 18 It occurred to him the next morning that he might have taken too lightly Sarah's foreboding of illness. Reviewing her curious behavior he thought it possible she might be in for something serious. But a mid-day telephone call at the Montague home brought assurances from the mother that quieted this fear. Sarah complained of not feeling well, and was going to spend a quiet day at home. But Mrs. Montague was certain it was nothing serious. No, she had no temperature, no fever at all. She was just having a spell of thinking about things, sort of grouchy-like. She had been grouchy to both her parents. Probably because she wasn't working. No, she said she wouldn't come to the telephone. She also said she was in a bad way and might pass out any minute. But that was just her kidding. It was kind of Mr. Gilt call up. He wasn't to worry. He continued to worry, however, until the nearness of his screen debut drove Sarah to the back of his mind. Undoubtedly it was just her nonsense. And in the meantime that long baffled wish to see himself in a serious drama was about to be gratified in fullest measure. He was glad the girl had not suggested that she be with him on this tremendous occasion. He wanted to be quite alone, solitary in the crowd, free to enjoy his own acting without pretense of indifference. The Patterson's, of course, were another matter. He had told them of his approaching debut and they were making an event of it. They would attend, though he would not sit with them. Mr. Patterson in his black suit, his wife in Society Raymond, would sit downstairs and would doubtless applaud their lodger. But he would be remote from them, in a far corner of the topmost gallery he first thought, for Hearts on Fire was to be shown in one of the big downtown theaters where a prominent member of its cast could lose himself. He had told the Patterson's a little about the story. It was pretty pathetic in spots, he said, but it all came right in the end and there were some good Western scenes. When the Patterson's said he must be very good in it he found himself unable to achieve the light fashion of denial and protestation that would have become him. He said he had struggled to give the world something better and finer. For a moment he was moved to confess that Mrs. Patterson, in the course of his struggles, had come close to losing ten dollars, but he mastered the wild impulse. Someday after a few more triumphs he might laughingly confide this to her. The day was long. Slothfully it dragged hours that seemed endless across the company of shining dreams that he captained. He was early at the theater, first of all early comers, and entered quickly for going even a look at the huge lithographs in front that would perhaps show his very self in some gripping scene. With an empty auditorium to choose from he compromised on a balcony seat. Down below would doubtless be other members of the company, probably Baird himself, and he did not wish to be recognized. He must be alone with his triumph, and the loftier gallery would be too far away. The house filled slowly. People sauntered to their seats as if the Cajun were ordinary, even when the seats were occupied and the orchestra had played, there ensued the annoying delays of an educational film and a travelogue. Upon this young actor's memory would be forever seared the information that the Conger eel lays fifteen million eggs at one time, and that the inhabitants of Upper Burma have quaint native pastimes. These things would stay with him, but they were unimportant. Even the prodigal fecundity of the Conger eel left him cold. He gripped the arms of his seat when the cast of Hearts on Fire was flung to the screen. He caught his own name instantly and was puzzled. Clifford Armitage, by himself. Someone had bungled that, but no matter. Then at once he was seeing that first scene of his, as a popular screen-idle he breakfasted in his apartment served by a valet who was a hero-worshipper. He was momentarily disquieted by the frank adoration of the cross-eyed man in this part. While acting the scene he remembered now that he had not always been able to observe his valet. There were moments when he seemed over-emphatic. The valet was laughed at. The watcher's sympathy went out to Baird who must be seeing his serious effort taken too lightly. There came the scene where he looked at the photograph album. But now his turning of the pages was interspersed with close-ups of the portraits he regarded so admiringly. And these astonishingly proved to be enlarged stills of Clifford Armitage, the art-studies of Lowell Hardy. It was puzzling. On the screen he capably beamed the fondest admiration, almost reverent in its intensity, and there would appear the still of Merton bidding an emotional farewell to his horse. The very novelty of it held him for a moment, Gashwiler's dexter actually on the screen. He was aroused by the hearty laughter of an immense audience. It's finally announced a horse-neighbor on his right. He's imitating Harold. Say, the kid's clever. The laughter continued during the album scene. He thought of Baird somewhere in that audience suffering because his play was made fun of. He wished he could remind him that scenes were to follow which would surely not be taken lightly. For himself he was feeling that at least his strong likeness to Parmalie had been instantly admitted. They were laughing as the Montague girl had laughed that first morning because the resemblance was so striking. But now on the screen after the actor's long, fond look at himself came the words, the only man he ever loved. Laughter again. The watcher felt himself grow hot. Had Baird been betrayed by one of his staff? The scene with the letters followed. Clothes, baskets of letters. His own work as he opened a few from the top was all that he could have wished. He was finally Harold Parmalie, and again the horse-neighbor whispered, ain't he got Parmalie dead, though? Poor, silly little girls, the screen exclaimed, and the audience became noisy. Undoubtedly it was a tribute to his perfection in the Parmalie manner, but he was glad that now there would come some acting at which no one could laugh. There was the delicatessen shop, the earnest young cashier, and his poor old mother whom opt. He saw himself embrace her and murmur words of encouragement, but incredibly there were giggles from the audience, doubtless from base souls who were impervious to Pethos. The giggles coalesced to a general laugh when the poor old mother, again mopping on the floor, was seen to say, I hate these mopping mothers, you get took with Housemaid's knee in the first reel. Again he was seized with a fear that one of Baird's staff had been clumsy with subtitles. His eyes flew to his own serious face when the silly words had gone. The drama moved. Indeed, the action of the shadows was swifter than he supposed it would be. The dissolute son of the proprietor came on to dust the wares and to elicit a laugh when he performed a bit of business that had escaped Merton at the time. Against the wire screen that covered the largest cheese on the counter he placed a placard. Dangerous, do not annoy. Probably Baird had not known of this clowning. And then there came another subtitle that would dismay Baird when the serious young bookkeeper enacted his scene with the proprietor's lovely daughter, for she was made to say, You love above your station. Ours is 125th Street, you get off at 59th. He was beginning to feel confused. A sense of loss, of panic, smote him. His own part was the intensely serious thing he had played, but in some subtle way even that was being made funny. He could not rush to embrace his old mother without exciting laughter. The robbery of the safe was affected by the dissolute son. The father broke in upon the love scene, discovered the loss of his money, and accused an innocent man. Merton felt that he here acted superbly. His long look at the girl for whom he was making the supreme sacrifice brought tears to his own eyes, but still the witless audience snickered. Unobserved by the others, the old mother now told her son the whereabouts of the stolen