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 butt 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 God 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 God'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 damned 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
damn pretty ones and a damn 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 noble he was!
His manner of using a cigarette case was so much more graceful than
her own.
And he seemed to know everything. Certainly he thought he did.
And all his men gave him such blind obedience. He had a trick of
flashing the sun in their eyes from his cigarette case that probably
caused them to do this, she deducted.
Two days passed before he finally decided she had given the hero the
rose properly. That, doubtless, was why they used artificial roses. A
real one couldn't last out a rehearsal.
But somehow, in the depths of her harrowed, deeply embittered,
astonished young soul, she was humbly glad that at last she had given
the hero the rose properly.
"That's that," said the High Mandarin of the Movies, "and although
worse than bad eggs, in other things you may stand a chance of
realizing my genius for me in the soul-stirring, magnificent,
marvelous, magnitudinous work of art I am on the brink of creating.
Come--come--a little loud and prolonged applause--everybody please. I
thank you.
"The next scene will call for you saying a tender farewell--keep
remembering your sex, madame--with your lover under a tree. An apple
tree in full bloom."
"There aren't apple trees on the desert," Verbeena with simply idiotic
indiscretion observed.
The director flung his hat on the sand, kicked it in the air, ran
around the desert on all fours for a mile, then arose majestically.
"How dare you! Can't you see that under one of those tall palm trees
the shadows wouldn't fall right on the picture? No blossoming apple
trees on the desert, eh? I guess you don't know _me_! Billy, an apple
tree, full blossom!"
The man addressed obeyed swiftly. In a jiffy he had brought one from
the property aeroplane and raised it in place.
"O, Good Lord," again and again reverberated in the ears of
Verbeena, "you squint so with that snub-nosed face of yours!
You--gently--gently, gently into his arms. You're not wrestling
him--you're loving him--you--not that sidelong glance--a big look into
his eyes and now then--remember although we've only begun here, this
is the end of the picture--the final close-up--now, extend lips in
full, both--stick 'em way out--that's it--now then, kiss--kiss--hold
that--hold it--kiss, kiss, kiiiiiiiisssssssssss!"
"You know nothing of kissing! Nothing! And you're supposed to have had
Oriental training too! Here--come here--like _THIS! Kiss--kiss--LIKE
THIS!!_"
A gleam of anger shot into Verbeena's tired eyes but she was
powerless. The compelling quality of this terrible creature, the
force with which he held her, the exultant, horrible, heavy, hot, and,
she could feel, relentless, half savagely cruel, indifferent way he
was doing it to her!
[Illustration: WHEREIN THE MOVIE MAHOUT INFORMS VERBEENA SHE WILL NEXT
BE REQUIRED TO BE SHOT OUT OF A PALM TREE BY HER LOVER IN MISTAKE FOR
A SQUIRREL.]
She dropped to her knees at the end of it begging for mercy.
He laughed at her coldly.
"You must get the idea of it--the sooner the better," he said with a
hauteur that made her cringe back into her old caterpillar crouch.
"Now the next scene--and we must hurry up or the light will be bad--is
where you are shot out of the top of a palm tree by your lover in
mistake for a squirrel.
"Come now--action--Cameras!--Cameras train on that palm tree over
there. The tallest one, of course. Remember, Mrs. Amut, you fall
dead--a dead fall--right straight out of the tree on your face. What's
that? Dangerous? Nonsense! And what if it is? What do you suppose we
are paying you for? What's a cracked nose for art's sake! No more
nonsense, no more words--up you go!"
Verbeena climbed.
Sometime later on being restored to consciousness wherein she knew
what was going on around her, she heard the great Gristmille saying:
"Very well, hop up there, leading woman! All ready for the next
scene."
"What--what is it?" faltered Verbeena.
"How dare you ask questions? Your instructions will all come in due
time. And now's the time!
"In the next scene you fall from your horse--you're shot or something,
perhaps struck in the back with a lance--I haven't quite made up my
mind--and then you will be run over by a herd of wild Arabian horses
with Mr. Arbuckle pursuing in the hope of rescue borne by eleven
camels, one for the hope and ten for Mr. Arbuckle.
"Come now--quick--and remember you are not to look frightened as the
horses--about two thousand of them--rush over you. As a heroine you
are calm-eyed in the face of certain death. If you do we'll have to
keep repeating the scene and I don't want to give too much time to it.
"Come on now--there must be no delay--the horses are ready--at great
expense--they are ready and now--_hey, Billy, Jim, Grady,
Bert_--_quick--how dare she!--quick--catch that girl!_"
But Verbeena's early education when she used to beat all the Harrow
boys at sprinting served her well.
She covered the three miles back to her own Oasis leaving all pursuers
in the ruck. _Time 42-1/2 seconds, but record not official._