Merton Gill mealed at the Gashwiler home. He ate his supper in moody
silence, holding himself above the small gossip of the day that engaged
Amos and his wife. What to him meant the announcement that Amos expected
a new line of white goods on the morrow, or Mrs. Gashwiler’s version
of a regrettable incident occurring at that afternoon’s meeting of
the Entre Nous Five Hundred Club, in which the score had been juggled
adversely to Mrs. Gashwiler, resulting in the loss of the first prize,
a handsome fern dish, and concerning which Mrs. Gashwiler had thought
it best to speak her mind? What importance could he attach to the
disclosure of Metta Judson, the Gashwiler hired girl, who chatted freely
during her appearances with food, that Doc Cummins had said old Grandma
Foutz couldn’t last out another day; that the Peter Swansons were
sending clear to Chicago for Tilda’s trousseau; and that Jeff Murdock
had arrested one of the Giddings boys, but she couldn’t learn if it was
Ferd or Gus, for being drunk as a fool and busting up a bazaar out at
the Oak Grove schoolhouse, and the fighting was something terrible.
Scarcely did he listen to these petty recitals. He ate in silence, and
when he had finished the simple meal he begged to be excused. He begged
this in a lofty, detached, somewhat weary manner, as a man of the
world, excessively bored at the dull chatter but still the fastidious
gentleman, might have begged it, breaking into one of the many
repetitions by his hostess of just what she had said to Mrs. Judge
Ellis. He was again Clifford Armytage, enacting a polished society man
among yokels. He was so impressive, after rising, in his bow to Mrs.
Gashwiler that Amos regarded him with a kindling suspicion.
“Say!” he called, as Merton in the hallway plucked his rakish plush hat
from the mirrored rack. “You remember, now, no more o’ that skylarkin’
with them dummies! Them things cost money.”
Merton paused. He wished to laugh sarcastically, a laugh of withering
scorn. He wished to reply in polished tones, “Skylarkin’! You poor, dull
clod, what do you know of my ambitions, my ideals? You, with your petty
life devoted to gaining a few paltry dollars!” But he did not say
this, or even register the emotion that would justly accompany such a
subtitle. He merely rejoined, “All right, sir, I’m not going to touch
them,” and went quickly out. “Darned old grouch!” he muttered as he went
down the concrete walk to the Gashwiler front gate.
Here he turned to regard the two-story brick house and the square
of lawn with a concrete deer on one side of the walk, balanced by a
concrete deer on the other. Before the gate was the cast-iron effigy
of a small Negro in fantastic uniform, holding an iron ring aloft. The
Gashwiler carriage horse had been tethered to this in the days before
the Gashwiler touring car had been acquired.
“Dwelling of a country storekeeper!” muttered Merton. “That’s all you
are!”
This was intended to be scornful. Merton meant that on the screen it
would be recognized as this and nothing more. It could not be taken
for the mansion of a rich banker, or the country home of a Wall Street
magnate. He felt that he had been keen in his dispraise, especially as
old Gashwiler would never get the sting of it. Clod!
Three blocks brought him to the heart of the town, still throbbing
faintly. He stood, irresolute, before the Giddings House. Chairs in
front of this hostelry were now vacant of loafers, and a clatter of
dishes came through the open windows of the dining room, where
supper was on. Farther down the street Selby Brothers, Cigars and
Confectionery, would be open; lights shone from the windows of the
Fashion Pool Parlour across the way; the City Drug Store could still be
entered; and the post office would stay open until after the mail from
No. 4 was distributed. With these exceptions the shops along this mart
of trade were tightly closed, including the Gashwiler Emporium, at the
blind front of which Merton now glanced with the utmost distaste.
Such citizens as were yet abroad would be over at the depot to watch No.
