Merton Gill, under the eye of Baird which clung to him with something close to fascination, sat down. He took the chair with fine dignity, a certain masterly deliberation. He sat easily, and seemed to await a verdict confidently foreknown. Baird's eyes did not leave him for the stills until he had a.s.sumed a slightly Harold Parmalee pose. Then his head with the girl's bent over the pictures, he began to examine them.

Exclamations of delight came from the pair. Merton Gill listened amiably. He was not greatly thrilled by an admiration which he had long believed to be his due. Had he not always supposed that things of precisely this sort would be said about those stills when at last they came under the eyes of the right people?

Like the Montague girl, Baird was chiefly impressed with the Westerns.

He looked a long time at them, especially at the one where Merton's face was emotionally averted from his old pal, Pinto, at the moment of farewell. Regarding Baird, as he stood holding this art study up to the light, Merton became aware for the first time that Baird suffered from some nervous affliction, a peculiar twitching of the lips, a trembling of the chin, which he had sometimes observed in senile persons. All at once Baird seemed quite overcome by this infirmity. He put a handkerchief to his face and uttered a m.u.f.fled excuse as he hastily left the room. Outside, the noise of his heavy tread died swiftly away down the hall.

The Montague girl remained at the desk. There was a strange light in her eyes and her face was still flushed. She shot a glance of encouragement at Merton.

"Don't be nervous, old Kid; he likes 'em all right." He rea.s.sured her lightly: "Oh, I'm not a bit nervous about him. It ain't as if he was doing something worth while, instead of mere comedies."

The girl's colour seemed to heighten. "You be sure to tell him that; talk right up to him. Be sure to say 'mere comedies.' It'll show him you know what's what. And as a matter of fact, Kid, he's trying to do something worth while, right this minute, something serious. That's why he's so interested in you."

"Well, of course, that's different." He was glad to learn this of Baird. He would take the man seriously if he tried to be serious, to do something fine and distinctive.

Baird here returned, looking grave. The Montague girl seemed more strangely intense. She beckoned the manager to her side.

"Now, here, Jeff, here was something I just naturally had to laugh at."

Baird had not wholly conquered those facial spasms, but he controlled himself to say, "Show me!"

"Now, Merton," directed the girl, "take that same pose again, like you did for me, the way you are in this picture."

As Merton adjusted himself to the Parmalee pose she handed the picture to Baird. "Now, Jeff, I ask you--ain't that Harold to the life--ain't it so near him that you just have to laugh your head off?"

It was even so. Baird and the girl both laughed convulsively, the former with rumbling chuckles that shook his frame. When he had again composed himself he said, "Well, Mr. Gill, I think you and I can do a little business. I don't know what your idea about a contract is, but--"

Merton Gill quickly interrupted. "Well, you see I'd hardly like to sign a contract with you, not for those mere comedies you do. I'll do anything to earn a little money right now so I can pay back this young lady, but I wouldn't like to go on playing in such things, with cross-eyed people and waiters on roller skates, and all that. What I really would like to do is something fine and worth while, but not clowning in mere Buckeye comedies."

Mr. Baird, who had devoted the best part of an active career to the production of Buckeye comedies, and who regarded them as at least one expression of the very highest art, did not even flinch at these cool words. He had once been an actor himself. Taking the blow like a man, he beamed upon his critic. "Exactly, my boy; don't you think I'll ever ask you to come down to clowning. You might work with me for years and I'd never ask you to do a thing that wasn't serious. In fact, that's why I'm hoping to engage you now. I want to do a serious picture, I want to get out of all that slap-stick stuff, see? Something fine and worth while, like you say. And you're the very actor I need in this new piece."

"Well, of course, in that case--" This was different; he made it plain that in the case of a manager striving for higher things he was not one to withhold a helping hand. He was beginning to feel a great sympathy for Baird in his efforts for the worth while. He thawed somewhat from the reserve that Buckeye comedies had put upon him. He chatted amiably.

Under promptings from the girl he spoke freely of his career, both in Simsbury and in Hollywood. It was twelve o'clock before they seemed willing to let him go, and from time to time they would pause to gloat over the stills.

At last Baird said cheerily, "Well, my lad, I need you in my new piece.

How'll it be if I put you on my payroll, beginning to-day, at forty a week? How about it, hey?"

"Well, I'd like that first rate, only I haven't worked any to-day; you shouldn't pay me for just coming here."

