BOBBY MEETS AN ENEMY ON THE BOULEVARD AND A FRIEND IN THE LANTRY STUDIO
It was a little after eight of the clock on the following morning that
the comedian took his way along the boulevard towards the Lantry studio.
Bobby’s eyes were dancing with mischief; the soul of the weather, gay
and bland, had entered into him. As he went his way he dispensed lavish
smiles to right and left, and poor indeed was he in human feeling who
failed to return smile for smile. Many a passer-by craned his neck,
having passed Bobby, to take an admiring look at the tiny dispenser of
joy who, attired in black broadcloth knickerbockers, a vest of the same
material cut away generously from the breast and decked with two shining
buttons where it met at the waist, a white shirt foaming into frills,
the sleeves of which were held up above the wrists by two bewitching
white ribbons, was really rather like to a lily of the field than
Solomon clothed in all his glory.
Of course Hollywood, like all known civilized places where men do
congregate, had its array of camera fiends.
“I beg your pardon,” said one of these, a tall severe-looking man with
dark glasses, “but would you mind my snap-shotting you?”
Bobby turned, folded his hands, and grinned.
“Shoot,” he said.
“Thank you,” said the man, his severe mien drowned in a wave of smiles
almost as gay as Bobby’s.
We have all heard of St. Francis preaching a sermon simply by walking in
silence through a thronged city. Does not many an innocent child as he
goes his happy way, smiling and wondering, preach a sermon that has for
its theme the charm of candid innocence, and the strange and alluring
possibility of every one who is so minded to become, by taking himself
in hand, a child again? And is it not true that such little children
bring a man’s thoughts regretfully and humbly back to the days when he
too was young, unsophisticated and unspoiled?
“You’re getting quite popular, Bobby,” observed Compton as they resumed
their way. “Everybody seems to like you.”
“So do I,” returned Bobby.
“What’s that?”
“I like everybody, too.”
“Out of the mouths of children,” Mr. Compton murmured to himself.
“I didn’t quite hear you, uncle.”
“I was saying,” translated the elder, “that whether you knew it or not
you have given the true secret of popularity.”
“Have we time to go in?” asked Bobby as they neared the Church of the
Blessed Sacrament.
“Why, yes, and I’ll be glad to go in with you.”
Mr. Compton’s sign of the cross was beyond criticism, his genuflection
not so bad; also, he knelt straight, and, in a word, showed the outward
signs of intelligence so lacking on the occasion of his first visit.
“I say, uncle,” Bobby remarked as they came out, “you’ve improved a lot.
You didn’t look around a bit.”
“Why should I?”
“People often do, you know, when they’re praying; but it’s not right.
Did you notice me looking around at the walls when I said the prayer
‘Angel of God’ last night?”
“Now that you come to speak of it, I believe I did.”
“There was a reason.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Compton, in a tone at once exclamatory and
interrogatory.
“Yes. At home when I came to that prayer I always looked at the picture
of the guardian angel which hung just above mamma’s head.”
“And you looked around my walls among the pictures to see whether you
could find a picture of the guardian angel, eh?”
“Yes, uncle; but I didn’t find a picture anything like one.”
“I should say not!” said Compton with energy. “But, Bobby, I was glad
last night when you prayed for me. I hope you’ll keep it up.”
“Aha!” cried Bobby dramatically, jumping in front of his uncle and
shaking a triumphant finger at him. “So you do believe in prayer.”
“In your prayers, Bobby. Put that finger down and stop your jigging;
everybody is looking at us.”
As a matter of fact, Bobby had achieved a feat seldom achieved on the
Hollywood Boulevard. He had, unintentionally of course, excited the
attention of nearly every one he had encountered. Now on the gay and
festive Hollywood Boulevard, be it known, all varieties of dress and
action are to be seen, and nobody seems to bother about them. In the
solemn watches of the night cavalcades of cowboys on horseback may come
clattering along, shooting in the real sense of the word, and shouting.
Possibly some light sleeper may rouse sufficiently to grasp the
situation. Turning in his bed, he remarks: “There go them moving-picture
fellers again,” and resumes his interrupted slumbers. There’s an old
man, white-bearded, redfaced from exposure, bare-footed, clad in a
modern substitute for the garments of St. John, and wearing a staff. He
is frequently seen on the street, but nobody seems to be concerned so
much as to take a second look.
I forgot to say that this imitation St. John the Baptist goes
bareheaded. Practically all the men on the boulevard go bareheaded. I
myself, I dare say, could patrol that famous thoroughfare in cassock and
biretta without exciting any further comment than, “I wonder what
picture that fellow’s made up for.” Painted ladies—painted so profusely
that their own mothers would not know them—would there escape comment
or criticism. It would be taken for granted that they were actresses.
The camera would mitigate their extravagance, and their presentment on
the screen would be entirely lacking the grossness of their real
flesh-and-blood appearances. But Bobby, gay and smiling, taking off now
the stride of his uncle, now the gait of a passing flapper, woke the
street from its passive acquiescence in all things queer.
It remained for Bobby to create a sensation. He did so, and in the
following way.
Mr. Compton, excusing himself and inviting the festive youth to survey
the scenery and fill his soul with its beauty, had passed into a shop to
renew his supply of cigars. He delayed a few moments, very excusably, to
tell a friend what a wonderful find his nephew was.
Now, since their leaving the Hollywood Catholic church, there had been
shadowing Bobby, Chucky Snuff, bellhop of yesterday’s play. It had never
occurred to Chucky that Bobby’s attempt to help him had been made in the
way of kindness. Quite otherwise. In justice to the younger set of
moving-picture actors, it should be stated that Chucky Snuff was not up
to form. He was, as the girls said, mean. Nobody liked him. A fond
father and a foolish mother had accounted him, in his tender years, a
swan; and they so petted and spoiled him as to develop him—allowing for
difference of sex—into a goose. At the age of ten Chucky was stunted
and blasé.
