"What a pretty name!" said she. "But what a very odd shape! I mean, of course, for a mushroom."

"Pay no attention to that," said he. "It is more nutritious than you can possibly imagine: it is rich in vitamins D, E, A, T, and H. What's more, it has a flavour fit for a king, so I shall eat it myself, for you can hardly be called kingly, not being built that way."

"Ah, that is true," said she, with a giggle. "That is perfectly true, darling. Ha! Ha! I am not built that way."

This reply set Henry back a hundred leagues, for he had expected her to a.s.sert a strong claim to the deadly mushroom, as soon as she heard him credit it with a superior vitamin content and flavour. However, he was quick-witted, and at once changed his tack. "Nevertheless," said he, "you shall have this excellent mushroom, for I think you thoroughly deserve it."

"Why, Henry," she said, "that is very sweet of you. How can I reward you for your kindness? What can a mere woman do, to show how she appreciates a good husband?"

"Mince them up," said he, "and cook them separately, so as not to confuse the flavours. Serve them each on a toast, and cover them liberally with grated cheese."

"I will do that," she said, "though it goes to my heart to chop it." She gave him a nudge and went into the kitchen, and began to dress and prepare the mushrooms. Henry waited in the sitting-room, thinking of a delicious creature, not a day more than twenty years old. Ella, peeking lovingly round the door, recognized the glimmer in his bird-like eye, and continued her cookery with a song in her heart. "He deserves nothing but the best," thought she, "and he shall have it. He shall have the better mushroom, for he is a king among men, and he said it is highly nutritious. After all, I had two eggs for breakfast, and those, tra-la-la, were sufficient for me".

"Come, my dear," said she, when all was done. "Here is our lunch ready, and here are our two plates, mine with a blue ring and yours with a red one. Eat heartily, my angel, and soon you shall be rewarded for your kindness and consideration."

Henry, who was peckish by reason of his diminished breakfast, wished moreover to fortify his tissues against the day when the true Goldilocks should arrive at Three Bears Cottage. He therefore sawed himself off a sizable morsel and crammed it into his maw. He at once shot out of his chair, and began to leap, writhe, stagger, spin, curvet, gyrate, loop, and flounder all over the room. Simultaneously he was seized with giddiness, nausea, spots before the eyes, palpitations, convulsions, flatulence, and other symptoms too hideous to mention.

"What on earth is the matter, darling?" said his wife. "Are you feeling unwell?"

"The Devil!" he gasped. "I have eaten the Death Angel! I have eaten Amanita phalloides!"

"Really, my dear!" said she in amazement. "What an expression! Whatever can you be thinking of?"

"You b - !" cried he. "Will you stand there bandying words? I am dying! I am poisoned! Run for a doctor. Do you hear?"

"Poisoned?" said she. "By that mushroom? Why, Henry, that is the one you tried to palm off on me!"

"I confess it," said he. "I was feeling aggrieved and resentful. Forgive me. And, for heaven's sake, fetch me a doctor, or in five minutes I shall be dead."

"I forgive you for trying to poison me," said Ella. "But I cannot forget that awful name you called me just now. No, Henry, a lady dog cannot run for a doctor. I shall go no further than to that powerfully built young wood-cutter who is chopping away at an elm tree down in the hollow. He has often whistled when I pa.s.sed him, like an oriole in full song. I shall ask him what he thinks of a man who calls his wife such a name, and what he thinks of a man who brings home a thing like that to his wife. And I have no doubt at all he will tell me."

PICTURES IN THE FIRE.

Dreaming of money as I lay half asleep on the Malibu sand, a desolate cry reached me from out of the middle air. It was nothing but a gull, visible only as a burning, floating flake of white in the hot, colourless sky, but wings and whiteness and a certain deep pessimism in the croak it uttered made me think it might be my guardian angel.

Next moment, from the dank interior of the beach house, the black telephone raised its beguiling voice, and I obeyed. It was, of course, my agent.

"Charles, I've made a date for you. For dinner tonight. Have you ever heard of a man called Mahound?"

"A Turk?"

"He could be a Turk."

"Never."

"I'll be honest with you, Charles, neither had I. But, believe me, he's solid. Money, new ideas, wonderful organizing power - everything."

"What does he want from me?"

"Everything."

"It seems almost superfluous."

"Look, Charles, this guy wants to make pictures. Pictures have to be written, Charles, and they have to be produced. Now this guy ..."

"Does he know my wages?"

"I'm trying to tell you, Charles, it'll be more than salary. A lot more."

"Where, and at what hour?"

On the first stroke of eight, I entered the foyer of the Beverly-Ritz. Precisely on the last stroke, an elevator boy, with an air of triumph, flung back his softly clanging lattice, and disclosed, like a Kohinoor in a casket, a personage of such distinguished bearing that I thought for a moment he must be a dummy, put there to lend tone to the hotel. I was wrong. He inhaled the smoke of a cigar of surpa.s.sing diameter; he swept a dark and flashing glance over the squalid congregation in the foyer; this glance came to rest on my hair, which I arrange in an unaffected style. He knew me. I knew him. "Mr. Rythym, this is very, very good of you. You have come all the way up from Malibu."

"Yes. Why do things by halves?"

