It had been the desire of Tish’s life to fly in an aëroplane, and we
knew by this time that much of her story was laid in the air. But
during the trip west I believe she lost some of her fine enthusiasm.
This was due, I imagine, to the repeated stories of crashes with which
the newspapers were filled, and also to the fact that we passed one
airship abandoned in a field, and showing signs of having fallen from a
considerable height.
This theory was borne out, I admit, by Tish’s reception of Mr. Stein at
the station in Los Angeles.
“We’ve got a small dirigible for the bootleggers, Miss Carberry,” he
said cheerfully, “and a fast pursuit plane for you, machine gun and
all. Got the plane cheap, after a crash. A dollar saved is a dollar
earned, you know!”
Tish, I thought, went a trifle pale.
“You won’t need them, Mr. Stein. I’m going to take the story out of the
air.”
“Great Scott! What for?” he exclaimed.
“It is too improbable.”
“Improbable! Of course it is. That’s the point.” Then he leaned forward
and patted her reassuringly. “Now, see here, Miss Carberry,” he said,
“don’t you worry! We’ve got a good pilot for you, and everything.
You’re as safe there as you are in this car.”
Unfortunately the car at that moment failed to make a sharp turn, left
the road, leaped a ditch, and brought up in a plowed field. It seemed a
bad omen to begin with, and Tish, I think, so considered it.
“My nephew developed jaundice after an air ride, Mr. Stein,” she said
as the driver backed the car onto the road, and we pulled Aggie from
beneath the three of us. “An attack of jaundice on my part would hold
up the picture indefinitely.”
But Mr. Stein was ready for that, as we later found him ready for every
emergency.
“We’ve a doctor on the lot, Miss Carberry,” he said. “Specializes in
jaundice. Don’t you worry at all.”
Looking back, both Aggie and I realize the significance of the remark
he made on leaving us after having settled us at the hotel.
“We’ve made one or two changes in the story, Miss Carberry,” he said.
“Nothing you will object to.” He smiled genially. “Have to give the
scenario department something to do to earn their salaries!”
Had Tish not been preoccupied this would not have gone unchallenged.
But she was staring up just then at the blue California sky, where an
aviator was looping the loop, and so forth, and she made no comment.
When we recall our California experience, Aggie and I date our first
disappointment from the following day, Tish’s first at the studio.
Though Tish cannot be termed a handsome woman, she has a certain
majesty of mien, which has its own charm. Her new transformation, too,
had softened certain of her facial angles, and we had felt that she
would have real distinction on the screen. But it was to be otherwise,
alas!
Aggie and I had been put out, and sat on the dressing-room steps,
perspiring freely, while numerous people came and went from Tish’s
room. We had heard of the great change effected by the make-up, and our
hopes were high. We had not expected her to compete with the various
beauties of the silver sheet, but we had expected to find her natural
charms emphasized.
But when, some time later, the door opened and Tish appeared, what
shall I say? It was Tish, of course, but Tish in an old skirt and a
blouse, with no transformation, and her own hair slicked into a hard
knot on top of her head.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and she can never be utterly
plain to us. But I must say she was not ornamental.
She did not speak, nor did we. She simply passed us, stalking across
the lot to a large glassed-in building, and I went in to comfort Hannah.
V
The picture, The Sky Pirate, having made a great success, I need
only briefly outline Tish’s story. As an elderly clerk in the secret
service, she is appalled by the amount of rum smuggling going on,
especially by dirigible from Mexico. She volunteers to stop it, and is
refused permission. She then steals an airship from the Army, funds
from the Treasury in Washington, an air pilot from the Marines, and
starts West, unheralded and unsung, in pursuit of her laudable purpose.
The various incidents, as the great American public will recall,
include her fastening a Mexican governor in a cave by exploding
dynamite in the hillside above him; dropping from a bridge to a moving
train below to search the express car for liquor; trapping the chief
smuggler on top of the structural-iron framework of a building, and so
on. In the end, by holding up the smugglers’ dirigible with her own
aëroplane and a machine gun, Tish forces them to hand over the valise
containing their ill-gotten gains, and with it descends by a parachute
to the ground and safety. Later on, as you will recall, she finds the
smugglers at an orgy, and with two revolvers arrests them all.
This simple outline only barely reveals the plan of the story. It says
nothing of the pursuits on horseback, the shipwreck, the fire, and so
on. But it shows clearly that the original story contained no love
interest.
I lay stress on this at this point in the narration, because it was
very early in the picture that we began to notice Mr. Macmanus.
Mr. Macmanus was a tall gentleman with a gray mustache, and with
a vague resemblance to Mr. Ostermaier, but lacking the latter’s
saintliness of expression. We paid little attention to him at first,
but he was always around when Tish was being photographed--or shot, as
the technical term is--and in his make-up.
Aggie rather admired him, and spoke to him one day while he was feeding
peanuts to Katie, the tame studio elephant--of whom more anon.
“Are you being shot to-day?” she inquired.
“No madam. Not to-day, nor even at sunrise!” he replied in a bitter
tone. “From what I can discover, I am being paid my salary to prevent
my appearance on any screen.”
He then gloomily fed the empty bag to Katie, and went away.
We had no solution for the mystery of Mr. Macmanus at that period, and
indeed temporarily forgot him. For the time had come for Tish to take
the air, and both Aggie and I were very nervous.
Even Tish herself toyed with her breakfast the morning of that day,
and spoke touchingly of Charlie Sands, observing that she was his only
surviving relative, and that perhaps it was wrong and selfish of her to
take certain risks. To add to our anxiety, the morning paper chronicled
the story of a fatal crash the day before, and she went, I think, a
trifle pale. Later on, however, she rallied superbly.
“After all,” she said, “the percentage of accident is only one in five
hundred. I am sorry for the poor wretch, but it saves the lives of four
hundred and ninety-nine others. Figures do not lie.”
From that time on she was quite buoyant, and ate a lamb chop with
appetite.
During the flight Aggie, Hannah and I remained in the open, looking up,
and I must admit that it was a nervous time for us, seeing our dear
Tish head down above the earth, and engaged in other life-imperiling
exploits. But she came down smiling and, when the aëroplane stopped,
spoke cheerfully.
“A marvelous experience,” she observed. “One feels akin to the birds.
One soars, and loses memory of earth.”
She was then helped out, but owing to the recent altitude her knees
refused to support her, and she sank to the ground.