The manager waved a hand airily. "That's all right, my boy; you've earned a day's salary just coming here to cheer me up. These mere comedies get me so down in the dumps sometimes. And besides, you're not through yet. I'm going to use you some more. Listen, now--" The manager had become coldly businesslike. "You go up to a little theatre on Hollywood Boulevard--you can't miss it--where they're running a Harold Parmalee picture. I saw it last night and I want you to see it to-day, Better see it afternoon and evening both."

"Yes, sir," said Merton.

"And watch Parmalee. Study him in this picture. You look like him already, but see if you can pick up some of his tricks, see what I mean?

Because it's a regular Parmalee part I'm going to have you do, see?

Kind of a society part to start with, and then we work in some of your Western stuff at the finish. But get Parmalee as much as you can. That's all now. Oh, yes, and can you leave these stills with me? Our publicity man may want to use them later."

"All right, Mr. Baird, I'll do just what you say, and of course you can keep the stills as long as I got an engagement with you, and I'm very glad you're trying to do something really worth while."

"Thanks," said Baird, averting his face.

The girl followed him into the hall. "Great work, boy, and take it from me, you'll go over. Say, honest now, I'm glad clear down into my boots."

She had both his hands again, and he could see that her eyes were moist.

She seemed to be an impressionable little thing, hysterical one minute while looking at a bunch of good stills, and sort of weepy the next. But he was beginning to like her, in spite of her funny talk and free ways.

"And say," she called after him when he had reached the top of the stairs, "you know you haven't had much experience yet with a bunch of hard-boiled troupers; many a one will be jealous of you the minute you begin to climb, and maybe they'll get fresh and try to kid you, see? But don't you mind it--give it right back to them. Or tell me if they get too raw. Just remember I got a mean right when I swing free."

"All right, thank you," he replied, but his bewilderment was plain.

She stared a moment, danced up to him, and seized a hand in both of hers. "What I mean son, if you feel bothered any time--by anything--just come to me with it, see? I'm in this piece, and I'll look out for you.

Don't forget that." She dropped his hand, and was back in the office while he mumbled his thanks for what he knew she had meant as a kindness.

So she was to be in the Baird piece; she, too, would be trying to give the public something better and finer. Still, he was puzzled at her believing he might need to be looked out for. An actor drawing forty dollars a week could surely look out for himself. He emerged into the open of the Holden lot as one who had at last achieved success after long and gruelling privation. He walked briefly among the scenes of this privation, pausing in reminiscent mood before the Crystal Palace Hotel and other outstanding spots where he had so stoically suffered the torments of hunger and discouragement.

He remembered to be glad now that no letter of appeal had actually gone to Gashwiler. Suppose he had built up in the old gentleman's mind a false hope that he might again employ Merton Gill? A good thing he had held out! Yesterday he was starving and penniless; to-day he was fed and on someone's payroll for probably as much money a week as Gashwiler netted from his entire business. From sheer force of a.s.sociation, as he thus meditated, he found himself hungry, and a few moments later he was selecting from the food counter of the cafeteria whatever chanced to appeal to the eye--no weighing of prices now.

Before he had finished his meal Henshaw and his so-called Governor brought their trays to the adjoining table. Merton studied with new interest the director who would some day be telling people that he had been the first to observe the apt.i.tude of this new star--had, in fact, given him a lot of footage and close-ups and medium shots and "dramatics" in The Blight of Broadway when he was a mere extra--before he had made himself known to the public in Jeff Baird's first worth-while piece.

He was strongly moved, now, to bring himself to Henshaw's notice when he heard the latter say, "It's a regular Harold Parmalee part, good light comedy, plenty of heart interest, and that corking fight on the cliff."

He wanted to tell Henshaw that he himself was already engaged to do a Harold Parmalee part, and had been told, not two hours ago, that he would by most people be taken for Parmalee's twin brother. He restrained this impulse, however, as Henshaw went on to talk of the piece in hand.

It proved to be Robinson Crusoe, which he had already discussed. Or, rather, not Robinson Crusoe any longer. Not even Robinson Crusoe, Junior. It was to have been called Island Pa.s.sion, he learned, but this t.i.tle had been amended to Island Love.

"They're getting fed up on that word 'pa.s.sion,'" Henshaw was saying, "and anyhow, 'love' seems to go better with 'island,' don't you think, Governor? 'Desert Pa.s.sion' was all right--there's something strong and intense about a desert. But 'island' is different."

