertised. Even the plush hat had lost its smart air. Then he plainly saw that the girl would, for the moment at least, ignore these phenomena. She laughed again, and this time the eyes laughed, too. Come on over and help me hunt for that bar-pin I lost. It must be at this end, because I know I had it on when I went into the drink. Maybe it's in the pool, but maybe I lost it after I got out. That's one of Baxter's that she wore in the scene just ahead of last night, and she'll have to have it again today. Now she began to search the ground around the cold brazier. It might be along here. He helped her look. Pretty soon he would remember an engagement and get away. The search at the end of the pool proved fruitless. The girl continued to chatter. They had worked until one-thirty before that grouch of a rose-and-blatt would call it a day. At that she'd rather do water-stuff than animal-stuff, especially lions. Lions, I should think so, he replied to this. Dangerous, isn't it? Oh, it ain't that. There's nothing to be afraid of if you know them, but they're so hot and smelly when you have to get up close to them. Anything I really hate is having to get up against a big, hot, hairy, smelly lion. He murmured a sympathetic phrase and extended his search for the lost pin to the side of the pool. Almost under the scaffold he saw the shine of precious stones and called to her as he picked up the pin. The bar pins splendidly set with diamonds. He was glad that he had found it for her. It must have cost a great deal of money, and she would doubtless be held responsible for its safekeeping. She came dancing to him. Say, that's fine. Your eyes are workin', ain't they? I might have been set back a good six dollars if you hadn't have found that. She took the bobble and fastened it inside her jacket. So the pin too had been a tawdry makeshift. Nothing was real any more. As she adjusted the pin he saw his moment for escape. With a gallant striving for the true Clifford Armitage Manor he raised the plush hat. Well, I'm glad you found Mrs. Rosenblatt's pin, and I guess I'll be getting on. The manor must have been defective. She looked through him and said with great firmness. Nothing like that, old pippin! Again he was taken with a violent fit of shivering. He could not meet her eyes. He was turning away when she seized him by the wrist. Her grip was amazingly forceful. He doubted if he could break away even with his stoutest effort. He stood miserably staring at the ground. Suddenly the girl reached up to Paddeth's shoulder. He shivered again, and she continued to Paddeth. When his teeth had ceased to be castanets she spoke. Listen here, old kid, you can't fool any one, so quit trying. Don't you suppose I've seen him like you before? Say, boy, I was trooping while you played with marbles. You're up against it. Now, come on. With the arm at his shoulder she pulled him about to face her. Come on and be nice. Tell Mother all about it. The late Clifford Armitage was momentarily menaced by a complete emotional overthrow. Another paroxysm of shivering perhaps averted this humiliation. The girl dropped his wrist, turned, stooped, and did something. He recalled the scene in the gambling hall, only this time she fronted away from the camera. When she faced him again he was not surprised to see bills in her hand. It could only have been the chill he suffered that kept him from blushing. She forced the bills into his numb fingers and he stared at them blankly. I can't take these, he muttered. There now, there now, be easy. Naturally, I know you're all right or I wouldn't give up this way. You're just having a run of hard luck. The Lord knows I've been helped out often enough in my time. Say, listen, I'll never forget when I went out as a kid with her first false step. They had lions in that show. It was a frost from the start. No salaries, no nothing. I got a big laugh one day when I was late at rehearsal. The manager says, you're fine, two dollars, Miss Monogue. I says, all right, Mr. Gratz, but you'll have to wait till I can write home for the money. Even Gratz had to laugh. Anyway, the show went bust and I never would have got any place if two or three parties hadn't helped me out here and there, just the same as I'm doing with you this minute, so don't be foolish. Well, you see, I don't. He broke off from nervous weakness. In his mind was a jumble of incongruous sentences, and he seemed unable to manage any of them. The girl now sent a clean shot through his armor. When'd you eat last? He looked at the ground again in painful embarrassment. Even in the chill air he was beginning to feel hot. I don't remember, he said, at last quite honestly. That's what I thought. You go eat. Go to Mother Hagin's, that cafeteria just outside the gate. She has better breakfast things than the place on the lot. Against his will the vision of a breakfast enthralled him, yet even under this exultation an instinct of the warriest caution survived. I'll go to the one on the lot, I guess, if I went out to the other one I