"An excellent principle, Mr. Rythym. I have impressed it on my chef, who travels with me. If you'll come up to my little suite here, you shall tell me if I've been successful"

He fell silent as we entered his suite, awaiting my cry of surprise and admiration. It was with some difficulty that I repressed it. I was enchanted to hear him say, with the faintest discernible chagrin in his voice, "I hope this sort of decoration is not distasteful to you?"

"Not in the least. I like the baroque; I admire t.i.tian."

"I confess I like my comfort. I like to travel with my own things. I had some little architectural changes made also."

"Excellent taste, if I may say so, and excellent judgment!"

He knew that I was impressed, but I knew that he wished to impress me. This made us even, except of course that he still had the money.

"I shall put that compliment to the test," said he. "Win you trust my taste so far as to let me give you a completely new c.o.c.ktail?"

"I look forward to an important experience. How pleasant to talk like this! Which, of us started it? I feel that at any moment we may exchange bows."

The new c.o.c.ktail was a sizable affair, with something of the cloudy opalescence of absinthe, and one of those vague but fiery flavours - memories, regrets, contempt for regrets. I swallowed the first; the second swallowed me; I emerged, rather larger and greedier than life, in the midst of a banquet and a conversation. "Have a little more wine, Mr. Rythym. As I was saying, I should like to be like the recognized leader of a revived and superior film industry."

"All you need is money, and, of course, talent"

"You are with me then?"

"My agent permitting. A sordid soul, I must warn you!"

"He is to join us later this evening. I think I can talk to him in a language he will understand. Have a little brandy, Mr. Rythym. We'll drink to a long and happy a.s.sociation."

Next day, I visited Joe's offices at an early hour. Our eyebrows waved like the antennae of encountering ants. "Well, Joe? Did I sign something last night?"

"Think of a number," said he.

"Come on, I've been thinking of it all night."

"Multiply it by five," said he, smiling.

"Impossible! I'm not Einstein."

"Here's the contract, Charles. See for yourself."

"What a lot of pages! Hey! Here's rather a long string of options!"

"Well, like you said last night - 'For all eternity, at that figure!'"

"Joe, I'd like to read this contract over with you, word by word."

"Sorry," said Joe. "I've got another client waiting. Did you notice her?"

"I saw, I must admit, what seemed like a patch of sunlight in your ante-room."

"That was Miss Belinda Windhover from England. Take another look as you go out"

"Before I do that, Joe, tell me some more about that fellow Mahound."

"Well," said my agent, hedging a little, "what did you think of him yourself?"

"Seems to have been everywhere."

"He certainly does."

"Knows everybody."

"He seems to, indeed."

"Amazing eyes, Joe."

"Yes, Charles, quite extraordinary."

"Anyway," said I, "he seems to have pots of money."

"Rich as the ... Rich as Croesus," cried Joe, at once becoming his sunny self again.

"He must be older than he seems, Joe. He described an incident in the Boer War."

"Did he, indeed? Ha! Ha! I thought you were going to say the Crusades."

"What's that? He didn't describe an incident in the Crusades?"

"He did, though, to me. Of course, people say anything to an agent"

"Joe, does this Mahound remind you of anybody? Is his name in any way familiar?"

"I never could fit a name to a face, Charles. But I'll swear I've never seen him before."

"No, but frankly, Joe," said I uneasily, "who do you think he is?"

"It's not my business, old chap, to think who people are. That would never do. My job is to sell a client"

"You've sold me, Joe. d.a.m.ned if you haven't! d.a.m.ned anyway! h.e.l.l!"

"Look here, old boy. You don't want to get temperamental. After all, it's pictures. Think of the people I've sold you to in the past"

"Yes, Joe. But these d.a.m.ned options. You didn't really give him options on me for all eternity?"

"Well, it's just a phrase."

"A phrase! Oh, boy!"

"After all, he's a wonderful organizer. I bet he'll get some amazing effects, too. You work well with him, Rythym, and you've got a blazing future."

"Joe, this contract's got to be bust. I'm out"

"Sorry, old chap, it's cast-iron. Besides, think of the money. Think of me. An agent needs his percentage, Charles. Anyway, he may not be what you suppose. You're a writer, a dreamer; you've got to remember this is the twentieth century. Maybe he's just some old guy who found out monkey-glands in the Crusades or somewhere."

"With those ears?"

"Maybe he was a money lender in those days. Maybe he got 'em clipped a bit."

"Those nails?"

"Look, Rythym, you don't want to start being satirical. I know what producers are. I'm a man of taste, same as yourself. All the same, this is the industry, you know. I do a lot of business with these fellows. I can't go picking 'em to pieces just for a laugh."

"Joe, I think I'm going to walk about the streets a bit"

"That's the stuff. I knew you'd shape up to it. G.o.d! I'd give the world to undo it, Charles. I just made a fool mistake."

I went out, pa.s.sing Miss Belinda Windhover on the way. She looked like an angel. What was that to me? That evening I called again at the Beverly-Ritz, and this time I was shown up to Mr. Mahound's suite. His dressing jacket was stupendous.

"Mr. Mahound, were you by any chance at the Crusades?"

"Mr. Rythym, that was a very interesting a.s.signment"

"It makes you rather old, doesn't it?"

"Well, one's as old as one feels. I feel devilish young today, my dear Rythym. To be in the Beverly-Ritz Hotel, signing up talent, about to re-create the American Film Industry!"

"Avaunt!"