Taking advantage of Compton’s disappearance, Chucky picked up a piece of
wood and hastened to overtake Bobby.
“Why, halloa!” said Bobby as Chucky, running in front of him, blocked
the way.
By way of return the other put on a face which, had he assumed it in the
rehearsal, might have saved him his position.
“There!” he said, placing the wood on his right shoulder, “you knock
that chip off my shoulder!”
Bobby’s smile left him, and all the elves of merriment. Perplexity
wrinkled his brow. The aggressor was much encouraged. Bobby, he judged,
was a coward.
“Go on,” he urged. “I’m going to knock your block off, you big stiff. Do
you hear me? Go on and knock it off!”
Bobby perceived that he was in for it. His mind, as usual, worked
quickly. It came back to him then how his father had once said, “My son,
never indulge in vulgar fist-fighting if you can possibly help yourself;
but if you must, it’s a capital thing to get in the first blow.”
Accordingly, no sooner had his opponent ceased his adjuration than
Bobby’s left hand lightly swept the chip away, while at the same moment
his right shot out with what force he could put into it, and landed
squarely on the tip of the other’s chin.
Pain, astonishment, vast astonishment, swept over the face of Chucky
Snuff. He turned, and with a howl which really attracted attention
dashed away for parts unknown.
“Fine work! Excellent!” exclaimed a haughty young man with a
close-trimmed mustache and severely aristocratic features as he caught
Bobby’s hand, while an admiring audience gathered round to listen avidly
to one of the matinee idols of filmdom. “That was splendidly done. That
other fellow played the tough to a nicety. The way he had his chin stuck
out and the way you landed on it was perfect. Say, it was perfectly
rehearsed! You can shoot it right away. Where’s the camera man?”
“Why, that wasn’t acting,” Bobby explained. “That was a real scrap.”
“Oh!” said the actor, deeply chagrined and departing forthwith; and the
disappointed spectators, realizing that there was to be no encore,
melted away. Thus in Hollywood are real life and reel life confounded.
When John Compton, airily smoking, returned, Bobby was rubbing a skinned
knuckle, the cause of which, on inquiry, he explained.
“My fault!” acknowledged the comedian. “You’re in my care and I should
not leave you alone. However, perhaps it’s just as well. I know young
Chucky Snuff pretty well, and I’m sure he’ll not bother you again.”
Presently Bobby, on his way in the mazes of the Lantry Studio to put
himself into the bellhop’s clothes, came upon a little miss seated
dolefully in a chair, her head buried in her hands, her shoulders bowed,
and dejection in her entire pose. She was dressed like a princess. The
elegance of her attire, however, did not impress Bobby; it was her hair,
raven-black in a wealth of curls. Where had he seen that hair before? He
looked at the hands. They were dark. A light came to him.
“Halloa, Peggy!”
At the words the girl raised her head, and her large wondrously
beautiful eyes rested upon Bobby. With a gasp, she sprang from her
chair, while her eyes grew larger and larger. Fear and wonder shone from
them.
“Don’t you know me, Peggy?” asked the boy, smiling radiantly.
Wonder and fear in those eyes changed to a joy that was nothing less
than bliss.
“Oh, Bobby! You’re alive!”
“I’ll say so!”
“Bobby!” she screamed, and threw her arms about his neck.
“Oh, I say!” protested the highly embarrassed youth, “cut out the rough
stuff.”
“But, Bobby,” continued Peggy, whose face was irradiated with joy, “I
saw you drown myself!”
“You did not. A nice, big man came and fished me out.”
“Oh, thank God! Last night I couldn’t sleep a wink thinking of you and
your poor mother. Where is she, Bobby?”
“I wish I knew, Peggy. Didn’t you see her last?”
Then Peggy told Bobby her side of the story.
“And so my mother thinks I’m drowned! I never thought of that, Peggy.
But I’ll tell Uncle Compton, and he’ll find where she is and let her
know that I’m alive.”
“Uncle Compton! Why, is he your uncle?”
“I don’t know; it all depends. First I was his aunt, and then his uncle,
and then his grandfather. He said so himself. Anyhow, I call him uncle.
He’s a dandy.”
“Isn’t he, though!” exclaimed Peggy. “I just love him. He’s so kind to
children. You know, Bobby, I work with him.”
“What!” cried Bobby, picking up the chair which Peggy in rising had
upset, and seating himself. “Why, yesterday you never said a word to me
about your being in the movies.”
“I didn’t think it would interest you. I’m in his new play, and there’s
an awfully tough bellhop in it who takes a fancy to me, and I reform
him.”
Bobby took in a deep breath, and expelled it in a sort of whistle.
“I’m the bellhop,” he said, lowering his eyes, turning down a corner of
his mouth, drawing in and upward his shoulders.
“Bobby!” panted Peggy, “let me have that chair.”
Bobby, changing back to himself, arose and helped Peggy to seat herself.
Peggy was faint with joy.
“Say,” cried the boy, “we’ll have dead loads of fun.”
“Oh!” said Peggy.
“And we’ll make it go.”
“I know it,” said Peggy. “Just then you looked like the kind of bellhop
I’d like to reform. But tell me how you got here.”
“Between the ax, Peggy,” said Bobby, magnificently, after the manner of
Compton explaining to the janitor. “I’ll tell you between the ax. I’ll
tell you then. I’m now going to dress or I’ll be late.”