couldn't get in again. She smiled suddenly, with puzzling lights in her eyes. Well, of all things, you want to get in again, do you? Say, wouldn't that beat the hot place a mile? You want to get in again? All right, old timer, I'll go out with you, and after you've fed I'll cue you on to the lot again. Well, if it ain't taken you out of your way. He knew that the girl was somehow humoring him as if he were a sick child. She knew, and he knew, that the lot was no longer any place for him until he could be rightly there. No, come on, I'll stay by you. They walked up the street of the Western Village. The girl had started at a brisk pace and he was presently breathless. I guess I'll have to rest a minute, he said. They were now before the Crystal Palace Hotel and he sat on the steps. All in, are you? Well, take it easy. He was not only all in, but his mind still played within congruous sentences. He heard him saying things that must sound foolish. I've slept in here a lot, he volunteered. The girl went to look through one of the windows. Blankets, she exclaimed. Well, you got the makings of a trooper in you, I'll say that. Where else did you sleep? Well, there were two miners had a nice cabin down the street here with bunks and blankets, and they had a fight and half a kettle of beans and some bread, and one of them shaved and I used his razor. But I haven't shaved since because I only had 20 cents day before yesterday. And anyway, they might think I was growing them for a part the way your father did. But I moved up here when I saw them put the blankets in and I was careful and put them back every morning. I didn't do any harm, do you think? And I got the rest of the beans they'd thrown into the fireplace. And if I'd only known it, I could have brought my razor and overcoat and some clean collars. But somehow you never seem to know when. He broke off, eyeing her vaguely. He had little notion what he had been saying or what he would say next. This is going to be good, said the Monigu girl. I can see that from here. But now you come on, we'll walk slow, and you tell me the rest when you've had a little snack. She even helped him to rise with a hand under his elbow, though he was quick to show her that he had not needed this help. I can walk all right, he assured her. Of course you can, you're as strong as a horse. But we needn't go too fast. She took his arm in a friendly way as they completed the journey to the outside cafeteria. At this early hour they were the only patrons of the place. Miss Monigu, a little with the air of a solicitous nurse, seated her charge at a corner table and took the place opposite him. What's it going to be, she demanded. Visions of rich food raced madly through his awakened mind, wide platters heaped with sausage and steaks and ham and corned beef hash. Steak, he ventured, and something like ham and eggs and some hot cakes and coffee, and he broke off. He was becoming too emotional under this golden spread of opportunity. The girl glanced up from the bill of fair and appraised the wild light in his eyes. One minute, kid, let's be more restful at first. You know, kind of ease into the heavy eats. It'll probably be better for you. When you say, he conceded, her words of caution had stricken him with a fear that this was a dream, that he would wake up under blankets back in the Crystal Palace. It was like that in dreams. You seemed able to order all sorts of food, but something happened. It never reached the table. He would take no further initiative in this scene, whether dream or reality. You order something, he concluded. His eyes trustfully sought the girls. Well, I think you'll start with one orange, just to kind of hint to the old works that something good is coming. Then, let me see, she considered gravely. Then I guess about two soft-boiled eggs. No, you can stand three. And some dry toast and some coffee. Maybe a few thin strips of bacon wouldn't hurt. We'll see can you make the grade. She turned to give the order to a waitress. And shoot the coffee along, sister, a cup for me too. Her charge shivered again at the mere mention of coffee. The juncture was critical. He might still be dreaming, but in another moment he must know. He closely even coolly watched the two cups of coffee that were placed before them. He put a benumbed hand around the cup in front of him and felt it burn. It was too active a sensation for mere dreaming. He put sugar into the cup and poured in the cream from a miniature pitcher, inhaling a very real aroma. Events thus far seemed normal. He stirred the coffee and started to raise the cup. Now, after all, it seemed to be a dream. His hand shook so that the stuff spilled into the saucer and even out on to the table. Always in dreams you were thwarted at the last moment. The monagu girl had noted the trembling and ineffective hand. She turned her back upon him to chat with the waitress over by the food counter. With no eye upon him he put both hands about the cup and succeeded in raising it to his lips. The hands were still