4 go through. Merton debated joining these sight-seers. Simsbury was too
small to be noticed by many trains. It sprawled along the track as if it
had been an afterthought of the railroad. Trains like No. 4 were apt
to dash relentlessly by it without slackening speed, the mail bag being
flung to the depot platform. But sometimes there would be a passenger
for Simsbury, and the proud train would slow down and halt reluctantly,
with a grinding of brakes, while the passenger alighted. Then a good
view of the train could be had; a line of beautiful sleepers terminating
in an observation car, its rear platform guarded by a brass-topped
railing behind which the privileged lolled at ease; and up ahead a
wonderful dining car, where dinner was being served; flitting white-clad
waiters, the glitter of silver and crystal and damask, and favoured
beings feasting at their lordly ease, perhaps denying even a careless
glance at the pitiful hamlet outside, or at most looking out impatient
at the halt, or merely staring with incurious eyes while awaiting their
choice foods.
Not one of these enviable persons ever betrayed any interest in Simsbury
or its little group of citizens who daily gathered on the platform to do
them honour. Merton Gill used to fancy that these people might shrewdly
detect him to be out of place there--might perhaps take him to be an
alien city man awaiting a similar proud train going the other way,
standing, as he would, aloof from the obvious villagers, and having a
manner, a carriage, an attire, such as further set him apart. Still, he
could never be sure about this. Perhaps no one ever did single him out
as a being patently of the greater world. Perhaps they considered that
he was rightly of Simsbury and would continue to be a part of it all the
days of his life; or perhaps they wouldn’t notice him at all. They had
been passing Simsburys all day, and all Simsburys and all their peoples
must look very much alike to them. Very well--a day would come. There
would be at Simsbury a momentous stop of No. 4 and another passenger
would be in that dining car, disjoined forever from Simsbury, and he
with them would stare out the polished windows at the gaping throng, and
he would continue to stare with incurious eyes at still other Simsburys
along the right of way, while the proud train bore him off to triumphs
never dreamed of by natural-born villagers.
He decided now not to tantalize himself with a glance at this splendid
means of escape from all that was sordid. He was still not a little
depressed by the late unpleasantness with Gashwiler, who had thought him
a crazy fool, with his revolver, his fiercely muttered words, and his
holding aloft of a valuable dummy as if to threaten it with destruction.
Well, some day the old grouch would eat his words; some day he would be
relating to amazed listeners that he had known Merton Gill intimately at
the very beginning of his astounding career. That was bound to come. But
to-night Merton had no heart for the swift spectacle of No. 4. Nor even,
should it halt, did he feel up to watching those indifferent, incurious
passengers who little recked that a future screen idol in natty
plush hat and belted coat amusedly surveyed them. To-night he must be
alone--but a day would come. Resistless Time would strike his hour!
Still he must wait for the mail before beginning his nightly study.
Certain of his magazines would come to-night. He sauntered down the
deserted street, pausing before the establishment of Selby Brothers.
From the door of this emerged one Elmer Huff, clerk at the City Drug
Store. Elmer had purchased a package of cigarettes and now offered one
to Merton.
“‘Lo, Mert! Have a little pill?”
“No, thanks,” replied Merton firmly.
He had lately given up smoking--save those clandestine indulgences at
the expense of Gashwiler--because he was saving money against his great
day.
Elmer lighted one of his own little pills and made a further suggestion.
“Say, how about settin’ in a little game with the gang to-night after
the store closes--ten-cent limit?”
“No, thanks,” replied Merton, again firmly.
He had no great liking for poker at any limit, and he would not subject
his savings to a senseless hazard. Of course he might win, but you never
could tell.
“Do you good,” urged Elmer. “Quit at twelve sharp, with one round of
roodles.”
“No, I guess not,” said Merton.
“We had some game last night, I’ll tell the world! One hand we had four
jacks out against four aces, and right after that I held four kings
against an ace full. Say, one time there I was about two-eighty to the
good, but I didn’t have enough sense to quit. Hear about Gus Giddings?