money, and he saw himself secure the paper sack of bills from the ice-box. He detected the half-guilty look of which he had spoken to Baird. Then he read his own incredible speech. I better take this cool million, it might get that poor lad into trouble. Again the peace had been hurt by a wrong subtitle, but perhaps the audience laughed because it was accustomed to laugh at Baird's productions. Perhaps it had not realized that he was now attempting one of the worthwhile things. This reasoning was refuted as he watched what occurred after he had made his escape. His flight was discovered, policemen entered, a rapid search behind counters ensued. In the course of this the wire screen over the biggest cheese was knocked off the counter. The cheese leaped to the floor and the searchers, including the policemen, fled and panicked through the front door. The monagu girl, the last to escape, was seen to announce, the big cheese is loose, it's eating all the little ones. A band of intrepid firemen protected by masks and armed with axes rushed in. A terrific struggle ensued. The delicatessen shop was wrecked, and through it all the old mother continued to mop the floor. Merton Gill, who had first grown hot, was now cold. Icy drops were on his chilled brow. How had hearts on fire gone wrong? Then they were in the great open spaces of the Kamal Yee dance-hall. There was the young actor in his Buck Benson costume, protecting his mother from the brutality of a Mexican, getting his man later by firing directly into a mirror. Baird had said it would come right in the exposure, but it hadn't, and the witless cackled. He saw his struggle with a detective. With a real thrill he saw himself bare his opponent to the ground, then hurl him high and far into the air to be impaled upon the antlers of an elk's head suspended back of the bar. He saw himself lightly dust his sleeves after this feat, and turn aside with the words, That's one lodge he can join. Then followed a scene he had not been allowed to witness. There swung Marcel, the detective, played too emphatically by the cross-eyed man. An antler point suspended him by the seat of his trousers. He hung limply a moment, then took from his pocket a saw with which he reached up to contrive his release. He sawed through the antler and fell. He tried to stand erect, but appeared to find this impossible. A subtitle announced he had put a permanent wave in Marcel. This base-fooling was continuously blown upon by gales of stupid laughter. But not yet did Merton Gill know the worst. The merriment persisted through his most affecting bit, the farewell to his old pal outside. How could they have laughed at a simple bit of pathos like that? But the watching detective was seen to weep bitterly. Look, Amdoam Buck Benson urged the horse-neighbor gleefully. You gotta hand it to that kid. Say, who is he, anyway? Followed the thrilling leap from a second-story window to the back of the waiting-pal. The leap began thrillingly, but not only was it shown that the escaping man had dawned a coat and a false mustache in the course of his fall, but at its end he was revealed slowly, very slowly, clambering into the saddle. They had used here, he saw, one of those slow cameras that seemed to suspend all action interminably. A cruel device in this instance. And for his actual escape, when he had ridden the horse beyond camera range at a safe walk, they had used another camera that gave the effect of intense speed. The old horse had walked, but with an air of swiftness that caused the audience intense delight. Entered Marcel, the detective, in another scene Merton had not watched. He emerged from the dance-hall to confront a horse that remained, an aged counterpart of the horse Merton had ridden off. Marcel stared intently into the beast's face, whereupon it reared and plunged as if terrified by the spectacle of the cross-eyed man. Merton recalled the horse in the village that seemed to act so intelligently. Probably a shotgun had stimulated the present scene. The detective thereupon turned aside, hastily donned his false mustache in Sherlock Holmes' cap, and the deceived horse now permitted him to mount. He, too, walked off to the necromancy of a lens that multiplied his pace a thousandfold, and the audience rocked in its seats. One horse still remained before the dance-hall. The old mother emerged. With one anguished look after the detective she gathered up her disreputable skirts and left the platform in a flying leap to land in the saddle. There was no trickery about the speed at which her horse belabored with a mop-pail galloped in pursuit of the others. A subtitle recited, She has watched her dear ones leave the old nest flat. Now she must go out over the hills and mop the other side of them. Now came the sensational capture by Lasso of the detective. But the captor had not known that, as he dragged his quarry at the rope's end, the latter had somehow possessed himself of a sign which he later walked in with, a sign reading, Join the Good Roads movement, nor that the faithful old mother had ridden up to deposit her inverted mop-pail over his head. Merton Gill had twice started to leave. He wanted to leave, but each time he found himself chained there by the evil fascination of this monstrous parody. He remained to learn that the monagu girl had come out to the great open spaces to lead a band of train robbers from the QT ranch. He saw her ride beside a train and cast her Lasso over the stack of the locomotive. He saw her pony settle back on its haunches while the rope grew taut and the train was forced to halt. He saw the passengers lined up by the wayside and forced apart with their valuables. Later, when the band returned to the ranch with their booty, he saw the disillute brother, after the treasure was divided, winning it back to the family coffers with his dice. He saw the stricken father playing golf on his bicycle in grotesque imitation of a polo-player. And still, so incredible the revealment, he had not in the first shock of it seemed to consider Baird in any way to blame. Baird had somehow been deceived by his actors. Yet a startling suspicion was forming amid his mental flurries, a suspicion that bloomed to certainty when he saw himself the ever-patient victim of the genuine Hidalgo Spurs. Baird had said he wanted the close-ups merely for use in determining how the Spurs could be mastered, yet here they were. Merton Gill caught the Spurs in undergrowth and caught them in his own chaps, arising from each fall with a look of gentle determination that appealed strongly to the throng of lackwits. They shrieked at each of his failures, even when he ran to greet his pictured sweetheart and fell headlong. They found the comedy almost unbearable when at Baird's direction he had begun to tow in as he walked. And he had fallen clumsily again when he flew to that last, glad rendezvous where the pair were iris'd out in a love triumphant while the old mother moped a large rock in the background. An intervening close-up of this rock revealed her tearful face as she cleansed the granite surface. Above her loomed a painted exhortation to use wizard spine-pills. And of this pathetic old creature he was made to say, even as he clasped the beloved in his arms, Remember, she is my mother. I will not desert her now just because I am rich and grand. At last he was free, amid applause that was long and sincere he gained his feet and pushed away out. His horse-neighbor was saying, Who is the kid anyway? Ain't he a wonder? He pulled his hat down, dreading he might be recognized and shamed before these shallow fools. He froze with the horror of what he had been unable to look away from. The ignominy of it. And now, after those spurs, he knew full well that Baird had betrayed him. As the words shaped in his mind, a monstrous echo of them reverberated through its caverns. The Montague girl had betrayed him. He understood her now and burned with memories of her uneasiness the night before. She had been suffering acutely from remorse. She had sought to cover it with pleas of physical illness. At the moment he was conscious of no feeling