shaky, but he managed some sips of the stuff and then a long draft that seemed to scald him. He wasn't sure if it scalded or not. It was pretty hot and fire ran through him. He drained the cup, still holding it with both hands. It was an amazing sensation to have one's hand refused to obey so simple an order. Maybe he would always be that way now, practically a cripple. The girl turned back to him. "'Atta boy,' she said. Now take the orange. And when the toast comes you can have some more coffee.' A dread load was off his mind. He did not dream this thing. He ate the orange and ate wonderful toast to the accompaniment of another cup of coffee. The latter half of this he managed with but one hand, though it was not yet wholly under control. The three eggs seemed like but one. He thought they must have been very small eggs. More toast was commanded and more coffee. "'Easy, easy,' cautioned his watchful hostess from time to time. "'Don't wolf it. You'll feel better afterwards.' "'I feel better already,' he announced. "'Well,' the girl eyed him critically, you certainly got the main chandelier lighted up once more.' A strange exhilaration flooded all his being. His own thoughts babbled to him, and he presently began to babble to his new friend. "'You remind me so much of Tessie Kerns,' he said as he scraped the sides of the egg-cup. "'Who's she?' "'Oh, she's a scenario-writer, I know. You're just like her.' He was now drunk, modlin' drunk, from the coffee. Sober he would have known that no human beings could be less alike than Tessie Kerns and the Montague girl. Other walls of his reserve went down. Of course I could have written to Gashwiler and got some money to go back there.' "'Gashwiler?' "'Gashwiler,' the girl seemed to search her memory. I thought I knew all the tank towns, but that's a new one. Where is it? It isn't a town. It's a gentleman I had a position with, and he said he'd keep it open for me.' He flew to another thought with the inconsequence of the drunken. "'Say, kid, he had even caught that form of a dress from her. I'll tell you. You can keep this watch of mine till I pay you back this money,' he drew it out. "'It's a good solid gold watch and everything. My uncle Sylvester gave it to me for not smoking on my eighteenth birthday. He smoked himself, he even drank considerable. He was his own worst enemy. But you can see it's a good solid gold watch and keeps time, and you hold it till I pay you back, will you?' The girl took the watch, examining it carefully, noting the inscription engraved on the case. There were puzzling glints in her eyes as she handed it back to him. "'No, I'll tell you. It'll be my watch until you pay me back, but you keep it for me. I haven't any place to carry it except the pocket of my jacket, and I might lose it, and then where'd we be?' Well, all right. He cheerfully took back the watch. His present ecstasy would find him agreeable to all proposals. "'And say,' continued the girl, what about this gash-wheeler, or whatever his name is? He said he'd take you back, did he, a farm?' "'No, an emporium. And you forgot his name just the way that lady in the casting-office always does. She's funny. Keeps telling me not to forget the address when, of course, I couldn't forget the town where I lived, could I? Of course, it's a little town, but you wouldn't forget where you lived there a long time, not when you got your start there. So you got your start in this town, did you?' He wanted to talk a lot now. He prattled of the town and his life there, of the eight-hour talent tester and the course in movie-acting, of Tessie Kearns and her scenarios not yet prized as they were sure to be later, of Lowell Hardy, the artistic photographer, and the stills that he had made of the speaker as Clifford Armitage. Didn't she think that was a better stage name than Merton Gill, which didn't seem to sound like so much? Anyway, he wished he had his stills here to show her. Of course, some of them were just in society parts, the sort of thing that Harold Parmilly played. Had she noticed that he looked a good deal like Harold Parmilly? Lots of people had. Tessie Kearns thought he was a dead image of Parmilly. But he liked western stuff better, a lot better than cabaret stuff where you had to smoke one cigarette after another, and he wished she could see the stills in the Buck Benson outfit, chaps and sombrero and spurs and holster. He'd never had two guns, but the one he did have he could draw pretty well. There would be his hand at his side, and in a flash he would have the gun in it, ready to shoot from the hip. And roping? He'd need to practice that some. Once he got it smack over Dexter's head, but usually it didn't go so well. Probably a new clothesline didn't make the best rope, too stiff. He could probably do a lot better with one of those hair ropes that the real cowboys used. And Metta Judson, she was the best cook anywhere around Simsbury. He mustn't forget to write to Metta and to Tessie Kearns and to be sure and see the blight of Broadway when it