They got him over in the coop for breaking in on a social out at the Oak
Grove schoolhouse last night. Say, he had a peach on when he left here,
I’ll tell the world! But he didn’t get far. Them Grove lads certainly
made a believer out of him. You ought to see that left eye of his!”
Merton listened loftily to this village talk, gossip of a rural sport
who got a peach on and started something--And the poker game in the back
room of the City Drug Store! What diversions were these for one who had
a future? Let these clods live out their dull lives in their own way.
But not Merton Gill, who held aloof from their low sports, studied
faithfully the lessons in his film-acting course, and patiently bided
his time.
He presently sauntered to the post office, where the mail was being
distributed. Here he found the sight-seers who had returned from the
treat of No. 4’s flight, and many of the less enterprising citizens who
had merely come down for their mail. Gashwiler was among these, smoking
one of his choice cigars. He was not allowed to smoke in the house.
Merton, knowing this prohibition, strictly enforced by Mrs. Gashwiler,
threw his employer a glance of honest pity. Briefly he permitted
himself a vision of his own future home--a palatial bungalow in distant
Hollywood, with expensive cigars in elaborate humidors and costly
gold-tipped cigarettes in silver things on low tables. One might smoke
freely there in every room.
Under more of the Elmer Huff sort of gossip, and the rhythmic clump of
the cancelling stamp back of the drawers and boxes, he allowed himself a
further glimpse of this luxurious interior. He sat on a low couch, among
soft cushions, a magnificent bearskin rug beneath his feet. He smoked
one of the costly cigarettes and chatted with a young lady interviewer
from Photo Land.
“You ask of my wife,” he was saying. “But she is more than a wife--she
is my best pal, and, I may add, she is also my severest critic.”
He broke off here, for an obsequious Japanese butler entered with a
tray of cooling drinks. The tray would be gleaming silver, but he
was uncertain about the drinks; something with long straws in them,
probably. But as to anything alcoholic, now--While he was trying to
determine this the general-delivery window was opened and the interview
had to wait. But, anyway, you could smoke where you wished in that
house, and Gashwiler couldn’t smoke any closer to his house than the
front porch. Even trying it there he would be nagged, and fussily asked
why he didn’t go out to the barn. He was a poor fish, Gashwiler; a
country storekeeper without a future. A clod!
Merton, after waiting in line, obtained his mail, consisting of three
magazines--Photo Land, Silver Screenings, and Camera. As he stepped away
he saw that Miss Tessie Kearns stood three places back in the line. He
waited at the door for her. Miss Kearns was the one soul in Simsbury who
understood him. He had confided to her all his vast ambitions; she had
sympathized with them, and her never-failing encouragement had done
not a little to stiffen his resolution at odd times when the haven of
Hollywood seemed all too distant. A certain community of ambitions had
been the foundation of this sympathy between the two, for Tessie Kearns
meant to become a scenario writer of eminence, and, like Merton, she
was now both studying and practising a difficult art. She conducted the
millinery and dressmaking establishment next to the Gashwiler Emporium,
but found time, as did Merton, for the worthwhile things outside her
narrow life.
She was a slight, spare little figure, sedate and mouselike, of middle
age and, to the village, of a quiet, sober way of thought. But, known
only to Merton, her real life was one of terrific adventure, involving
crime of the most atrocious sort, and contact not only with the great
and good, but with loathsome denizens of the underworld who would commit
any deed for hire. Some of her scenarios would have profoundly
shocked the good people of Simsbury, and she often suffered tremors of
apprehension at the thought that one of them might be enacted at the
Bijou Palace right there on Fourth Street, with her name brazenly
announced as author. Suppose it were Passion’s Perils! She would surely
have to leave town after that! She would be too ashamed to stay. Still
she would be proud, also, for by that time they would be calling her
to Hollywood itself. Of course nothing so distressing--or so grand--had
happened yet, for none of her dramas had been accepted; but she was
coming on. It might happen any time.
She joined Merton, a long envelope in her hand and a brave little smile
on her pinched face.
