Merton of the Movies

the aspirant for screen honours late of Simsbury, Illinois. For three weeks had he waited faithfully, always within call, struggling

d the window suffering the pangs of headache. "It gets me something fierce ri

he demanded in quick sympathy

heard o

get yo

thing, f

e sites to the nearest drug store. He was fearing someone else might bring the little woman another r

s through the door and in the dimly lit little office behind that secretive partition. "And here's something else," he continued. "It's a menthol pencil and you take t

me and stay all day." She was still applying the menthol to throbbing temples. "Say, don't you get tir

ged it without choking, "If

eiver to her ear. "No, nothing to-day, dear. Say, Marie, did you ever take Eezo Pain Wafers for a

own as he looked through the gate. There were the vast yellow-brick, glass-topped structures of which he had seen but the ends. And there was the street up which he had looked for so many weeks, flanked by rows of offices and dressing rooms, and lively with the passing of many people. He drew a lon

was, it seemed, more than one way to get by him. People might have headaches almost any time. He wond

teriors. He would venture there later. Just now he wished to see the outside of things. He contrived a pace not too swift but business-like enough to convey the impression that he was rightf

slow, dulled strains of an orchestra and from another shots rang out. He met or passed strangely attired people, bandits, priests, choir boys, gentlemen in evening dress with blue-black eyebrows and careful hair. And he observed many beautiful young women, variously attired, hurrying to or

wy, narrow street of a frontier town. There was no bustle here, only an intense stillness. The street was deserted, the shop doors closed. There was a ghostlike, chilling effect that left him uneasy. He called upon himself to remember that he was not actually in a remote and desolate frontier town from which the inhabitants had fled; that back of him but a few steps was abounding life, that outside was the prosaic world

y of New York. There were the imposing steps, the double-doored entrances, the broad windows, the massive lines of the whole. And beyond this he came to a many-coloured little street out of Bagdad,

inding that these structures were to real houses what a dicky

ehind them to discove

stout-appearing walls were revealed to be fragile contrivances of button-lat

rouped before a railway station, a small red structure beside a line of railway tra

erton Gill thrilled with the knowledge that he was beholding his first close-up. His long study of the photo-drama enabled him to divine that the rancher's daughter was going to Vassar College to be educated, but that, although returning a year later a poised woman of the world, she would still long for the handsome cowboy who would marry her and run the Bar-X ranch. The scene was done. The camera would next be turned upon a real train at some real station, while the girl, with a final look at her lover, entered a real car, which the camera would show moving off to Vassar College. Thus conveying to millions of delighted spectators the impression that a real train had steamed out of the station, which was merely an imitation of one, on the Holden lot. The watcher passed on. He could hear the cheerful drone of a sawmill where logs were being cut. He followed the sound and came to its source. The saw was at the end of an oblong pool in which logs floated. Workmen were poling these toward the saw. On a raised platform at one side was a camera and a man who gave directions

derstand what I mean?" He turned to the camera man beside him. "Ed, you turn ten-we got to get some speed some way. Jack"-to the other camera man-"you stay on twelve. All

ly was sent with a powerful blow backward into the water, while the beautiful

der led to the top. An hour on the Holden lot had made him bold. He mounted the ladder and stood on the deck of what he saw was a sea-going yacht. Three important-looking men were surveying the deckhouse forward. They glanced at the newcomer but with a cheering absence of curio

for this stateroom?"

after it," one of th

d by an iron standard ingen

f we stood it on deck it would rock when the ship rocked and we'd get no motion. So Burke figures this out. The

augh at. He thought the speaker was pretty cheeky; for of course any one could think of this device after seeing it. He paused for a final survey of his surroundings from this elevation. He could see the real fa

ne of those structures equipped only with a front. But the cafeteria was practicable. The floor was crowded with little square polished tables at which many people were eating. A railing along the side of the room made a passage to the back where food was served from a counter to the proffered tray. He fell into line. No one had asked him how he dared try to eat with real actors and actresses and apparently no one was going to. Toward the end of the passage was a table holding trays and napkins the latter wrapped about an equipment of cutlery. He took his tray and received at the counter th

looked important and intensely serious. He was a short, very plump man, with pale cheeks under dark brows, and troubled looking gray hair. He was very seriously explaining someth

derstand what I mean-and Kempton Ward and the girl stumble into this

ssion of the table's other occupant, indeed she had not even glanced at him, for cafeteria etiquette is not rigorous. He saw that she was heavily made up and in the costume of a gypsy, he thought, a short vivid skirt, a gay waist, heavy gold hoops in h

ips! How's

me, Governor. How's th

see you'r

retty soon for Baxter. Got to climb down ten stories of a hotel elevator cable, and ride a

n and see me some time. Hav

lotte King in Her Other Husband." "

ng he raises a brush, and just now it ain't long enough for whiskers and

metime, Flips, I'm

n, and look toward his companion who still seriously made notes on the back of an en

moment, Mr. Henshaw?" The serious dire

hat is it, M

hought of that one, and I asked my friends, and they all say take it to Mr. Henshaw, because if a story has any merit he's the one