came to the Bijou Palace. They would be surprised to see those close-ups that Henshaw had used him in. And he was in that other picture. No close-ups in that. Still he would show pretty well in the cage scene. He had to smoke a few cigarettes there because Arabs smoke all the time, and he hadn't been in the later scene where the girl and the young fellow were in the deserted tomb all night, and he didn't lay a finger on her because he was a perfect gentleman. He didn't know what he would do next. Maybe Henshaw would want him in Robinson Crusoe, Jr., where Friday's sister turned out to be the daughter of an English earl with her monogram tattooed on her left shoulder. He would ask Henshaw anyway. The monogue girl listened attentively to the long, wandering recital. At times she would seem to be strongly moved to tears or something, but mostly she listened with a sympathetic smile or perhaps with a perfectly rigid face, though at such moments there would be those curious glints of light far back in her gray eyes. Occasionally she would prompt him with a question. In this way she brought out his version of the Sabbath afternoon experience with Dexter. He spared none of the details, for he was all frankness now. He even told how ashamed he had felt having to lead Dexter home from his scandalous grazing before the Methodist Church. He had longed to leap upon the horse and ride him back at a gallop, but he had been unable to do this because there was nothing from which to climb on him, and probably he would have been afraid to gallop the beast anyway. This had been one of the bits that most strangely moved his listener. Her eyes were moist when he had finished, and some strong emotions seemed about to overpower her, but she had recovered command of herself and become again the sympathetic provider and counsellor. He would have continued to talk, apparently, for the influence of strong drink had not begun to wane, but the girl at length stopped him. In here Merton, she began, her voice was choked to a peculiar hoarseness, and she seemed to be threatened with a return of her late strong emotion. She was plainly uncertain of her control, fearing to trust herself to speech, but, presently, after efforts which he observed with warmest sympathy, she seemed to recover her poise. She swallowed earnestly several times, wiped her moisture dimmed eyes with her handkerchief, and continued, It's getting late, and I've got to be over at the show-shop. So I'll tell you what to do next. You go out and get a shave and a haircut, then go home and get cleaned up. You said you had a room and other clothes, didn't you? Volubly he told her about the room at Mrs. Patterson's, and with a brief return of lucidity, how the sum of ten dollars was now due this heartless society woman who might insist upon its payment before he would again enjoy free access to his excellent wardrobe. Well, let me see. She debated a moment, then reached under the table, fumbled obscurely, and came up with more money. Now, here's twenty more besides that first I gave you, so you can pay the damer money and get all fixed up again, fresh suit and clean collar and a shine and everything. No, no, this is my scene. You stay out. He had waved protestingly at the sight of the new money, and now again he blushed. That's all understood, she continued. I'm staking you to cakes till you get on your feet, see? And I know you're honest, so I'm not throwing my money away. There, sink it and forget it. Now you go out and do what I said, the barber first, and lay off the eats until about noon. You had enough for now. By noon you can stoke up with meat and potatoes, anything you want that'll stick to the merry old slats. And I'd take milk instead of any more coffee. You've thinned down some, you're not near so plump as Harold Parmilly. Then you rest up for the balance of the day, and you show here tomorrow morning about this time. Do you get it? The countess'll let you in. Tell her I said to, and come over to the office-building, see? He tried to tell her his gratitude, but instead he babbled again of how much she was like Tessie Kerns. They parted at the gate. With a last wondering scrutiny of him, a last reminder of her very minute directions, she suddenly illumined him with rays of a compassion that was somehow half laughter. You poor feckless dub, she pronounced as she turned from him to dance through the gate. He scarcely heard the words. Her look and tone had been so warming. Ten minutes later he was telling a barber that he had just finished a hard week on the Holden lot, and that he was glad to get the brush off at last. From the barbers he hastened to the Patterson House, rather dreading the encounter with one to whom he owed so much money. He found the house locked. Probably both of the Pattersons had gone out into society. He let himself in and began to follow the directions of the monagu girl. The bath, clean linen, the other-belted suit already pressed, the other shoes, the buttoned, cloth-topped ones already polished. He felt now