“Which one is it?” he asked, referring to the envelope.
“It’s Passion’s Perils.” she answered with a jaunty affectation of
amusement. “The Touchstone-Blatz people sent it back. The slip says its
being returned does not imply any lack of merit.”
“I should think it wouldn’t!” said Merton warmly.
He knew Passion’s Perils. A company might have no immediate need for it,
but its rejection could not possibly imply a lack of merit, because the
merit was there. No one could dispute that.
They walked on to the Bijou Palace. Its front was dark, for only twice
a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, could Simsbury muster a picture
audience; but they could read the bills for the following night. The
entrance was flanked on either side by billboards, and they stopped
before the first. Merton Gill’s heart quickened its beats, for there
was billed none other than Beulah Baxter in the ninth installment of her
tremendous serial, The Hazards of Hortense.
It was going to be good! It almost seemed that this time the scoundrels
would surely get Hortense. She was speeding across a vast open quarry in
a bucket attached to a cable, and one of the scoundrels with an ax
was viciously hacking at the cable’s farther anchorage. It would be a
miracle if he did not succeed in his hellish design to dash Hortense to
the cruel rocks below. Merton, of course, had not a moment’s doubt that
the miracle would intervene; he had seen other serials. So he made no
comment upon the gravity of the situation, but went at once to the heart
of his ecstasy.
“The most beautiful woman on the screen,” he murmured.
“Well, I don’t know.”
Miss Kearns appeared about to advance the claims of rival beauties, but
desisted when she saw that Merton was firm.
“None of the rest can touch her,” he maintained. “And look at her nerve!
Would your others have as much nerve as that?”
“Maybe she has someone to double in those places,” suggested the
screen-wise Tessie Kearns.
“Not Beulah Baxter. Didn’t I see her personal appearance that time I
went to Peoria last spring on purpose to see it? Didn’t she talk about
the risks she look and how the directors were always begging her to use
a double and how her artistic convictions wouldn’t let her do any such
thing? You can bet the little girl is right there in every scene!”
They passed to the other billboard. This would be the comedy. A
painfully cross-eyed man in misfitting clothes was doing something
supposed to be funny--pushing a lawn mower over the carpet of a palatial
home.
“How disgusting!” exclaimed Miss Kearns.
“Ain’t it?” said Merton. “How they can have one of those terrible things
on the same bill with Miss Baxter--I can’t understand it.”
“Those censors ought to suppress this sort of buffoonery instead of
scenes of dignified passion like they did in Scarlet Sin,” declared
Tessie. “Did you read about that?”
“They sure ought,” agreed Merton. “These comedies make me tired. I never
see one if I can help it.”
Walking on, they discussed the wretched public taste and the wretched
actors that pandered to it. The slap-stick comedy, they held, degraded
a fine and beautiful art. Merton was especially severe. He always felt
uncomfortable at one of these regrettable exhibitions when people about
him who knew no better laughed heartily. He had never seen anything to
laugh at, and said as much.
They crossed the street and paused at the door of Miss Kearns’ shop,
behind which were her living rooms. She would to-night go over Passion’s
Perils once more and send it to another company.
“I wonder,” she said to Merton, “if they keep sending it back because
the sets are too expensive. Of course there’s the one where the
dissipated English nobleman, Count Blessingham, lures Valerie into
Westminster Abbey for his own evil purposes on the night of the old
earl’s murder--that’s expensive--but they get a chance to use it again
when Valerie is led to the altar by young Lord Stonecliff, the rightful
heir. And of course Stonecliff Manor, where Valerie is first seen as
governess, would be expensive; but they use that in a lot of scenes,
too. Still, maybe I might change the locations around to something
they’ve got built.”
“I wouldn’t change a line,” said Merton. “Don’t give in to ‘em. Make ‘em
take it as it is. They might ruin your picture with cheap stuff.”
