He approached the office of the Holden studios the following morning
with a new air of assurance. Formerly the mere approach had been
an adventure; the look through the gate, the quick glimpse of the
privileged ones who entered, the mingling, later, with the hopeful and
the near-hopeless ones who waited. But now his feeling was that he had,
somehow, become a part of that higher life beyond the gate. He might
linger outside at odd moments, but rightfully he belonged inside. His
novitiate had passed. He was one of those who threw knives or battled
at the sawmill with the persecuter of golden-haired innocence, or lured
beautiful women from their homes. He might be taken, he thought, for an
actor resting between pictures.
At the gate he suffered a momentary regret at an error of tactics
committed the evening before. Instead of leaving the lot by the office
he should have left by the gate. He should have strolled to this exit in
a leisurely manner and stopped, just inside the barrier, for a chat with
the watchman; a chat, beginning with the gift of a cigar, which should
have impressed his appearance upon that person. He should have remarked
casually that he had had a hard day on Stage Number Four, and must now
be off to a good night’s rest because of the equally hard day to-morrow.
Thus he could now have approached the gate with confidence and passed
freely in, with a few more pleasant words to the watchman who would have
no difficulty in recalling him.
But it was vain to wish this. For all the watchman knew this young man
had never been beyond the walls of the forbidden city, nor would he know
any reason why the besieger should not forever be kept outside. He would
fix that next time.
He approached the window of the casting office with mingled emotions. He
did not hope to find his friend again stricken with headache, but if it
chanced that she did suffer he hoped to be the first to learn of it. Was
he not fortified with the potent Eezo wafers, and a new menthol pencil,
even with an additional remedy of tablets that the druggist had
strongly recommended? It was, therefore, not with any actual, crude
disappointment that he learned of his friend’s perfect well-being. She
smiled pleasantly at him, the telephone receiver at one ear. “Nothing
to-day, dear,” she said and put down the instrument.
Yes, the headache was gone, vanquished by his remedies. She was fine,
thank you. No, the headaches didn’t come often. It might be weeks before
she had another attack. No, of course she couldn’t be certain of this.
And indeed she would be sure to let him know at the very first sign of
their recurrence.
He looked over his patient with real anxiety, a solicitude from the
bottom of which he was somehow unable to expel the last trace of a
lingering hope that would have dismayed the little woman--not hope,
exactly, but something almost like it which he would only translate to
himself as an earnest desire that he might be at hand when the dread
indisposition did attack her. Just now there could be no doubt that she
was free from pain.
He thanked her profusely for her courtesy of the day before. He had
seen wonderful things. He had learned a lot. And he wanted to ask her
something, assuring himself that he was alone in the waiting room. It
was this: did she happen to know--was Miss Beulah Baxter married?
The little woman sighed in a tired manner. “Baxter married? Let me see.”
She tapped her teeth with the end of a pencil, frowning into her vast
knowledge of the people beyond the gate. “Now, let me think.” But this
appeared to be without result. “Oh, I really don’t know; I forget. I
suppose so. Why not? She often is.”
He would have asked more questions, but the telephone rang and she
listened a long time, contributing a “yes, yes,” of understanding at
brief intervals. This talk ended, she briskly demanded a number and
began to talk in her turn. Merton Gill saw that for the time he had
passed from her life. She was calling an agency. She wanted people for a
diplomatic reception in Washington. She must have a Bulgarian general,
a Serbian diplomat, two French colonels, and a Belgian captain, all in
uniform and all good types. She didn’t want just anybody, but types that
would stand out. Holden studios on Stage Number Two. Before noon, if
possible. All right, then. Another bell rang, almost before she had hung
up. “Hello, Grace. Nothing to-day, dear. They’re out on location, down
toward Venice, getting some desert stuff. Yes, I’ll let you know.”
Merton Gill had now to make way at the window for a youngish,
weary-looking woman who had once been prettier, who led an elaborately
dressed little girl of five. She lifted the child to the window. “Say
good-morning to the beautiful lady, Toots. Good-morning, Countess.
I’m sure you got something for Toots and me to-day because it’s our
birthday--both born on the same day--what do you think of that? Any
little thing will help us out a lot--how about it?”