I'm busy-but then I'm always busy. They run me to death her

her hands to her breast and gazed ra

, but it starts off kind of like this. You see I

ague-an Hawaiian pri

fire scene. Well, anyway, I'm this Hawaiian princess, and my father, old King M

or a moment he was dazed. "A billiard

go out and ram it down the volcano

g upon the playwright and fell again to his e

invented a folding ukelele, so the villain gets his hired Hawaiian orchestra to shove Herman down one of the volcanoes and me down another, but I have the key around my neck, which Father put there when I was a babe and made me swear always to wear it, even in the bath-tub, so

ed dramatically. "Boy, boy, page Mr. H

ad been bothered by a silly girl who thought she had the plot for a photodrama, and even he, Merton Gill, could have told her that her plot was impossibly wild and inconsequent. If she were going into that branch of the art she ought to take lessons, the way Tessie Kearns did. She now looked so mournful that he was almost moved to tell her this, but her eyes caught his at that moment and in th

ght-understand what I mean-and that's where the kick comes for the audience. They know he's a strong young fellow and she's a beautiful girl and absolutel

d unendingly had ceased to exist for Merton Gill. A dozen tables down the room and nearer the door sat none other than Beulah Baxter. Alone at her table, she gazed raptly aloft, meditating perhaps some daring new feat. Merton Gil

counter. Merton Gill arose at the same moment and stumbled a blind way through the intervening tables. When he reached the counter Miss Baxter was

her. He must have left it back on his tray. Now he must return for it. He went as quickly as he could.

door. He stood for a moment, his vision dulled by the dusk. Presently he saw that he faced a wall of canvas backing. Beyond this were low voices and the sound of people moving. He went forward to a break in the canvas wall and at the same moment there was a metallic jar and light flooded the enclosure. From somewhere outside came music, principally the low, leisurely moan of a 'cello. A beautiful woman in evening dress was with suppressed emotion kneeling at the bedside of a sleeping child. At the doorway stood a dark, handsome gentleman in evening dress, regarding her with a cynical smile. The woman seemed to bid the child farewell, and arose with ha

pt youth came to stand in front of the still-grinding camera and held before it a placard on which were numbers. The camera stopped, the youth with the placar

d examination of one bone of a photoplay. He knew that the wife had been ignored by a husband who permitted his vast business interests to engross his whole attention, leaving the wife to seek solace in questionable quarters. He knew that the shocked but faithful nurse would presently discover the little one to be suffering from a dangerous fever; that a hastily summoned physician would shake his head and declare in legible words, "Naught but a mother's love can win that tiny soul back from the

thin. He stood again to watch. But this drama seemed to have been suspended. The room exposed was a bedroom with an open window facing an open door; the actors and the mechanical staff as well were busily hurling knives at various walls. They were earnest

ple thing to do, isn't it?" The knife-throwers redoubled t

still in her gipsy costume. She had been standing qui

w. Here, Al, give Miss Montague that stickeree of yours." Al seemed gla

he declared. "Haven't you go

Pickles, let her try that one you got."

by its point between thumb and forefinger she sent it with a quick fli

at Ramon who threw it at him as he leaps through the window. Try it a

ere and see can you put it into the wall just to the right of the window. Good! Some li

rn. "Say, Mr. Burke, will you please make sure she understands? She isn't to let go of that thing until

ll right! She

rouch, weapon in hand. The knife quiv

now. All ready, Jack, all ready Miss Montague-camera!-one, two, three-come in, Jack." Again the knife quive

a whole lot. We'll do as

Mr. Burke. No trouble to

l gross a million. Nearly done, too, except for some chase st

s of Destiny-putting a little pep into the mob stuff. Laid

himself sometime. He might have stayed to see more of this drama but he was afraid the girl would break out into more of her nonsense. He was a

caricatures of evening dress, both men and women, and they were not beautiful. The gowns of the women were grotesque and the men were lawless appearing, either as to hair or beards or both. He divined the dreadful thing he was stumbling upon even before he noted the sign in large letters on the back of a folding chair: "Jeff Baird's Buckeye Comedies." These were the buffoons who with their coarse pantomime, their heavy horse-play, did so much to deb

n front of him. That's out. Now we'll have the entrance again. You other boys on the

d now and get off. Now you other people, take your seats. No, no, Annie, you're at the head, I told y

stressing scene but was held in spite

Jeff! At

ague girl was again at his elbow. He

had turned cordially to her. "Just in time f

the bi

cle Rollo Glue. The head waiter starts the fight by doing a fall with his tray. Tom gets the t

is Uncl

e, with the herbaceous

in the

re to see if I could get a better idea. Near as

o attention to it. Never even looks up, see what I mean? The fight spreads the whole length of the table; right around Rollo half-a-dozen murders are going on and he just eats and pays no attention. And he's still eating w

six, ain't it? Drop around again. We need folks like you. Now, listen, Rollo

o remote from Beulah Baxter who, somewhere on that lot, was doing some

and the absurd guests, finding some sinister fascination in the m

d, Flips. W

it over to

thing go

lling. Been waiting two hours no

e around and se

pretty busy. When I ain't workin

goin' to do something new, see? Got a big idea. Probably something for you in it. Drop in t' the office and

t. But the afternoon was drawing in and the street had lost much of its vivacity. It would surely be too late for any glimpse of his heroine. And his mind was already cluttered with impressions from his day's adventure. He went out through the office, meaning to thank the casting director for the grea

hey wanted the lights off they said "Save it!" And why did a boy come out after every scene and hold up a placard with numbers on it before the camera? That placard had never shown in any picture he had seen. And that queer Montague girl, always turning up when you thought you had got rid of her. Still, she had thrown that knife pretty well. You had to give her credit for that. But she couldn't be much of an actress, even if she had spoken of acting with Miss Baxter, of climbing down cabl

Tessie Kearns. "At last I have seen Miss Baxter face to face. There was no doubt about its being her. You would have known her at once. And how beautiful she