“Well,” the authoress debated, “maybe I’ll leave it. I’d especially
hate to give up Westminster Abbey. Of course the scene where she is
struggling with Count Blessingham might easily be made offensive--it’s a
strong scene--but it all comes right. You remember she wrenches herself
loose from his grasp and rushes to throw herself before the altar, which
suddenly lights up, and the scoundrel is afraid to pursue her there,
because he had a thorough religious training when a boy at Oxford, and
he feels it would be sacrilegious to seize her again while the light
from the altar shines upon her that way, and so she’s saved for the
time being. It seems kind of a shame not to use Westminster Abbey for a
really big scene like that, don’t you think?”
“I should say so!” agreed Merton warmly. “They build plenty of sets as
big as that. Keep it in!”
“Well, I’ll take your advice. And I shan’t give up trying with my other
ones. And I’m writing to another set of people--see here.” She took
from her handbag a clipped advertisement which she read to Merton in the
fading light, holding it close to her keen little eyes. “Listen! ‘Five
thousand photoplay ideas needed. Working girl paid ten thousand dollars
for ideas she had thought worthless. Yours may be worth more. Experience
unnecessary. Information free. Producers’ League 562, Piqua, Ohio.’
Doesn’t that sound encouraging? And it isn’t as if I didn’t have some
experience. I’ve been writing scenarios for two years now.”
“We both got to be patient,” he pointed out. “We can’t succeed all at
once, just remember that.”
“Oh, I’m patient, and I’m determined; and I know you are, too, Merton.
But the way my things keep coming back--well, I guess we’d both get
discouraged if it wasn’t for our sense of humour.”
“I bet we would,” agreed Merton. “And good-night!”
He went on to the Gashwiler Emporium and let himself into the dark
store. At the moment he was bewailing that the next installment of The
Hazards of Hortense would be shown on a Saturday night, for on those
nights the store kept open until nine and he could see it but once. On a
Tuesday night he would have watched it twice, in spite of the so-called
comedy unjustly sharing the bill with it.
Lighting a match, he made his way through the silent store, through the
stock room that had so lately been the foul lair of Snake le Vasquez,
and into his own personal domain, a square partitioned off from the
stockroom in which were his cot, the table at which he studied the art
of screen acting, and his other little belongings. He often called this
his den. He lighted a lamp on the table and drew the chair up to it.
On the boards of the partition in front of him were pasted many
presentments of his favourite screen actress, Beulah Baxter, as she
underwent the nerve-racking Hazards of Hortense. The intrepid girl
was seen leaping from the seat of her high-powered car to the cab of a
passing locomotive, her chagrined pursuers in the distant background.
She sprang from a high cliff into the chill waters of a storm-tossed
sea. Bound to the back of a spirited horse, she was raced down the steep
slope of a rocky ravine in the Far West. Alone in a foul den of the
underworld she held at bay a dozen villainous Asiatics. Down the fire
escape of a great New York hotel she made a perilous way. From the
shrouds of a tossing ship she was about to plunge to a watery release
from the persecutor who was almost upon her. Upon the roof of the Fifth
Avenue mansion of her scoundrelly guardian in the great city of New
York she was gaining the friendly projection of a cornice from which she
could leap and again escape death--even a fate worse than death, for the
girl was pursued from all sorts of base motives. This time, friendless
and alone in profligate New York, she would leap from the cornice to
the branches of the great eucalyptus tree that grew hard by. Unnerving
performances like these were a constant inspiration to Merton Gill.
He knew that he was not yet fit to act in such scenes--to appear
opportunely in the last reel of each installment and save Hortense for
the next one. But he was confident a day would come.
On the same wall he faced also a series of photographs of himself.