toward her, save wonder that she could so coolly have played him false. But the thing was not to be questioned. She and Baird had made a fool of him. As he left the theatre, the crowd about him commented approvingly on the picture. Who's the new comedian? He heard a voice inquire. But ain't he a wonder, seemed to be the sole reply. He flushed darkly. So they thought him a comedian. Well, Baird wouldn't think so, not after to-morrow. He paused outside the theatre now to study the lithograph and colours. There he hurled Marcel to the antlers of the elk. The announcement was, Hearts on Fire, a Jeff Baird comedy. Five reels, five hundred laughs. Baird, he sneeringly reflected, had kept faith with his patrons, if not with one of his actors. But how had he profaned the sunlit glories of the great open west and its virile drama? And the spurs, as he had promised the unsuspecting wearer, had stood out. The horror of it, blinding, desolating. But he had as good as stolen that money himself, taking it out to the great open spaces to spend in a bar-room. Baird's serious effort had turned out to be a wild, inconsequent ferrago of the most painful nonsense. But it was over for Merton Gill. The golden bowl was broken, the silver cord was loosed. Tomorrow he would tear up Baird's contract and hurl the pieces in Baird's face. As to the monogue girl, that deceiving jade was hopeless. Never again could he trust her. In a whirling days of resentment he boarded a car for the journey home. A group seated near him still laughed about Hearts on Fire. I thought he'd kill me with those spurs, declared an otherwise sanely behaving young woman. It heard and Baird's look on his face every time he'd get up. He cowered in his seat, and he remembered another ordeal he must probably face when he reached home. He hoped the Patterson's would be in bed and walked up and down before the gate when he saw the house still alight. But the light stayed, and at last he nerved himself for a possible encounter. He let himself in softly, still hoping he could gain his room undiscovered, but Mrs. Patterson framed herself in the lighted door of the living-room and became exclamatory at the side of him. And he, who had thought to stand before these people in shame to receive their condolences, now perceived that his trial would be of another but hardly less distressing sort. For somehow, so dense were these good folks, that he must seem to be not displeased with his own performance. Amazingly they congratulated him, struggling with reminiscent laughter as they did so. And you never told us you was one of them funny comedians, chided Mrs. Patterson. We thought you was just a beginner, and here you got the biggest part in the picture. Say, the way you acted when you'd pick yourself up after them spurs through you, I'll wake up in the night laughing at that. And the way he kept his face so straight when the other funny ones was cutting their capers all around him, observed Mr. Patterson. Yes, wasn't it wonderful, Jed, the way he never let on, keeping his face as serious as if he'd been in a serious play? I like to fell off my seat, added Mr. Patterson. I tell you something, Mr. Armitage, began Mrs. Patterson with a suddenly serious manner of her own. I never been one to flatter folks to their faces unless I felt it from the bottom of my heart. I never been that kind. When I tell a person such and such about themselves, they can take it for the truth's own truth, so you can believe me now. I saw lots of times in that play tonight when you was even funnier than the cross-eyed man. The young actor was regarding her strangely. Seemingly he wished to acknowledge this compliment, but could find no suitable words. Yes, you can blush and hem and haw, went on his critic, but anyone knows me. I'll tell you I mean it when I talk that way. Yes, sir, funnier than the cross-eyed man himself. My, I guess the neighbors will be talking soon as they've found out we got someone as important as you be in our spare room. And Mr. Armitage, I want you to give me a signed photograph of yourself if you'll be so good. He escaped at last, dizzy from the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that had caught and whirled him. It had been impossible not to appear, and somehow difficult not to feel gratified under this heartfelt praise. He had been bound to appear pleased but incredulous, even when she pronounced him superior at times to the cross-eyed man, though the word she used was funnier. Betrayed by his friends, stricken, disconsolate, in a panic of despair, he had yet seemed glad to hear that he had been funny. He flew to the sanctity of his room. Not again could he bear to be told that the acting which had been his soul's high vision was a thing for merriment. He paced his room a long time, a restless, defenseless victim to recurrent visions of his shame. Implacably they returned to torture him, real after real of the ignoble stuff, spawned by the miscreant beard flashed before him, a world of base-painted shadows in which he had been the arch-offender. Again and again he tried to make clear to himself just why his own acting should have caused mirth. Surely he had been serious, he had given the best that was in him, and the groundlings had gefaud. Perhaps it was a puzzle he would never solve. And now he first thought of the new piece. This threw him into a fresh panic. What awful things with his high and serious acting would he have been made to do in that? Patiently, one by one he went over the scenes in which he had appeared. Dazed, confused, his recollection could bring to him little that was ambiguous in them. But also he had played through hearts on fire with little suspicion of its low intentions. He went to bed at last, though to toss another hour in fruitless effort to solve this puzzle and to free his eyes of those flashing infamies of the night. Ever and again as he seemed to become composed, free at last of tormenting visions, a mere subtitle would flash in his brain as where the old mother, when he first punished her in sultry, was made by the screen to call out, kick him on the kneecap, too. But the darkness refreshed his tired eyes, and sun at last brought him a merciful outlet from a world in which you could act your best and still be funnier than a cross-eyed man. He awakened long past his usual hour and occupied his first conscious moments in convincing himself that the scandal of the night before had not been a bad dream. The shock was a little dulled now. He began absurdly to remember the comments of those who had appeared to enjoy the unworthy entertainment. Undoubtedly many people had mentioned him with warm approval, but such praise was surely nothing to take comfort from. He was aroused from this retrospection by a knock on his door. It proved to be Mr. Patterson bearing a tray. Mrs. P. thought that you being up so late last night maybe would like a cup of coffee and a bite of something before you went out. The man's manner was newly respectful. In this house, at least, Merton Gill was still someone. He thanked his host and consumed the coffee and toast with a novel sense of importance. The courtesy was unprecedented. Mrs. Patterson had indeed been sincere, and scarcely had he finished dressing when Mr. Patterson was again at the door. A gentleman downstairs to see you, Mr. Armitage. He says his name is Wahlberg, but you don't know him. He says it's a business matter. Very well I'll be down. A business matter he had no business matters with any one except Baird. He was smitten with a quick and quite illogical fear. Perhaps he would not have to tear up that contract and hurl it in the face of the manager who had betrayed him. Perhaps the manager himself would do the tearing. Perhaps Baird, after seeing the picture, had decided that Merton Gill would not do. Instantly he felt resentful. Hadn't he given the best that was in him? Was it his fault if other actors had turned into farce one of the worthwhile things? He went to meet Mr. Wahlberg with this resentment so warm that his greeting of the strange gentleman was gruff and short. The caller, an alert business-like man, came