Merton of the Movies

find another cabin in which a miner would part with his beard for an Eastern trip. Probably he would have to go to the barber the next time. He als

petite with a lighter second meal than it had demanded the day before

s Merton lolled idly in the doorway, emptied the blackened coffee pot into the ashes of the fireplace and then proceeded to spoon into the same refuse heap half a kettle of beans upon which the honest miners had once feasted. The watcher deplored that he had not done more than taste the beans whe

this vehicle they trundled it on up the narrow street of the Western town. Yet they went only a little way, halting before one of the street's largest

ith it to the cabin for another load. Merton Gill stepped to the doorway and peered in from apparently idle curiosity. He could see a row of saddles on wooden supports; there were kitchen stoves, lamps, pain

sauntered to the street and appeared to be wondering what he would examine next in this curious world. He passed Jimmie and the other boy returning with the last load from the cabin. He noted at the top of the load the matt

y there variously unfolded. Not only was he this to the casual public notice; to himself he was this, at least consciously. True, in those nether regions of the mind so lately discovered and now being so exp

h times when he leisurely walked a world of plenty and fruition, the dragon would half-emerge from its subconscious lair to chill him with its head composed ent

e to the best of his knowledge, strolling lightly to another point of interest, graciously receptive to the pleasant life about him, would s

nd getting quite a little homesick for good old Simsbury and I thought I would write you about taking back

is mind he didn't watch. It was scandalous. He would indignantly snatch the hal

n, a store of plenty against famine, which indeed it looked to be under a not-too-minute scrutiny. It looked like as much as two dollars and fifty cents, and he would have preferred to pocket it again with this impression. Y

in a very different light. It merely counted, registered the result, and ceased to function, with an air of sayin

lier hour of the day, been unfastened from within. Here a not-too-luxurious but sufficing bed was contrived on the floor of the lobby from a pile of neatly folded blankets at hand, and a second night's repose was enjoyed by the lonely pat

derable, and even if kept from view could be, and was, counted again and again by mere blind fingertips. They contracted, indeed, a senseless habit of c

isit to the cafeteria, in response to the imperious demands of a familiar organic pro

sical, reduced all subsequent counting, whether by fingertips or a glance of the eye, to barest mechanical routine. A si

r believed there must have been crooked work somewhere. Without hesitation he found either Jimmie or his companion to be guilty of malfeasance in office. But at least one item of more or less worried debate was eliminated. He nee

dle the brush. And of course as yet it was nothing like a brush-nothing to kindle the eye of a director needing genuine brushes. In the early morning light he fingered a somewhat gaunt chin and wondered how long "the

uring fare for this private in the army of the unemployed. Still, his morale was but slightly impaired. There were always

ould be effected without incurring the public notice which he at these moments so sincerely shunned. After a brief interval inside the lobby he issued from his window with certain objects in hand, one of which dropped as he clambered out. Th

est miners had enacted their heart-tragedy. He jerked the latch-string of the door and was swiftly inside, groping a way to the fireplace. Here he lighted matches, thoughtf

d the nutritious vegetables as the pot grew to be half full. That was a thing to be corrected later, and at leisure. When the last bean had been salvaged the flame of another match revealed an unsuspected

lkaline flavour to the repast, not unpleasantly counteracted by a growth of vegetable mould of delicate lavender tints which Nature had been decently spreading over the final reduction of this provender to its b

money in a dark pocket could ascertain in a dark hotel that a store of food still remaine

ls were less blithesome on the palate than the remembered ones of yesterday. He thought perhaps he was not so hungry as he had been at his first encounter with them. He delicately removed a pocket of ashes from the centre

o the moulding of the subconscious. He could have saved a few of the beans when reason was again enthroned, but they were so very few that he fatuously thought them not wor

lot barber would regard a proposition from a new patron to open a charge account. If nothing worse than remaining unshaven was going to happen to him, what cared he? The collar was still pretty good. Why let his beard be an i

ard structure labelled the High Gear Dance Hall. He approached and entered with that calm ease of manner which his days on the lot had brought to a perfect bloom.

y a smashing five-reel Western. The picture was, quite normally, waiting. Electricians were shoving about the big light standa

ed on the floor at the end of the bar, his back against a barrel. Apparently he slept. A flash of remembrance from the Montague girl's talk identified this wretched cr

ndeed a blonde hussy, short-skirted, low-necked, pitifully rouged, depraved beyond redemption. She stood at the end of the piano, and in company with another of the d

oury resort, and did a dance with him among the tables. Tiring of this, she flitted across the room and addressed the bored director who impatiently awaited the changing of lights. S

uld be so interested in me. What can I say to your readers-I who am so wholly absorbed in my art t

he supposed intruder into her private affairs. "As I was saying," she resumed, "all this publicity is highly distasteful to the artist, and yet since you have forced yourself in

Merton Gill had considered her levity in the worst of taste. Then her eye caught him as he stood modestly back of the working elect

d to him and he could not well refuse it. He would have preferred to "up-stage" her once more, as she had p

g jake?" He tried for a show of easy confid

successful, but all below that, the not-too-fresh collar, the somewhat rumpled coat, the trousers crying for an iron despite their nightly compression beneath their slumbering owner, the

been trouping man and boy for over forty

arent real kindness in her tone. "Well," he looked about the set vaguely in

ne: "Well, all right-but you needn't blush about it

ut he was saved from being explicit

n the set, please." She skipped lightly from him. When

quickly when you had eaten nothing since early morning. Never had he achieved such perfect photography as now of the Gashwiler corned-beef hash and light biscuits, the Gashwiler hot cakes and sausage, and never had Gashwiler so impressively carved the Satur

e was, "Merton, won't you let me give you another piece of the mince pie?" That was all, and yet, as screen artists say, it got over. There came very near to being not

t a good half of them. He ran what might have been considered a split-reel comedy of the stew-pan's bottom still covered with perfectly edible beans lig

a mutilated fragment from the stale half-loaf of bread he had salvaged. He wondered how he could have forgotten it, even in the plenitude of his banquet. There it was, a mere nubbin of

rections about where the return money should be sent, he was also warning himself to remain throughout the day at a safe distance from the door of the cafeteria. He had proved the wisdom of this

or sanctified to realism-every day it was getting to look more like that-but no director would have commanded the wearing of such a collar except in actual work where it might have been a striking detail in the apparel of an underworldling, one of those