These were stills to be one day shown to a director who would thereupon
perceive his screen merits. There was Merton in the natty belted coat,
with his hair slicked back in the approved mode and a smile upon his
face; a happy, careless college youth. There was Merton in tennis
flannels, his hair nicely disarranged, jauntily holding a borrowed
racquet. Here he was in a trench coat and the cap of a lieutenant, grim
of face, the jaw set, holding a revolver upon someone unpictured; there
in a wide-collared sport shirt lolling negligently upon a bench after a
hard game of polo or something. Again he appeared in evening dress, two
straightened fingers resting against his left temple. Underneath this
was written in a running, angular, distinguished hand, “Very truly
yours, Clifford Armytage.” This, and prints of it similarly inscribed,
would one day go to unknown admirers who besought him for likenesses of
himself.
But Merton lost no time in scanning these pictorial triumphs. He was
turning the pages of the magazines he had brought, his first hasty
search being for new photographs of his heroine. He was quickly
rewarded. Silver Screenings proffered some fresh views of Beulah Baxter,
not in dangerous moments, but revealing certain quieter aspects of her
wondrous life. In her kitchen, apron clad, she stirred something. In her
lofty music room she was seated at her piano. In her charming library
she was shown “Among Her Books.” More charmingly she was portrayed with
her beautiful arms about the shoulders of her dear old mother. And these
accompanied an interview with the actress.
The writer, one Esther Schwarz, professed the liveliest trepidation
at first meeting the screen idol, but was swiftly reassured by the
unaffected cordiality of her reception. She found that success had not
spoiled Miss Baxter. A sincere artist, she yet absolutely lacked the
usual temperament and mannerisms. She seemed more determined than ever
to give the public something better and finer. Her splendid dignity,
reserve, humanness, high ideals, and patient study of her art had but
mellowed, not hardened, a gracious personality. Merton Gill received
these assurances without surprise. He knew Beulah Baxter would prove to
be these delightful things. He read on for the more exciting bits.
“I’m so interested in my work,” prettily observed Miss Baxter to the
interviewer; “suppose we talk only of that. Leave out all the rest--my
Beverly Hills home, my cars, my jewels, my Paris gowns, my dogs, my
servants, my recreations. It is work alone that counts, don’t you think?
We must learn that success, all that is beautiful and fine, requires
work, infinite work and struggle. The beautiful comes only through
suffering and sacrifice. And of course dramatic work broadens a girl’s
viewpoint, helps her to get the real, the worthwhile things out of life,
enriching her nature with the emotional experience of her roles. It is
through such pressure that we grow, and we must grow, must we not? One
must strive for the ideal, for the art which will be but the pictorial
expression of that, and for the emotion which must be touched by the
illuminating vision of a well-developed imagination if the vital message
of the film is to be felt.
“But of course I have my leisure moments from the grinding stress. Then
I turn to my books--I’m wild about history. And how I love the great
free out-of-doors! I should prefer to be on a simple farm, were I a
boy. The public would not have me a boy, you say”--she shrugged
prettily--“oh, of course, my beauty, as they are pleased to call it.
After all, why should one not speak of that? Beauty is just a stock
in trade, you know. Why not acknowledge it frankly? But do come to
my delightful kitchen, where I spend many a spare moment, and see the
lovely custard I have made for dear mamma’s luncheon.”
Merton Gill was entranced by this exposition of the quieter side of
his idol’s life. Of course he had known she could not always be making
narrow escapes, and it seemed that she was almost more delightful in
this staid domestic life. Here, away from her professional perils, she
was, it seemed, “a slim little girl with sad eyes and a wistful mouth.”
The picture moved him strongly. More than ever he was persuaded that
his day would come. Even might come the day when it would be his lot
to lighten the sorrow of those eyes and appease the wistfulness of that
tender mouth. He was less sure about this. He had been unable to learn
if Beulah Baxter was still unwed. Silver Screenings, in reply to
his question, had answered, “Perhaps.” Camera, in its answers to
correspondents, had said, “Not now.” Then he had written to Photo Land:
“Is Beulah Baxter unmarried?” The answer had come, “Twice.” He had been
able to make little of these replies, enigmatic, ambiguous, at best. But
he felt that some day he would at least be chosen to act with this slim
little girl with the sad eyes and wistful mouth. He, it might be, would
rescue her from the branches of the great eucalyptus tree growing hard
by the Fifth Avenue mansion of the scoundrelly guardian. This, if he
remembered well her message about hard work.