at once to his point. He was, it proved, not the representative of a possibly repenting Baird. He was, on the contrary, representing a rival producer. He extended his card. The bigger comedies. I got your address from the Holden office, Mr. Armitage. I guess I ratted you out of bed, eh? Well, it's like this. If you ain't sewed up with Baird yet the bigger people would like to talk a little business to you. How about it? Business, Mr. Armitage, fairly exploded this. He was unhappy and puzzled, and, consequence, unamiable. Sure, business, confirmed Mr. Wahlberg. I understand you just finished another five realer for the buckeye outfit, but how about some stuff for us now? We can give you as good a company as that one last night and a good line of comedy. We got a gag man that simply never gets to the end of his string. He's doping out something right now that would fit you like a glove and, say, it would be a great idea to kind of specialize in that spur act of yours. That got over big. We could work it in again. An act like that's good for a million laughs. Mr. Armitage eyed Mr. Wahlberg coldly. Even Mr. Wahlberg felt an extensive area of glaciation setting in. I wouldn't think of it, said the actor, still gruffly. Do you mean that you can't come to the bigot at all on any proposition? That's what I mean, confirmed Mr. Armitage. Would three hundred and fifty a week interest you? No, said Mr. Armitage, though he gulped twice before achieving it. Mr. Wahlberg reported to his people that this Armitage lad was one hard-boiled proposition. He'd seen lots of them in his time, but this bird was a wonder. Yet Mr. Armitage was not really so granitic of nature as the bigot emissary had thought him. He had begun the interview with a smoldering resentment due to a misapprehension. He had been outraged by a suggestion that the spurs be again put to their offensive use, and he had been stunned by an offer of three hundred and fifty dollars a week. That was all. Here was a new angle to the puzzles that distracted him. He was not only praised by the witless, but he had been found desirable by certain discerning overlords of filmdom. What could be the secret of a talent that caused people, after viewing it but once, to make reckless offers? And another thing. Why had he allowed Baird to sew him up? The Montague girl again occupied the foreground of his troubled musings. She, with her heirs of wise importance, had helped to sew him up. She was helpless thing, after all, and false of nature. He would have matters out with her this very day. But first he must confront Baird in a scene of scorn and reprobation. On the car he became aware that far back in remote caverns of his mind there ran a teasing memory of some book on the shelves of the Simsbury Public Library. He was sure it was not a book he had read. It was merely the title that hid itself. Only this had ever interested him, and it but momentarily. So much he knew. A book's title had lodged in his mind, remained there, and was now curiously stirring in some direct relation to his present perplexities. But it kept its face averted. He could not read it. Vaguely he identified the nameless book with Tessie Kearns. He could not divine how, because it was not her book, and he had never seen it except on the library shelf. The nameless book persistently danced before him. He was glad of this. It kept him at moments from thinking of the lowly Baird. He had half feared they would. As he approached the office building he was almost certain he saw Baird turn in ahead of him. Yet when he entered the outer room of the Buckeye offices a young woman looked up from her typewriter to tell him that Mr. Baird was not in. She was a serious-eyed young woman of a sincere manner. She spoke with certainty of tone. Mr. Baird was not only out, but he would not be in for several days. His physician had ordered him to a sanitarium. The young woman resumed her typing. She did not again glance up. The caller seemed to consider waiting on a chance that she had been misinformed. He was now sure he had seen Baird enter the building and the door of his private office was closed. The caller idled outside the railing, absently regarding stills of past Buckeye atrocities that had been hung upon the walls of the office by someone with primitive tastes and decoration. He was debating a direct challenge of the young woman's veracity. What would she say if told that the caller meant to wait right there until Mr. Baird should convalesce? He managed some appraising sideglances at her as she bent over her machine. She seemed to believe he had already gone. Then he did go. No good talking that way to a girl. If it had been a man now, you tell Mr. Baird that Mr. Gills got to see him as soon as possible about something important, he directed from the open door. The young woman raised her serious eyes to his and nodded. She resumed her work. The door closed. Upon its closing, the door of Baird's private office opened noiselessly to a crack that sufficed for the speaking voice at very moderate pitch to issue. Get Miss Monogue on the phone, directed the voice. The door closed noiselessly. Beyond it Mr. Baird was presently speaking in low sweet tones. Lo, sister, listen, that squirrel just boiled in here and I ducked him. I told the girl I wasn't to be in unless he was laughing all over, and he wasn't doing the least little thing that was anywhere near laughing. See what I mean? It's up to you now. You started it. You got to finish it. I've irised out. Get me. On the steps outside, the rebuffed Merton Gill glanced at his own natty wristwatch, bought with some of the later wages of his shame. It was the lunch an hour. Mechanically he made his way to the cafeteria. He had ceased to rehearse the speech a dowdy or Baird would now have been hearing. Instead he roughly drafted one that Sara Nevada Monogue could not long evade. Even on her dying bed she would be compelled to listen. The practicing orator with bent head mumbled as he walked. He still mumbled as he indicated a choice of foods at the cafeteria counter. He continued to be thus absorbed as he found a table near the center of the room. He arranged his assortment of vions. You led me on, that's what you did, he continued to the absent culprit. Led me on to make a laughing stock of myself, that's what you did. Made a fool of me, that's what you did. All the same I can't help thinking he's a harm to the industry came the crisp tones of Henshaw from an adjoining table. The rehearsing orator glanced up to discover that the director and the sunny-faced brown and gray man he called Governor were smoking above the plates of their finished luncheon. I wouldn't worry too much, suggested the cheerful Governor. But see what he does. He takes the good old reliable surefire stuff and makes fun of it. I admit it's funny to start with, but what'll happen to us if the picture public ever finds that out? What'll we do then for drama after they've learned to laugh at the old stuff? Tush, tush, my boy, the Governor waved a half-consumed cigarette until its ash fell. Never fear, do you think a thousand Jeff Bairds could make the picture public laugh at the old stuff when it's played straight? They laughed last night, yes, but not so much at the really fine burlesque. They guffawed at the slapstick stuff that went with it. Bairds shrewd. He knows if he played straight burlesque he'd never make a dollar, so notice how he'll give a bit of straight that is genuine art than a bit of slapstick that anyone can get. The slapstick is what carries the show. Real burlesque is criticism, my boy, sometimes the very high-browest sort. It demands sophistication, a pretty high intelligence in the man that gets it. All right, now take your picture public. Twenty million people every day. Not the same ones every day, but with the same average cranial index, which is low for all about seven out of every hundred. That's natural because there aren't twenty million people in the world with taste or real intelligence. Probably not five million. Will you take this twenty million bunch that we sell to every day, and suppose they saw that