more equal to the encounter with a heartless society woman. But as she did not return, he went out in obedience to a new hunger. In the most sumptuous cafeteria he knew of, one patronized only in his first careless days of opulence, he ate for a long time. Roast beef and potatoes he ordered twice, nor did he forget to drink the milk prescribed by his benefactress. Plenty of milk would make him more than ever resemble Harold Parmely. And he commanded an abundance of dessert, lemon pie and apple pie, and a double portion of chocolate cake with ice cream. His craving for sweets was still unappeased, so at a nearby drugstore he bought a pound box of candy. The world was again under his feet. Restored to his rightful domain, he trotted with lightness and certainty. His mind was still a pleasant jumble of money and food and the Montague girl. Miles of gorgeous film flickered across his vision. An experienced alcoholic would have told him that he enjoyed a coffee hangover. He wended a lordly way to the nearest motion picture theater. Build there was the tenth installment of the hazards of Hortense. He passed before the lively portrayal in colors of Hortense driving a motor car off an open drawbridge. The car was already halfway between the bridge and the water beneath. He sneered openly at the announcement. Bula Baxter in the sensational, surprised picture of the century. A surprised picture indeed, if those now entering the theater could be told what he knew about it. He considered spreading the news, but decided to retain the superiority his secret knowledge gave him. Inside the theater, eating diligently from his box of candy, he was compelled to endure another of the unspeakable Buckeye comedies. The cross-eyed man was a lifeguard at a beach where there were social entanglements involving a bearded father, his daughter in an inconsiderable bathing suit, a confirmed dypsomaniac, two social derelicts who had to live by their wits, and a dozen young girls also arrayed in inconsiderable bathing suits. He could scarcely follow the chain of events so illogical were they, and indeed made little effort to do so. He felt far above the audience that cackled at these dreadful buffooneries. One subtitle read, I hate to kill him, murder is so hard to explain. This sort of thing, he felt more than ever, degraded an art where earnest people were suffering and sacrificing in order to give the public something better and finer. Had he not himself that very day completed a perilous ordeal of suffering and sacrifice? And he was asked to laugh at a cross-eyed man posing before a camera that fell to pieces when the lens was exposed, shattered presumably by the impact of the afflicted creature's image. This surely was not art such as Clifford Armitage was rapidly fitting himself by trial and hardship to confer upon the public. It was with curiously conflicting emotions that he watched the ensuing hazards of hortense. He had to remind himself that the slim little girl with the wistful eyes was not only not performing certain feats of daring that the film exposed, but that she was Mrs. Sigmund Rosenblatt and crazy about her husband. Yet the magic had not wholly departed from this wrong tarowin. He thought perhaps this might be because he now knew and actually liked that talkative monogue girl who would be doing the choice bits of this drama. Certainly he was loyal to the hand that fed him. Black Steve and his base crew, hirelings of the scoundrely guardian who was a power in Wall Street, again and again seemed to have encompassed the ruin, body and soul of the persecuted hortense. They had her prisoner in a foul den of Chinatown, whence she escaped to balance precariously upon the narrow cornice of a skyscraper, hundreds of feet above a crowded thoroughfare. They had her, as the screen said, depressed by the grim menace of tragedy that impended in the shadows. They gave her a brief respite in one of those gilded resorts, where the clink of coin opens wide the portals of pleasure, where wealth beckons with golden fingers. But this was only a trap for the unsuspecting girl who was presently sewed in a plain sack, tossed from the stern of an ocean liner far out at sea by creatures who would do anything for money, who, so it was said, were remorseless in the mad pursuit of gain. At certain gripping moments it became apparent to one of the audience that Mrs. Sigmund Rosenblatt herself was no longer in jeopardy. He knew the girl who was, and profoundly admired her artistry as she fled along the narrow cornice of the skyscraper. For all purposes she was Bula Baxter. He recalled her figure as being not exactly stubby, but at least not of marked slenderness. Yet in the distance she was indeed all that an audience could demand. And she was honest, while Mrs. Rosenblatt in the majestic theatre at Peoria, Illinois, had trifled airily with his faith in women, and deceived him by word of mouth. He applauded loudly at the sensational finish when Hortense driving her motor-car at high speed across the Great Bridge