He recalled now the wondrous occasion on which he had travelled the
nearly hundred miles to Peoria to see his idol in the flesh. Her
personal appearance had been advertised. It was on a Saturday night, but
Merton had silenced old Gashwiler with the tale of a dying aunt in the
distant city. Even so, the old grouch had been none too considerate.
He had seemed to believe that Merton’s aunt should have died nearer to
Simsbury, or at least have chosen a dull Monday.
But Merton had held with dignity to the point; a dying aunt wasn’t to
be hustled about as to either time or place. She died when her time
came--even on a Saturday night--and where she happened to be, though
it were a hundred miles from some point more convenient to an utter
stranger. He had gone and thrillingly had beheld for five minutes
his idol in the flesh, the slim little girl of the sorrowful eyes and
wistful mouth, as she told the vast audience--it seemed to Merton that
she spoke solely to him--by what narrow chance she had been saved from
disappointing it. She had missed the train, but had at once leaped
into her high-powered roadster and made the journey at an average of
sixty-five miles an hour, braving death a dozen times. For her public
was dear to her, and she would not have it disappointed, and there she
was before them in her trim driving suit, still breathless from the wild
ride.
Then she told them--Merton especially--how her directors had again and
again besought her not to persist in risking her life in her dangerous
exploits, but to allow a double to take her place at the more critical
moments. But she had never been able to bring herself to this deception,
for deception, in a way, it would be. The directors had entreated in
vain. She would keep faith with her public, though full well she knew
that at any time one of her dare-devil acts might prove fatal.
Her public was very dear to her. She was delighted to meet it here, face
to face, heart to heart. She clasped her own slender hands over her own
heart as she said this, and there was a pathetic little catch in her
voice as she waved farewell kisses to the throng. Many a heart besides
Merton’s beat more quickly at knowing that she must rush out to the
high-powered roadster and be off at eighty miles an hour to St. Louis,
where another vast audience would the next day be breathlessly awaiting
her personal appearance.
Merton had felt abundantly repaid for his journey. There had been
inspiration in this contact. Little he minded the acid greeting, on
his return, of a mere Gashwiler, spawning in his low mind a monstrous
suspicion that the dying aunt had never lived.
Now he read in his magazines other intimate interviews by other talented
young women who had braved the presence of other screen idols of both
sexes. The interviewers approached them with trepidation, and invariably
found that success had not spoiled them. Fine artists though they were,
applauded and richly rewarded, yet they remained simple, unaffected,
and cordial to these daring reporters. They spoke with quiet dignity of
their work, their earnest efforts to give the public something better
and finer. They wished the countless readers of the interviews to
comprehend that their triumphs had come only with infinite work and
struggle, that the beautiful comes only through suffering and sacrifice.
At lighter moments they spoke gayly of their palatial homes, their
domestic pets, their wives or husbands and their charming children. They
all loved the great out-of-doors, but their chief solace from toil was
in this unruffled domesticity where they could forget the worries of an
exacting profession and lead a simple home life. All the husbands and
wives were more than that--they were good pals; and of course they read
and studied a great deal. Many of them were wild about books.
He was especially interested in the interview printed by Camera with
that world favourite, Harold Parmalee. For this was the screen artist
whom Merton most envied, and whom he conceived himself most to resemble
in feature. The lady interviewer, Miss Augusta Blivens, had gone
trembling into the presence of Harold Parmalee, to be instantly put at
her ease by the young artist’s simple, unaffected manner. He chatted of
his early struggles when he was only too glad to accept the few paltry
hundreds of dollars a week that were offered him in minor parts; of
his quick rise to eminence; of his unceasing effort to give the public
something better and finer; of his love for the great out-of-doors; and
of his daily flight to the little nest that sheltered his pal wife and
the kiddies. Here he could be truly himself, a man’s man, loving the
simple things of life. Here, in his library, surrounded by his books,
or in the music room playing over some little Chopin prelude, or on the
lawn romping with the giant police dog, he could forget the public that
would not let him rest. Nor had he been spoiled in the least, said the
interviewer, by the adulation poured out upon him by admiring women and
girls in volume sufficient to turn the head of a less sane young man.