And it appeared that Island Love, though having begun as Robinson Crusoe, would contain few of the outstanding features of that tale.

Instead of Crusoe's wrecked sailing-ship, there was a wrecked steam yacht, a very expensive yacht stocked with all modern luxuries, nor would there be a native Friday and his supposed sister with the tattooed shoulder, but a wealthy young New Yorker and his valet who would be good for comedy on a desert island, and a beautiful girl, and a scoundrel who would in the last reel be thrown over the cliffs.

Henshaw was vivacious about the effects he would get. "I've been wondering, Governor," he continued, "if we're going to kill off the heavy, whether we shouldn't plant it early that besides wanting this girl who's on the island, he's the same scoundrel that wronged the young sister of the lead that owns the yacht. See what I mean?-it would give more conflict."

"But here--" The Governor frowned and spoke after a moment's pause.

"Your young New Yorker is rich, isn't he? Fine old family, and all that, how could he have a sister that would get wronged? You couldn't do it.

If he's got a wronged sister, he'd have to be a workingman or a sailor or something. And she couldn't be a New York society girl; she'd have to be working some place, in a store or office--don't you see? How could you have a swell young New Yorker with a wronged sister? Real society girls never get wronged unless their father loses his money, and then it's never anything serious enough to kill a heavy for. No--that's out."

"Wait, I have it." Henshaw beamed with a new inspiration. "You just said a sailor could have his sister wronged, so why not have one on the yacht, a good strong type, you know, and his little sister was wronged by the heavy, and he'd never known who it was, because the little girl wouldn't tell him, even on her death-bed, but he found the chap's photograph in her trunk, and on the yacht he sees that it was this same heavy--and there you are. Revenge--see what I mean? He fights with the heavy on the cliff, after showing him the little sister's picture, and pushes him over to death on the rocks below--get it? And the lead doesn't have to kill him. How about that?" Henshaw regarded his companion with pleasant antic.i.p.ation.

The Governor again debated before he spoke. He still doubted. "Say, whose show is this, the lead's or the sailor's that had the wronged sister? You'd have to show the sailor and his sister, and show her being wronged by the heavy--that'd take a big cabaret set, at least--and you'd have to let the sailor begin his stuff on the yacht, and then by the time he'd kept it up a bit after the wreck had pulled off the fight, where would your lead be? Can you see Parmalee playing second to this sailor? Why, the sailor'd run away with the piece. And that cabaret set would cost money when we don't need it--just keep those things in mind a little."

"Well," Henshaw submitted gracefully, "anyway, I think my suggestion of Island Love is better than Island Pa.s.sion--kind of sounds more attractive, don't you think?"

The Governor lighted a cigarette. "Say, Howard, it's a wonderful business, isn't it? We start with poor old Robinson Crusoe and his goats and parrot and man Friday, and after dropping Friday's sister who would really be the Countess of Kleig, we wind up with a steam-yacht and a comic butler and call it Island Love. Who said the art of the motion picture is in its infancy? In this case it'll be plumb senile. Well, go ahead with the boys and dope out your hogwash. Gosh! Sometimes I think I wouldn't stay in the business if it wasn't for the money. And remember, don't you let a single solitary sailor on that yacht have a wronged sister that can blame it on the heavy, or you'll never have Parmalee playing the lead."

Again Merton Gill debated bringing himself to the notice of these gentlemen. If Parmalee wouldn't play the part for any reason like a sailor's wronged sister, he would. It would help him to be known in Parmalee parts. Still, he couldn't tell how soon they might need him, nor how soon Baird would release him. He regretfully saw the two men leave, however. He might have missed a chance even better than Baird would give him.

He suddenly remembered that he had still a professional duty to perform.

He must that afternoon, and also that evening, watch a Harold Parmalee picture. He left the cafeteria, swaggered by the watchman at the gate-he had now the professional standing to silence that fellow-and made his way to the theatre Baird had mentioned.

In front he studied the billing of the Parmalee picture. It was "Object, Matrimony-a Smashing Comedy of Love and Laughter." Harold Parmalee, with a gesture of mock dismay, seemed to repulse a bevy of beautiful maidens who wooed him. Merton took his seat with a dismay that was not mock, for it now occurred to him that he had no experience in love scenes, and that an actor playing Parmalee parts would need a great deal of such experience. In Simsbury there had been no opportunity for an intending actor to learn certain little niceties expected at sentimental moments.

Even his private life had been almost barren of adventures that might now profit him.