ran into the draw that opened too late for her to slow down and plunged to the cruel waters far below. Mrs. Rosenblatt would possibly have been a fool to do this herself. The Montague girl had been insistent on that point. There were enough things she couldn't avoid doing, and all stars very sensibly had doubles for such scenes when distance or action permitted. At the same time he could never again feel the same toward her. Indeed he would never have felt the same even if there had been no Rosenblatt. Art was art. It was only five o'clock when he left the picture theatre, but he ate again at the luxurious cafeteria. He ate a large steak, drank an immense quantity of milk, and bought another box of candy on his way to the Patterson home. Lights were on there and he went in to face the woman he had so long kept out of her money. She would probably greet him coldly and tell him she was surprised at his actions. Yet it seemed that he had been deceived in this society woman. She was human after all. She shook hands with him warmly and said they were glad to see him back. He must have been out on location, and she was glad they were not to lose him because he was so quiet and regular and not like some other motion picture actors she had known. He told her he had just put in a hard week on the Holden lot where things were beginning to pick up. He was glad she had missed him and he certainly had missed his comfortable room because the accommodations on the lot were not of the best. In fact they were pretty unsatisfactory if you came right down to it and he hoped they wouldn't keep him there again. And oh yes he was almost forgetting. Here was ten dollars. He believed there were two weeks' rent now due. He passed over the money with rather a Clifford armitage flourish. Mrs. Patterson accepted the bill almost protestingly. She hadn't once thought about the rent because she knew he was reliable and he was to remember that any time convenient to him would always suit her in these matters. She did accept the bill. Still she was not the heartless creature he had supposed her to be. As he bade her good night at the door she regarded him closely and said, Somehow you look a whole lot older, Mr. Armitage. I am, replied Mr. Armitage. Miss Monogue, after parting with her protege, had walked quickly, not without little recurrent dance steps as if some excess of joy would ever and again overwhelm her to the long office building on the Holden lot where she entered a door marked Buckeye Commities, Jeff Baird, Manager. The outer office was vacant, but through the open door to another room she observed Baird at his desk, his head bent low over certain sheets of yellow paper. He was a bulky, rather phlegmatic-looking man with a parrot-like crest of gray hair. He did not look up as the girl entered. She stood a moment as if to control her excitement, then spoke. Jeff, I found a million dollars for you this morning. Thanks, said Mr. Baird, still not looking up. Chuck it down in the coal cellar, will you? We're littered with the stuff up here. On the level, Jeff, Baird looked up. On the level? You'll say so. Shoot. Well, he's a small-town hick that saved up seventy-two dollars to come here from Goosewallow, Michigan, to go into pictures, took a correspondence course in screen-acting and all that, and he went broke and slept in a property room down in the village all last week, no eats at all for three, four days. I'd noticed him around a lot on different sets, something about him that makes you look a second time. I don't know what it is, kind of innocent and bug-eyed the way he'd rubber at things, but all the time like as if he thought he was someone. Well, I keep running across him, and pretty soon I notice he's up against it. He still thinks he's someone, and is very upstage if you start to kid him the least bit, but the signs are there all right. He's up against it good and hard. All last week he got to looking worse and worse, but he still had his stage presence. Say, yesterday he looked like the juvenile lead of a busted road show that has walked in from Albany and was just standing round on Broadway wondering who he'd consent to sign up with for forty weeks. See what I mean? Hungry, but proud. He was over on the Baxter set last night while I was doing the water stuff, and you'd oughta see him freeze me when I suggested a sandwich and a cup of coffee. It was grand. Well, this morning I'm back for a bar-pin of Baxter's I'd lost, and there he is again, no overcoat, shivering his teeth loose and all in. So I fell for him, took him up for some coffee and eggs, staked him to his room-rent, and sent him off to get cleaned and barbed, but before he went he cut loose and told me a story from the cradle to Hollywood. I'd have given something good if you'd been at the next table. I guess he got kinda jagged on the food, see? He'd tell me anything that run in his mind, and most of it was good. You'll say so. I'll get him to do it for you some time. Of all the funny nuts that make this lot. Well, take my