lovely thing last night? Don't you know they'd all be back tonight to see a real mopping mother with a real son falsely accused of a crime? Sure they'd be back, their heads bloody but unbowed. Don't worry, that reliable field-martial, old general Hockham leads an unbeatable army. Merton Gill had listened to the beginning of this harangue, but now he savagely devoured food. He thought this so-called governor was too much like Baird. Well, Governor, I hope you're right, but that was pretty keen stuff last night. That first bit won't do parmally any good, and that Buck Benson stuff, you can't tell me a little more of that wouldn't make Benson look around for a new play. But I do tell you just that. It won't hurt parmally a bit, and Benson can go on bensoning to the end of time, to big money. You keep forgetting this twenty million audience. Go out and buy a picture magazine and read it through just to remind you. They want Hockham and pay for it. Even this thing of Bairds, with all the saving slapstick, is over the heads of a good half of them. I'll make a bet with you now, anything you name, that it won't gross two-thirds as much as Benson's next Western, and in that they'll cry their eyes out when he kisses his horse good-bye. See if they don't. Or see if they don't ball at the next old gray-haired mother with a mop and a sun that gets in bad. Why, if you give them Hockham, they don't even demand acting. Look at our own star, Murser. You know as well as I do that she not only can't act, but she's merely a beautiful moron. In a world where right prevailed, she'd be crowned queen of the morons without question. She may have an idea that two and two make four, but if she has it's only because she believes everything she hears. And look at the mail she gets. Every last one of the twenty million has written to tell her what a noble actress she is. She even believes that. Baird can keep on with the burlesque stuff, but his little two realers will probably have to pay for it, especially if he keeps those high-priced people. I bet that one new man of his sets him back seven hundred and fifty a week. The Lord knows he's worth every cent of it. My boy, tell me, did you ever in your life see a lovelier imitation of a perfectly rotten actor? There's an artist for you. Who is he anyway? Where'd he come from? Merton Gill again'd listened. He was merely affecting to busy himself with a fork. It was good acting. I don't know, replied Henshaw. Some of the crowd last night said he was just an extra that Baird dug up on the lot here. And on the subject of burlesque they also said Baird was having him do some Edgar Wayne stuff in a new one. Fine, the Governor beamed. Can't you see him as the honest, likable country boy? I bet he'll be good to his old mother in this one, too, and get the best of the city's slickers in the end. For heaven's sake, don't let me miss it. This kid last night handed me laughs that were better than a month's vacation for this old carcass of mine. You say he was just an extra? That's what I heard last night. Anyway, he's all you say he is as an artist. Where do you suppose he got it? Do you suppose he's just the casual genius that comes along from time to time? And why didn't he stay straight, instead of playing horse with the sacred traditions of our art? That's what troubled me as I watched him, even in that wild business with the spurs he was the artist every second. He must have tricked those falls but I couldn't catch him at it. Why should such a man tie up with Baird? Ask me something hard. I'd say this bird had been tried out in serious stuff and couldn't make the grade. That's the way he struck me. Probably he once thought he could play Hamlet, one of those boys. Did you get the real pathos he'd turn on now and then? He actually had me kind of teary a couple of times. But I could also see he'd make me laugh my head off any time he showed in a straight piece. To begin with, look at that low comedy face of his. And then something peculiar. Even while he's imitating a bad actor, you feel somehow that it isn't all imitation. It's hard, I grant you, but you feel he'd still be a bad actor if he'd try to imitate a good one. Somehow he found out his limits and decided to be what God meant him to be. Does that answer you? It gives you acting plus, and if that isn't the plus in this case I miss my guess. I suppose you're right, something like that. And of course the real pathos is there. It has to be. There never was a great comedian without it and this one is great. I admit that and I admit all you say about our audience. I suppose we can't ever sell to twenty million people a day pictures that make any demand on the human intelligence. But couldn't we sell something better to one million or a few thousand? The Governor dropped his cigarette end into the drakes of his coffee. We might, he said, if we were endowed. As it is to make pictures we must make money. To make money we must sell to the mob. And the mob reaches full mental bloom at the age of fifteen. It won't buy pictures the average child can't get. Of course the art is in its infancy, remarked Henshaw, discarding his own cigarette. Ours is the Peter Pan of the arts, announced the Governor as he rose. The Peter Pan of the arts? Yes. I trust you recall the outstanding biological freakishness of Peter. Oh! replied Henshaw. When Merton Gill dared to glance up a moment later the men were matching coins at the counter. When they went out he left a half-eaten meal and presently might have been observed on a swift-rolling street-car. He mumbled as he blankly surveyed palm-bordered building-sites along the way. He was again rehearsing a tense scene with the Montague girl. In actor parlance he was giving himself all the best of it. But they were new lines he mumbled over and over. He was no longer eluded by the title of that book he remembered on the library shelf at Simsbury. Being in the cafeteria listening to strange talk, lashed by cruel memories, it had flashed upon his vision with the stark definition of a screened subtitle. He rang the Montague bell twice before he heard a faint summons to enter. Upon the parlor couch, under blankets that reached her pillowed head, lay Sarah. She was pale and seemed to suffer. She greeted him in a feeble voice, lids fluttering over the fires of that mysterious fever burning far back in her eyes. Hello, kid! he began brightly. Here's your watch. Her doubting glance hovered over him as he smiled down at her. You given it to me again, Merton? She seemed unable to conquer a stubborn incredulity. Of course I'm giving it to you again. What did you think I was going to do? She still surveyed him with little veiled glances. You look so bright you give me Klee, guys, she said. She managed a wan's smile at this. Take it, he insisted, extending the package. Of course it won't keep Western Union time, but it'll look good on you. She appeared to be gaining on her incredulity, but a vestige of it remained. I won't touch it, she declared, with more spirit than could have been expected from the perishing. I won't touch it till you give me a good big kiss. Sure, he said, and leaned down to brush her pale cheek with his lips. He was cheerfully business-like in this ceremony. Not till you do it right, she persisted. He knelt beside the couch and did it right. He lingered with a hand upon her pale brow. What you afraid of, he demanded. You, she said, but now she again brought the watch to view, holding it away from her, studying its glitter from various angles. At last she turned her eyes up to his. They were alive, but unrevealing. Well—well, he repeated coolly. Oh, stop it! Again there was more energy than the moribund or want to manifest. There was even a vigorous impatience in her tone as she went on. You know well enough what I was afraid of, and you know well enough what I want to hear right now. Shoot, can't you? He shot. He stood up, backed away from the couch to where he could conveniently regard its stricken occupant, and shot gaily. Well, it'll be a good lesson to you about me, this thing of your thinking I was fooled over that piece. I suppose you and