"I?--Why I," said Mr. Cyril Gristmille, "could make an actress of a doughboy to say nothing of so perfect a little gentleman as you."

"How adorable! What do I do first?"

"The first thing you do," he said, and suddenly took her by the shoulder and shook her thoroughly, "is to understand that you do every little d.a.m.n thing I tell you without making any fuss or faces about it. Do you get me?"

He shook her again till her curls rattled.

Verbeena listened breathlessly and breathless isn't much of a word for it. Her heart wobbled.

"You are always to remember _I_--_I_ am boss.

"And don't you try to carry out any notions of your own while you are acting around me.

"You are to look, walk, talk, eat, weep, whimper, smile, sob, stalk, twirl, mince, mope, wriggle, squirm, turn, stand, run, race, limp, love, lallygag, or any old other darn thing I mention and demand just as you hear me give the orders to do it or I'll take you and your movie aspirations and bury them for once and all ten thousand feet deep right in here in the sands of the Sahara!

"Once again," he fixed her with his piercing eye, "I ask--do you get me?"

What Verbeena got was very hot under her boyish Eton collar and meant to answer him scornfully but she felt her heart beating as if it meant to beat it altogether.

However, the Movie Maharajah was not paying the slightest attention to how she took it at all. He was giving his attention to a flock of camera men, actors and such like arriving in 2,000 aeroplanes that left for the Sahara that morning from Los Angeles.

She could not fight down the thrill that came at the study she then began somewhat surrept.i.tiously to make of the commanding figure of the Movie Monarch among his men. The way he talked to them was a shame.

The way they took it, cringing, cowering, fawning yet with adoration in their eyes, was a wonder.

He seemed suddenly to remember her.

"What are you standing there goofing for and staring that way at me?

Don't you know that you are to be a girl in the first reel?"

"I--I," hot shame mantled Verbeena's cheek. Why was it she did not step straight forward and punch him in the nose? But somehow, he made her so acutely conscious of her s.e.x, or, rather, of what s.e.x he wanted of her.

"You are to be a girl in this first reel I tell you. Get back into your tent and take that football suit off and put on something close, clinging, and when you get it on work up a good, hippy walk--hippy and a bit slouchy. Go on instantly, and get _him_ off and put _her_ on."

The man was simply terrible. With dragging feet she retreated to her tent and for the boy's clothes that somehow made her feel good and tough and ready to take chances with both hands, she submergedly subst.i.tuted a frock that she was fiercely angry with herself to find herself, indubitably she herself, hoping would please him.

And it didn't--no chance.

Not with that movie mahout.

"In the name of all that's horrible!" he cried at her. "Is that the best thing you've got to offer in clothes? It doesn't fit you--it flops! Here--that skirt wants shortening and it wants tightening too, and you can only see the half of the small of your back. Away with that flock of rags! Got any others--in heaven's name, answer!"

"Yes--yes, sir."

"Go in and put another one on then and for the love of Pete, try to pick something that looks like something above a dollar ninety-eight on a bargain counter. Take that off--quick! Must I be your dressmaker as well as your director?"

"O, sir," sobbed Verbeena Mayonnaise.

"And hurry up about it," came his slow but icy tones as she hurried tentwards to hurry up just as fast as she hasten well could.

"Let's see," he conceded on his second sight of her, "that's awful as the other but--O well--come here then--here is him whom is to be your leading man in this heart-stirring and world-thrilling romance of my forthcoming creation. He is to be your leading man, but I will attend in all respects as to where he will lead you."

Verbeena saw as she was introduced to this young man that he was exquisitely handsome, his face only saved from effeminacy by a firm chin. He was tall, lithe, slender as a wand. Although she had never been introduced to him before she recognized him instantly for it was Fatty Arbuckle!

CHAPTER XIII

The Mighty Gristmille gave her no time to recover but plunged right ahead with his ethological processes concerning herself.

"The story of this picture which I am about to make in order that it may ring down the ages is soul-grasping and spirit stirring," said the director to Verbeena in a greatly animated manner, "and that's all you need to know about it in order to know about what you are doing. In fact, there's no particular reason that you should know what you are doing. But," he grasped her chin sharply and threw her head back with an artistic touch that jarred her teeth, "it is important that you do what I say. And don't you try to do anything else unless you are ambitious to end your life as a canned chicken."

"But----" stammered Verbeena who was beginning to suspect deep down after all she perhaps was really a girl.

"But nothing--and throw away that cigarette b.u.t.t too. I'm not against cigarettes. All heroes and vamps smoke yards of 'em on orders. But in this scene you're a sweet thing--just a sweet thing--though G.o.d knows if I'll be able to prove it to the camera eye or anybody else.

"Here--take this rose--smell it."

"It doesn't smell at all," said Verbeena.

"They don't when made of paper," said the great Gristmille. And for some reason she saw that he suddenly gently smiled. He regarded Verbeena with a new light in his eye--one nearly of approval. "Just about the right intelligence," he was murmuring to himself, "out of which to mold a great star. I'll show Dave Belasco where he stands yet."

But his terrifying eyes blazed anew at Verbeena Mayonnaise.

"Now--here don't hold that flower like it was a flagpole in a Suffragette parade! Turn your wrist a bit, give a flaunting yet a timorous grace to it and now you step over--lots of hip work-hip-hip-hippy--O, for G.o.d's sake, hippy! The boyish beauty's off the map in the scene--hip work now--hip work--rotten--rotten--rotten--hip work, hip, hip, hippy--and you give the flower to our hero."

"Why am I giving him the flower?"

"None of your d.a.m.ned business! Give it to him--that's all you have to do. I'm doing all the knowing why for this outfit.

"Heaven save the day, I didn't tell you to hit him with it! Give it to him--timidly--timidly--you are afraid of him."

There was just a flash of the old dear, boyish Verbeena.

"I don't care who he is, I'm not afraid of him," she declared stoutly.

"Is that so?" said the director severely. "But remember you are afraid of _me_! And don't try to tell me you are not!"

"I----"

"Don't ever open your mouth like that when speaking! You are a heroine--not a walrus! Now then--the tender scene--giving the flower to Rinaldo--shush, I didn't mean to let that much out as to the story but--well, you might as well know right now that the hero is Rinaldo Ringrose--that's Mr. Arbuckle's name in the picture.

"Now then, advance--hip, hip, hip--that's better--a little better--except that you still look like a boy in skirts, one of those d.a.m.n pretty ones and a d.a.m.n silly one at that."

Verbeena gasped. Through her thick lashes she regarded this man of the gyratory wealth of gestures whose dominating spirit it was manifest was to be seen. She feared--began to fear--almost started to be afraid that the Verbeena of old was dead or nearly corpsical. Her old doughty self, she grovelingly began to consider, was starting to decline. Her fighting stamina she felt would soon be selling for date seeds on the Sahara Exchange.

And yet how n.o.ble he was!