word for it, that's all I ask, and listen here, Jeff. I'm down to cases. There's something about this kid, like when I tell you I'd always look at him twice, and it's something rich that I won't let out for a minute or two. But here's what you and me do, right quick. The kid was in that cabaret and gambling-house stuff they shot last week for the Blight of Broadway, and this something that makes you look at him must have struck Henshaw the way it did me, for he let him stay right at the edge of the dance floor and took a lot of close-ups of him, looking tired to death of the gay nightlife. Well, you call up the Victor folks and ask, can you get a look at that stuff, because you're thinking of giving a part to one of the extras that worked in it. Maybe we can get into the projection room right away, and you'll see what I mean. Then I won't have to tell you the richest thing about it. Now she took a long breath. Will you? Baird had listened with mild interest to the recital, occasionally seeming not to listen while he altered the script before him. But he took the telephone receiver from its hook and said briefly to the girl. You win. Hello. Give me the Victor office. Hello. Mr. Baird speaking. The two were presently in the dark projection room watching the scenes the girl had told of. They haven't started cutting yet, she said delightedly. All his close-ups will be in. Goodie, there's the lad. Get him? Ain't he the actinist thing you ever saw? Now wait, you'll see others. Baird watched the film absorbedly. Three times it was run for the sole purpose of exposing this small audience, Merton Gill's notion of being consumed with ennui among pleasures that had pawled. In the gambling hall it could be observed that he thought not too well of cigarettes. He screens well too, remarked the girl. Of course I couldn't be sure of that. He screens all right, agreed Baird. Well, what do you think? I think he looks like the first plume on a hearse. He looks all of that, but try again. Who does he remind you of? Catch this next one in the gambling hall. Get the profile and the eyebrows and the chin. There. Why, Baird chuckled, I'm a sweet if he don't look like. You got it, the girl broke in excitedly. I knew you would. I didn't at first, this morning, because he was so hungry and needed to shave, and he darned near had me bawling when he couldn't hold his cup of coffee except with two hands. But what do you think? Pretty soon he tells me himself that he looks a great deal like Harold Parmaley and wouldn't mind playing parts like Parmaley, though he prefers western stuff. Wouldn't that get you? The film was run again so that Baird could study the Gill face in the light of this new knowledge. He does. He does. He certainly does. If he don't look like a number nine company of Parmaley, I'll eat that film. Say, Flips, you did find something. Oh, I knew it. Didn't I tell you so? But listen, does he know he's funny? Not in a thousand years. He doesn't know anything funny near as I can make him. They were out in the light again, walking slowly back to the Buckeye offices. Get this, said Baird, seriously. You may think I'm kidding, but only yesterday I was trying to think if I couldn't dig up some guy that looked more like Parmaley than Parmaley himself does. Just enough more to get the laugh, see? And you spring this lad on me. All he needs is the eyebrows worked up a little bit. But how about him? Will he handle? Because if he will, I'll use him in the new Five Reeler. Will he handle? Miss Montague echoed the words with deep emphasis. Leave him to me. He's got to handle. I already got twenty-five bucks invested in his screen career. And Jeff, he'll be easy to work except he don't know he's funny. If he found out he was, it might queer him. See what I mean? He's one of that kind. You can tell it. How will you use him? He could never do Buckeye stuff. Sure not. But ain't I told you? In this new piece, Jack is stage-struck and gets a job as a valet to a ham that's just about Parmelee's type. And we show Parmelee acting in the screen, but all straight stuff, you understand. Unless he's a wise guy, he'll go all through the piece and never get on that it's funny. See, his part's dead straight and serious in a regular drama. And the less he thinks he's funny, the bigger scream he'll be. He's got to be Harold Parmelee acting right out, all over the set, as serious as the Lumbago. Get what I mean? I got you, said the girl, and you'll get him tomorrow morning. I told him to be over with his stills, and he'll be serious all the time, make no mistake there. He's no wise guy. And one thing, Jeff, he's as innocent as a cup custard, so you'll have to keep that bunch of Buckeye roughnecks from writing him. I can tell you that much. Once they start kidding him, it would be all off. And besides—she hesitated briefly— somehow I don't want him kidded. I'm pretty hard-boiled, but he sort of made me feel like a 50-year-old mother watching her only boy go out in the rough world. See? I'll watch out for that, said Baird.