Baird had it between you all the time, right down to the very last that I thought I was doing a serious play. Ha-ha! he laughed gibbingly. It was a masterful laugh. A serious play with a cross-eyed mandu and funny stuff all through. I thought it was serious, did I? Yes I did. Again the dry, scornful laugh of superiority. Didn't you people know that I knew what I could do and what I couldn't do? I suppose I have thought that little thing would have occurred to you all the time. Didn't you suppose I knew as well as any one that I got a low-comedy face and could never make the grade in a serious piece? Of course I know I got no real pathos. Look how I turned it on a couple of times in that piece last night. But even when I'm imitating a bad actor, you can see it ain't all acting. You'd see soon enough I was a bad actor if I tried to imitate a good one. I guess you'd see that pretty quick. Didn't you and Baird even suppose I'd found out my limits and decided to be what God meant me to be? But I got the pathos all right. And you can't name one great comedian that don't need pathos more than he needs anything else. He just has to have it, and I got it. I got acting plus, that's what I got. I knew it all the time, and a whole lot of other people knew it last night. You could hear fifty of them talking about it when I came out of the theater, saying I was an artist and all like that and a certain Los Angeles society woman that you can bet never says things she don't mean, told me she saw lots of places in this piece that I was funnier than any cross-eyed man that ever lived. And what happens this morning? Hands in pockets he swaggered to and fro past the couch. Well, nothing happens this morning, except people come in around to sign me up for three hundred and fifty a week. One of them said not an hour ago—he's a big producer, too—that Baird ought to be paying me seven hundred and fifty because I earned every cent of it. Of course I didn't want to say anything the other day with you pretending to know so much about contracts and all that. I just thought I'd let you go on, see and you were so smart, and I signed what you told me to. But I know I should have held off, with this bamburger coming over from the bigot when I was hardly out of bed and says, well, three hundred and fifty a week interest me, and promising me he'll give me a chance to do that spur act again that was the hit of the piece. He broke off, conscious suddenly, that the girl had for some time been holding a most peculiar stare rigidly upon him. She had at first narrowed her ride-eye at a calculating angle as she listened, but for a long time now the eyes had been widened to this inexplicable stare eloquent of many hidden things. As he stopped his speech, made ill at ease by the incessant pressing of the look, he was caught and held by it to a longer silence than he meant to permit. He could now read meanings. That unflinching look incurred by this smooth bluster was a telling blend of pity and of wonder. So you know, do you, she demanded, that you look just enough too much like Harold Parmilly so that you're funny? I mean, she amended, seeing him wince, that you look the way Parmilly would if he had brains. He faltered but made a desperate effort to recover his balance. And besides, what difference does it make? If we did good pictures we'd have to sell them to a mob, and what's a mob? It's fifteen years old and nothing but admirers, or something like that, like Muriel Mercer that wouldn't know how much or two times two if the neighbors didn't get it to her. Again, he had run down under her level look. As he stopped, the girl on the couch who had lain with the blankets to her neck suddenly threw them aside and sat up. Surprisingly she was not garbed in sick bed apparel. She seemed to be fully dressed. A long moment she sat thus regarding him still with that slow look, unbelieving yet cherishing. His eyes fell at last. Merton, he heard her say. He looked up but she did not speak. She merely gave a little knowing nod of the head and opened her arms to him. Quickly he knelt beside her while the mothering arms enfolded him. A hand pulled his head to her breast and held it there. Thus she rocked gently, the hand gliding up to smooth his hair. Without words she cherished him thus a long time. The gentle rocking back and forth continued. It's like that other time you found me. His bluster had gone. He was not sure of his voice. Even these few words had been hard. He did not try to move. There, there, there, she whispered. It's all right. Everything's all right. Your mother's got you right here and she ain't ever gonna let you go. Never going to let you go. She was patting his head in rhythm with her rocking as she snuggled and soothed him. There was silence for another interval. Then she began to croon a song above him as she rocked, though the lyric was plainly an improvisation. Did he have his poor old mother going for a minute? Yes, he did. He had her going for a minute for a minute. Yes, he had her going good for a minute. But oh, he won't ever fool her very long, very long, not very long. Because he can't fool his dear old mother very long, very long. And he can bet on that, bet on that, so he can bet a lot of money on that, that, that. Her charge had grown still again, but she did not relax her tightened arms. Say, he said at last, well, honey, you know those benches where we wait for the cars. Do I know them? The imperative inference was that she did. I looked at the story yesterday. The sign down there says, Himba's dignified system of deferred payments. Yes, yes, I know. Well, I saw another good place. It says, the house of lucky rings. You know, rings. Sure, I know, that's all right. Well, he threw off the arms and got to his feet. She stood up then. Well, all right. They were both constrained now. Both affected and eased that neither felt. It seemed to be conceded without words that they must very lightly skirt the edge of Merton Gill's screen art. They talked a long time, volubly, of other things. Of the girl's illness, from which she now seemed most happily to have recovered. Of whether she was afraid of him, she professed still to be. Of the new watch whose beauties were newly admired when it had been adjusted to fit its owner's list. Of finances, they talked, and even, quite simply, of accessible homes where two could live as cheaply as one. It was not until he was about to go, when he stood at the door while the girl readjusted his cravat, smoothed his hair, and administered a final series of pats where they seemed most needed, that he broke ever so slightly through the reserve which both had felt congealing about a certain topic. You know, he said, I happened to remember the title of a book this morning. A book I used to see back in the public library at home. It wasn't one I ever read. Maybe Tessie Kerns read it. Anyway, she had a poem she likes a lot written by the same man. She used to read me good parts of it. But I never read the book because the title sounded kind of wild, like there couldn't be any such thing. The poem had just a plain name. It was called Lucille, but the book by the same man was called the Tragic Comedians. You wouldn't think there could be a Tragic Comedian, would you? Well, look at me. She looked at him with that elusive, remote flickering back in her eyes, but she only said, Be sure and come take me out to dinner. Tonight I can eat. And don't forget your overcoat. And listen, don't you dare go into him, buzz, till I can go with you. One minute after he had gone, the monogue girl was at the telephone. Hello, Mr. Baird, please. Is this Mr. Baird? Well, Jeff, everything's Jake. Yeah, the poor thing was pretty wild when he got here. First he began to bluff. He'd got an earful from someone, probably over on the lot. And he put it over on me for a minute, too. But he didn't last good. He was awful broke up when the end came. He'd bless his heart. But you bet I kissed the hurt place and made it well. How about him now? Jeff, I'm darned if I can tell, except he's right again. When he got here he was some heart broke and some mad and some set up on account of things he hears about himself. I guess he's that way still, except I mended the heartbreak. I can't quite make him out. He's like a book where you can't guess what's coming in the next chapter, so you keep on reading. I can see we ain't ever going to talk much about it, not if we lived together twenty years. What's that? Yeah, didn't I tell you he was always getting me somehow? Well, now I'm God. Yeah, we're going to do an altar walk. What? Oh, right away. Say honest, Jeff, I'll never have an easy minute again while he's out of my sight. Helpless. You said it. Thanks, Jeff. I know that old man. Goodbye. End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of Merton of the Movies. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Merton of the Movies by Harry Leon Wilson. Chapter 20 Onward and Upward At the first showing of the Buckeye Company's new five-reel comedy, five reels, five hundred laughs, entitled Brewing Trouble, two important members of its cast occupied balcony seats, and one of them throughout the piece brazenly applauded the screen art of her husband. I don't care who sees me, she would reply, ever and again to his whispered protests. The new piece proved to be a rather broadly stressed burlesque of the type of picture drama that has done so much to endear the personality of Edgar Wayne to his public. It was accorded a hearty reception. There was nothing to which it might be compared save the company's previous hearts on fire, and it seemed to be felt that the present offering had surpassed even that masterpiece of satire. The gills, above referred to, watched the unwinding celluloid with vastly different emotions. Mrs. Gill was hearty in her enjoyment, as has been indicated. Her husband superficially was not displeased. But beneath that surface of calm approval, beneath even the look of bored indifference he now and then managed, there still ran a complication of emotions, not the least of which was honest bewilderment. People laughed, so it must be funny. And it was good to be known as an artist of worth, even if the effects of your art were unintended. It was no shock to him to learn now that the mechanical appliance in his screen-mother's kitchen was a still, and that the grape juice the honest country boy pervade to the rich New Yorker had been improved in rank defiance of a constitutional amendment. And even during the filming of the piece he had suspected that the little sister, so engagingly played by the present Mrs. Gill, was being too bold, with slight surprise therefore as the drama unfolded, he saw that she had in the most brazen manner invited the attentions of the city villains. She had, in truth, been only too eager to be lured to the great city with all its pitfalls, and had bitten the old home farewell in her simple country way while each of the villains in turn had awaited her in his motor-car. What Merton had not been privileged to watch were the later developments of this villainy. For just beyond the little hamlet and a lonely spot on the road each of the motor-cars had been stopped by a cross-eyed gentleman, looking much like the clerk in the hotel, save that he was profusely bewisquered and bore side-arms in a menacing fashion. Declaring that no scoundrel could take his little daughter from him, he deprived the villains of their valuables so that for a time at least they should not bring other unsuspecting girls to grief. As a further precaution he compelled them to abandon their motor-cars in which he drove off with the rescued daughter. He was later seen to sell the cars at a wayside garage, and after dividing their spoils with his daughter, to hail a suburban trolley on which they both returned to the home nest where the little girl would again languish at the gate, a prey to any designing city-man who might pass. She seemed so defenseless in her wild-rose beauty, her longing for pretty clothes and city ways, and yet so capably pro by this opportune father who appeared to foresee the moment of her flights. He learned without a tremor that among the triumphs of his inventive genius had been a machine for making ten dollar bills, at which the New York capitalist had exclaimed that the state right for Iowa alone would bring one hundred thousand dollars. Even more remunerative it would seem had been as other patent the folding boomerang. The manager of the largest boomerang factory in Australia stood ready to purchase this device for ten million dollars, and there was a final view of the little home after prosperity had come to its inmates so long threatened with ruin. A sign over the door read, Ye Olde Fashioned Gift Shop, and under it, flaunted to the wayside, was the severely simple trade device of a high boot. These things he now knew were to be expected among the deft infamies of a buckeye comedy, but the present peace held in store for him a complication that, despite his already rich experience of buckeye methods, caused him distressing periods of heat and cold while he watched its incredible unfolding. Early in the peace indeed he had begun to suspect in the luring of his little sister a grotesque parallel to the bold advances made him by the New York society girl. He at once feared some such interpretation when he saw himself coy and embarrassed before her downright attack, and he was certain this was intended when he beheld himself embraced by this reckless young woman who behaved in the manner of male screen idols during the last dozen feet of the last reel. But how could he have suspected the lengths to which a perverted spirit of satire would lead the buckeye director? For now he staggered through the blinding snow, a bundle clasped to his breast. He fell half-fainting at the door of the old home. He groped for the knob and staggered in to kneel at his mother's feet, and she sternly repulsed him, a finger pointing to the still open door. Unbelievably the screen made her say, he wears no ring, back to the snow with him both, throw him way down east. And Baird had said the bundle would contain one of his patents. Mrs. Gill watched this scene with tense absorption. When the mother's iron heart had relented, she turned to her husband. You dear thing, that was a beautiful piece of work. You're set now. That cinches your future. Only, dearest, never, never, never let it show on your face that you think it's funny. That's all you'll ever have to be afraid of in your work. I won't, he said stoutly. He shivered, or did he shudder, and quickly reached to take her hand. It was a simple direct gesture, yet somehow it richly had the quality of pleading. Baird understands, she whispered. Only remember, you mustn't seem to think it's funny. I won't, he said again. But in his torn heart he stubbornly cried, I don't, I don't. Some six months later that representative magazine Silver Screenings emblazoned upon its front cover a promise that in the succeeding number would appear a profusely illustrated interview by Augusta Blivins with that rising young screen actor, Merton Gill. The promise was kept. The interview wandered amid photographic reproductions of the luxurious Hollywood bungalow set among palms and climbing roses, the actor in his wife in their high-powered roadster, Mrs. Gill at the wheel, the actor in his costume of chaps and sombrero rolling a cigarette, the actor in evening dress, the actor in his famous scene of the Christmas Eve return in brewing trouble, the actor regaining his feet in his equally famous scene of the malignant spurs, the actor and his young wife on the lawn before the bungalow and the young wife aproned in her kitchen, earnestly busy with spoon and mixing bowl. It is perhaps not generally known, wrote Miss Blivins, that the honour of having discovered this latest luminary in the stellar firmament should be credited to director Howard Henshaw of the Victor Forces. Indeed, I had not known this myself until the day I casually mentioned the Gill's in his presence. I lingered on a set of island love at present being filmed by this master of the unspoken drama, having but a moment since left that dainty little reigning queen of the celluloid dynasty, Muriel