Merton of the Movies

d to toil a week. Yet there was to be said in favour of the Simsbury position that it steadily endured. Each week brought its fi

ways a very definite something to-day which he would specify, in short words if the occasion seemed to demand. There was not only a definite something every day but a definite if not

icable nature. Doubtless the set would not have appealed to Henshaw. He would never have been moved to take close-ups, even for mere flashes, of those who ate this food. And yet, more and more as the days went by, this old-time film would unreel itself before the eager eyes of Merton Gill. Often now it thrilled him as might have an installment of The Hazards of Hortense,

. He would pause to take superb closeups of these, the corned beef on its spreading platter hemmed about with boiled potatoes and turnips and cabbage, and the corned beef hash with its richly browned surface. The thrilling climax would be the roast of beef on Saturday night, with close-ups taken in the v

past, devising more intimate close-ups, such as the one of Metta withdrawing pies from the oven or smoothing hot chocolate caressingly over the top of

tterly. He made it gripping-the supreme heart-interest drama of his season a big thing done in a big way, and yet censor-proof. Not even the white-souled censors of the great state of Pennsylvania could have outlawed its reali

g. A sandwich, not too meaty at the centre, coffee tasting strangely of other things sold in a pharmacy, a segment of pie fair-seeming on its surface, but lacking the punch

e cut him off at ninety, and water from the tap in the Patterson kitchen was both clear and cold. It was not so much that he cared to live beyond ninety or so, but he wished to survive until things began to pick up on the Holden lot, and if this did bring him many more years, well and good. Further, if the woman

reely expressed a view that the motion-picture business was on the rocks. Unaffected by the optimists who wrote in the picture magazines, they saw no future for it. More than one of them threatened to desert the industry and return to

he fifth reel of Eating at Gashwiler's, was accosted by a youngish woman whom he could

u, but I wasn't sure in the

then hovered above the well-browned roast of beef. Then he placed the speaker by reason of her eyes. It was the Spanish girl, his companion of the gilded c

roadway, with a marked inclination for the lighter life of pleasure. But she wore not so much as a rose in her smoothly combed hair. She was not only not excited but she was not exciting. She was plainly dressed in skirt and shirtwaist of no dis

ogan, 'Business as Usual!' ain't it? Well, it's business as usual here, so I just found o

ad even one,

u're registered with the S

on this particular lot." Instantly he saw himself saving Beulah Baxter, for the next install

uff. I could 'a' had another day there, but the director said I wasn't just the type for a chick bathing-suit. He was very nice about it. Of

ul here, yet he divined that it must be very discreetly,

t now. I know they won't be giving me any such part pretty s

don't mean I'm

ad been blun

n' me any, either. Of course it ain't as if I couldn't go back to the insurance office. Mr. Gropp, he's office manager, he was very nice about it. He says, 'I wish you all the luck in the world, girlie

uggling against the obsession of S

ly encounter with Metta Judson's cookery. He let his lower instincts toy with the unworthy vision. Gashwiler would advance him the money to return, and the job would be there. Probably Spencer Grant h

anish girl hadn't talked about going back to her job. He regretted not having stopped her with words of confident cheer that would have stiffened his own resolution. He could see her far down the street, on h

ss had gone on the rocks, but she knew it wasn't picking up as it should. And ever and again she would have Merton Gill assure her that he hadn't forgotten the home address, the town where lived Gighampton or Gumwash or whoever it was that held the good old job open for him. He had divined tha

bench or out under the eucalyptus tree and consecrate himself anew to the art of the perpendicular screen. And each day, as the l

n properly introduced and had known each other a long time. She was too familiar, and her levity jarred upon his more serious mood. So far as he could see, the girl had no screen future, though doubtless she was her own

os Angeles society woman, had, upon the occasion of their first interview, made it all too clear that the money, trifling though it must seem for a well-furnished r

or other society picnics, yet ready to melt at the true human touch. But he had never quite succeeded in this bit of character work. Something told him that she was cold all through, a society woman without a flaw in her armour. He coul

t matter. The room rent, he was confident, would have to be paid strictly in advance so long as their relations continued. She was the kind who would insist upon this formality even after he began to play, at an enor

now spent more of his time, he listened one day to the Montague

rifle from ambush, and Pa thinking he would draw pay for at least another three weeks. He kicked, but Hugo says the plot demanded it. I bet, at that, he was just trying to cut down his salary list. I bet that continuity this minute shows Pa drinking his corn

murmurs of sympathy

be. But it's tough on his home. He gets all his rest daytimes and keeps us restless all night making a new kind of beer and tending his still, and so on. You bet Ma and I, the minute he's through with this piece, are going pronto to get that face of his as naked as the day he was born. Pa's so temperamental-like that time he was playing a Bishop and never touched a drop for five weeks, and in bed every night at nine-thirty. Me? Oh, I'm having a b

tists were moulded. And there was no question now of his own utter seriousness. The situation hourly grew more desperate. For a week he had foregone the drug-store pie, so that now he recalled it as very wonderful pie indeed, but he dared no longer indulge in t

s. Merton Gill knew one, and rubbed his shaven chin. He thought, too, of the girl's warning about counterfeit money. He had not known that the casting director's duties required her to handle money, but probably he had overlooked this item in h

he eked out another barren week, only to face a day the evening of which must witness another fiscal transaction with Mrs. Patterson. And there was no longer a bill for this

ttle for catsup, but it doubtless bore nourishing elements, and nourishment was now important. He crumpled his paper napkin and laid upon the marble slab a trifling silver coin. It was the last of his hoard. When he should eat next and under what circ

window. Yet, when at last he did approach it, his waning faith in prayer was renewed, for here in his dires

riendly impatience. "Get over to the dressing rooms on the double-quick. It's the

ackers soaked, at the last, chiefly in cats

he same grumbling extra his face and hands were stained the rich brown of children of the desert. A dozen other men of the paler race had undergone the s