“There are many beautiful women in the world.” pursued the writer, “and
I dare say there is not one who meets Harold Parmalee who does not
love him in one way or another. He has mental brilliancy for the
intellectuals, good looks for the empty-headed, a strong vital appeal,
a magnetism almost overwhelming to the susceptible, and an easy and
supremely appealing courtesy for every woman he encounters.”
Merton drew a long breath after reading these earnest words. Would
an interviewer some day be writing as much about him? He studied the
pictures of Harold Parmalee that abundantly spotted the article. The
full face, the profile, the symmetrical shoulders, the jaunty bearing,
the easy, masterful smile. From each of these he would raise his eyes
to his own pictured face on the wall above him. Undoubtedly he was not
unlike Harold Parmalee. He noted little similarities. He had the nose,
perhaps a bit more jutting than Harold’s, and the chin, even more
prominent.
Possibly a director would have told him that his Harold Parmalee beauty
was just a trifle overdone; that his face went just a bit past the line
of pleasing resemblance and into something else. But at this moment the
aspirant was reassured. His eyes were pale, under pale brows, yet they
showed well in the prints. And he was slightly built, perhaps even thin,
but a diet rich in fats would remedy that. And even if he were quite a
little less comely than Parmalee, he would still be impressive. After
all, a great deal depended upon the acting, and he was learning to act.
Months ago, the resolution big in his heart, he had answered the
advertisement in Silver Screenings, urging him to “Learn Movie Acting,
a fascinating profession that pays big. Would you like to know,” it
demanded, “if you are adapted to this work? If so, send ten cents for
our Ten-Hour Talent-Prover, or Key to Movie-Acting Aptitude, and find
whether you are suited to take it up.”
Merton had earnestly wished to know this, and had sent ten cents to
the Film Incorporation Bureau, Station N, Stebbinsville, Arkansas. The
Talent-Prover, or Key to Movie-Acting Aptitude, had come; he had mailed
his answers to the questions and waited an anguished ten days, fearing
that he would prove to lack the required aptitude for this great art.
But at last the cheering news had come. He had every aptitude in full
measure, and all that remained was to subscribe to the correspondence
course.
He had felt weak in the moment of his relief from this torturing
anxiety. Suppose they had told him that he wouldn’t do? And he had
studied the lessons with unswerving determination. Night and day he had
held to his ideal. He knew that when you did this your hour was bound to
come.
He yawned now, thinking, instead of the anger expressions he should have
been practising, of the sordid things he must do to-morrow. He must be
up at five, sprinkle the floor, sweep it, take down the dust curtains
from the shelves of dry goods, clean and fill the lamps, then station
outside the dummies in their raiment. All day he would serve customers,
snatching a hasty lunch of crackers and cheese behind the grocery
counter. And at night, instead of twice watching The Hazards of
Hortense, he must still unreasonably serve late customers until the
second unwinding of those delectable reels.
He suddenly sickened of it all. Was he not sufficiently versed in the
art he had chosen to practise? And old Gashwiler every day getting
harder to bear! His resolve stiffened. He would not wait much
longer--only until the savings hidden out under the grocery counter had
grown a bit. He made ready for bed, taking, after he had undressed,
some dumb-bell exercises that would make his shoulders a trifle more like
Harold Parmalee’s. This rite concluded, he knelt by his narrow cot and
prayed briefly.
“Oh, God, make me a good movie actor! Make me one of the best! For
Jesus’sake, amen!”