Mercer. Seated with her in the tiny bijoux boudoir of her bungalow dressing room on the great Holden lot, its walls lined with the works of her favourite authors, for one never finds this soulful little girl far from the books that have developed her mentally, as the art of the screen has developed her emotionally. She referred me to the director when I sought further details of her forthcoming great production, an idol of island romance and adventure, and presently when I secured from him the information I needed concerning this unique little drama of the great South Seas, I chanced to mention my approaching encounter with the young star of the Buckeye forces, an encounter to which I looked forward with some dismay. Mr. Henshaw, pausing in his task of effecting certain changes in the interior of the island hut, reassured me. You need have no fear about your meeting with Gill, he said. You will find him quite simple and unaffected, an artist and yet sanely humane. It was now that he revealed his own part in the launching of this young star. I fancy it is not generally known, he continued, that to me should go the honour of having discovered Gill. It is a fact, however. He appeared as an extra one morning in the cabaret scene we used in Miss Mercer's tremendous hit The Blight of Broadway. Finally, as you may suppose, I was struck by the extraordinary distinction of his face and bearing. In that crowd composed of average extra people, he stood out to my eye as one made for big things. After only a moment's chat with him, I gave him a seat at the edge of the dancing floor and used him most effectively in portraying the basic idea of this profoundly stirring drama in which Miss Mercer was to achieve one of her brightest triumphs. Watch that play today. You will discover young Gill in many of the close-ups where, under my direction, he brought out the psychological, the symbolic, if I may use the term, values of the great idea underlying our story. Even in these bits he revealed the fine artistry which he has since demonstrated more broadly under another director. To my lasting regret the piece was then too far along to give him a more important part, though I intended to offer him something good in our next play for Muriel Mercer. You may recall her gorgeous success in her father's wife, but I was never able to find the chap again. I made inquiries, of course, and felt a really personal sense of loss when I could get no trace of him. I knew then, as well as I know now, that he was destined for eminence in our world of painted shadows. You may imagine my chagrin later when I learned that another director was to reap the rewards of a discovery all my own. And so continued Miss Blivins, it was with the henshaw words still in my ears that I first came into the presence of Merton Gill, feeling that he would, as he at once finally did, put me at my ease. Simple, unaffected, modest, he is one whom success has not spoiled. Both on the set where I presently found him, playing the part of a titled roux in the new Buckeye comedy, to be called one hears, nearly sweethearts or something, and later in the luxurious but home-like nest which the young star has provided for his bride of a few months. She was, flips monogue, one recalls, daughter of a long line of theatrical folk, dating back to the days of the merely spoken drama. He proved to be finally unspoiled and surprisingly unlike the killingly drool mime of the Buckeye constellation. Indeed, one cannot but be struck at once by the deep vein of seriousness underlying the comedian's surface drollery. His sense of humor must be tremendous, and yet only in the briefest flashes of his whimsical manner can one divine it. Let us talk only of my work, he begged me. Only that can interest my public. And so, very seriously, we talked of his work. Have you ever thought of playing serious parts, I asked, being now wholly put at my ease by his friendly, unaffected ways. He debated a moment, his face rigidly set, inscrutable to my glance. Then he relaxed into one of those whimsically appealing smiles that somehow are acutely eloquent of Pethus. Serious parts, with this low comedy face of mine, he responded. And my query had been answered. Yet he went on. No, I shall never play Hamlet. I can give a good imitation of a bad actor, but, doubtless, I should give a very bad imitation of a good one. Âve-le, monsieur, I remarked to myself. The man with a few simple strokes of the brush had limed me his portrait. And I was again struck with that pathetic appeal and face and voice as he spoke so confidingly. After all, is not pure Pethus the hallmark of great comedy? We laugh, but more poignantly because our hearts are tugged at. And here was a master of the note pathetic. Who that has roared over the gill struggle with the dreadful spurs was not even at the climax of his merriment sympathetically aware of his earnest persistence, the pained sincerity of his repeated strivings, the genuine anguish distorting his face as he senses the everlasting futility of his efforts? Who that rocked with laughter at the foxtrot lesson in object alimony could be impervious to the facial agony above those incompetent, disobedient, heedless feet? Here was honest endeavour, an almost prayerful determination, again and again thwarted by feet that wrecked not of rhythm nor even of bare mechanical accuracy. Those feet, so apparently aimless, so little under control, were perhaps the most mirthful feet the scored failure in the dance. But the face, conscious of their clumsiness, was a mask of fine tragedy. Such is the combination, it seems to me, that has produced the artistry now so generally applauded, an artistry that perhaps achieved its full flowering in that powerful bit toward the close of brewing trouble, the return of the airing sun with his agony of appeal so markedly portrayed that for the moment one almost forgot the wildly absurd burlesque of which it formed the joyous yet truly emotional apex. I spoke of this. True burlesque is, after all, the highest criticism, don't you think, he asked me. Doesn't it make demands which only a sophisticated audience can meet? Isn't it rather high brow criticism? And I saw that he had thought deeply about his art. It is because of this, he went on, that we must resort to so much of the merely slapstick stuff in our comedies, for after all, our picture audience, twenty million people a day, surely one can make no great demands upon their intelligence. He considered a moment seemingly lost in the memories of his work. I dare say, he concluded, there are not twenty million people of taste and real intelligence in the whole world. Yet it must not be thought that this young man would play the cynic. He is superbly the optimist, though now again he struck a note of almost cynic whimsicality. Of course, our art is in its infancy. He waited for my nod of agreement, then dryly added, we must, I think, consider it the Peter Pan of the arts. And I dare say, you recall the outstanding biological freakishness of Peter. But a smile that slow, almost puzzled smile of his accompanied the words. You might, he told me at parting, call me the tragic comedian. And again I saw that this actor is set apart from the run of his brethren by an almost uncanny gift for introspection. He has ruthlessly analyzed himself. He knows, as he put it, what God meant him to be. Was there a hint of poor Cyrano? I left after some brief reference to his devoted young wife who, in studio or home, is never far from his side. It is true that I have struggled and sacrificed to give the public something better and finer, he told me then. But I owe my real success all to her. He took the young wife's hand in his own, and very simply, unaffectedly, raised it to his cheek where he held it a moment, with that dreamy remembering light in his eyes as one striving to recall bits of his past. I think that's all, he said at last. But on the instant of my going he checked me once more. No, it isn't either, he brightened. I want to tell your readers that this little woman is more than my wife. She is my best pal, and I may also add, my severest critic.