Holden walls. It was now peopled picturesquely with other Bedouins. Banners hung from the walls and veiled ladies peeped from the latticed balconies. A camel was led excitingly through the cro

a tribal brother fresh from the sandy wastes, or to purchase a glass of milk from the man with the goats. He secured a rose from the flower seller, and had the inspiration to toss it to one of the discreet balconies abov

left ear and stalk on, his musket held over one shoulder, his other hand on a belted pistol. Merton disposed of his rose in the same manner. He admired the sheik for his stature, his majestic carriage, his dark, handsome,

ion of Henshaw and his assistant. A band of Bedouins were now to worship in the porch of a mosque. Merton Gill was among these. The assi

e?" demanded Merton Gill's n

r something like that." And they bent

d forward, and was presently among those selected. "You'll do," said Henshaw, nodding. The director, of course, had not remembered that this was the actor he had distingui

oss-legged on the divan and became fearful that he would be asked to smoke the narghileh which the assistant director was now preparing. To one who balked at mere cigarettes, it was an

rettes," said the

ly Asiatic origin, came to the doorway overlooking the assistant director's work on the narghileh. A laden camel halted near him, sneered in an evil manner at the bystanders, and then, lifting an incredible length

r all. If he had felt sympathy at all, it would now have been for the camel. The beast was jerked back with profane words a

k smoked with every sign of enjoyment. Merton Gill resolved never to play the part of an Ara

tisfaction, Henshaw rehearsed the entrance of a little band of European tourists. A beautiful girl in sports garb, a beautiful young man in khaki and puttees, a fine old British father with gray side whiskers shaded by a sun-hat with a fl

rning when she ceased. When they left the cafe, the sheik arose and placed himself partly in the girl's way. She paused while his dark eyes caught and held hers. A

good. He stepped to the door and looked after

hey find this deserted tomb just at nightfall, and he's alone there with the girl, and he could d

nce when the young fellow proved to be a gentleman in the deserted tomb for a whole night-any moving-picture audience would expect him under these propitious circumstances to be quite otherwise, if the girl were as beautiful as this one. But there would

s power. Undoubtedly the sheik would not prove to be a gentleman, but Merton would like to work to the end of the story because he had no place to sleep and but little assurance of wholesome

week. Yet what would be the good of sleeping if he had nothing to eat? He was hungry now. Thin soup, ever so plenteously spiced with catsup, was inadequate provender for a work

ore shots of the lively street which, it was now learned, was a street in Cairo. Earnest efforts were made by the throngs in these scenes to give the murderous

of apprehension. Later the sheik was caught bargaining for a camel train with the innocent-looking old gentleman in the sun-hat. Undoubtedly the sheik was about

he dressing room to the little window through which he had received his robe and his slip was returned to him signed by the assistant director. It had now become a pa

er room rent strictly in advance. The portrait of this successful man was borne swiftly to the cafeteria where its present owner lavishly heaped a tray with excellent food and hastened with it to a table. He ate with but sl

en him and the last of his stew which he secured with blotters of bread. Even then he ignored the woman. He had other things to

enforce itself, while eating did nothing of the sort. You might sleep for nothing, but someone had to be p

from the various stages were hurrying to the big dressing room, whence they would presently stream, slips in hand, toward the cashi

a road that led to the deserted street of the Western town. His head bowed in thought he went down this silent thoroughfare, his footsteps echoing along the way lined by the closed shops. Th

ed food in a long-handled frying pan. At a table in the room's centre two bearded miners seemed to be appraising a buckskin pouch of nuggets, pouring them from hand to hand. A candle stuck in a bottle flickered beside them. They were honest, kindly faced miners, roughly dre

day, Merton Gill divined, and now with wealth untold they would be planning to send the girl East t

Perhaps they were going to send her to fashionable relatives in the East, where she would unwittingly become the rival of her beautiful but cold-hearted cousin for the hand of a rich young stock-broker, and be ill-trea

e fireplace, the picks and shovels, the shelf along the wall with its crude dishes, the calico curtain screening off what would be the dressing room of th

lded by his coffee which he drank from a saucer, had said, "All

d try to jump their claim, or attempt some dirty work with the little girl. Something like that. He carried with him the picture of the homey little ulterior, the fireplace

mysterious disappearance. The modest room in the Patterson home, to which for three months he had unfailingly come after the first picture show, on this night went untenanted. The guardian at the Holden gat

k at the lower end of the lot migh

the night caused absolutely no slightest ripple. Public attention as regarded the young man remained at a mirror-like calm, unflawed by even the mildest curiosity.

alatial home to cast her lot finally with the ardent young tenement worker with the high forehead. She descended the brown-stone steps, paused once to look back upon the old home where she had been

m the main thoroughfare into the black silence of the Western village. Here his pace slackened, and halfway down the street he paused irresolutely. He was under the wooden porch of the Fashion Restaurant-Give our Tamales a Trial. He lingered here but a

minded. He had simply gone. He was now no more than the long-vanished cowboys and sheriffs

g down this ghostly street, which his weak mind would persist in peopling with phantom crowds from long-played picture dramas. It gave him the creeps, as he had more than once confessed. He hurried on, flashing hi

g cabin? Indeed many a keener-eyed and entirely valorous night watchman might have neglected to