He went outside before the end of this colloquy, but presently saw the
woman and her child emerge and walk on disconsolately toward the next
studio. Thus began another period of waiting from which much of the
glamour had gone. It was not so easy now to be excited by those glimpses
of the street beyond the gate. A certain haze had vanished, leaving all
too apparent the circumstance that others were working beyond the gate
while Merton Gill loitered outside, his talent, his training, ignored.
His early air of careless confidence had changed to one not at all
careless or confident. He was looking rather desperate and rather
unbelieving. And it daily grew easier to count his savings. He made
no mistakes now. His hoard no longer enjoyed the addition of fifteen
dollars a week. Only subtractions were made.
There came a morning when but one bill remained. It was a ten-dollar
bill, bearing at its centre a steel-engraved portrait of Andrew Jackson.
He studied it in consternation, though still permitting himself to
notice that Jackson would have made a good motion-picture type--the
long, narrow, severe face, the stiff uncomprising mane of gray hair;
probably they would have cast him for a feuding mountaineer, deadly
with his rifle, or perhaps as an inventor whose device was stolen on his
death-bed by his wicked Wall Street partner, thus leaving his motherless
daughter at the mercy of Society’s wolves.
But this was not the part that Jackson played in the gripping drama of
Merton Gill. His face merely stared from the last money brought from
Simsbury, Illinois, and the stare was not reassuring. It seemed to say
that there was no other money in all the world. Decidedly things must
take a turn. Merton Gill had a quite definite feeling that he had
already struggled and sacrificed enough to give the public something
better and finer. It was time the public realized this.
Still he waited, not even again reaching the heart of things, for his
friend beyond the window had suffered no relapse. He came to resent a
certain inconsequence in the woman. She might have had those headaches
oftener. He had been led to suppose that she would, and now she
continued to be weary but entirely well.
More waiting and the ten-dollar bill went for a five and some silver. He
was illogically not sorry to be rid of Andrew Jackson, who had looked
so tragically skeptical. The five-dollar bill was much more cheerful. It
bore the portrait of Benjamin Harrison, a smooth, cheerful face adorned
with whiskers that radiated success. They were little short of smug
with success. He would almost rather have had Benjamin Harrison on five
dollars than the grim-faced Jackson on ten. Still, facts were facts. You
couldn’t wait as long on five dollars as you could on ten.
Then on the afternoon of a day that promised to end as other days
had ended, a wave of animation swept through the waiting room and the
casting office. “Swell cabaret stuff” was the phrase that brought the
applicants to a lively swarm about the little window. Evening clothes,
glad wraps, cigarette cases, vanity-boxes--the Victor people doing
The Blight of Broadway with Muriel Mercer--Stage Number Four at 8:30
to-morrow morning. There seemed no limit to the people desired. Merton
Gill joined the throng about the window. Engagements were rapidly made,
both through the window and over the telephone that was now ringing
those people who had so long been told that there was nothing to-day.
He did not push ahead of the women as some of the other men did. He even
stood out of the line for the Montague girl who had suddenly appeared
and who from the rear had been exclaiming: “Women and children first!”
“Thanks, old dear,” she acknowledged the courtesy and beamed through the
window. “Hullo, Countess!” The woman nodded briefly. “All right, Flips;
I was just going to telephone you. Henshaw wants you for some baby-vamp
stuff in the cabaret scene and in the gambling hell. Better wear that
salmon-pink chiffon and the yellow curls. Eight-thirty, Stage Four.
Goo’-by.”
“Thanks, Countess! Me for the jumping tintypes at the hour named. I’m
glad enough to be doing even third business. How about Ma?”
“Sure! Tell her grand-dame stuff, chaperone or something, the gray
georgette and all her pearls and the cigarette case.”
“I’ll tell her. She’ll be glad there’s something doing once more on the
perpendicular stage. Goo’-by.”
She stepped aside with “You’re next, brother!” Merton Gill acknowledged
this with a haughty inclination of the head. He must not encourage this
hoyden. He glanced expectantly through the little window. His friend
held a telephone receiver at her ear. She smiled wearily. “All right,
son. You got evening clothes, haven’t you? Of course, I remember now.
Stage Four at 8:30. Goo’-by.”
“I want to thank you for this opportunity--” he began, but was pushed
aside by an athletic young woman who spoke from under a broad hat.
“Hullo, dearie! How about me and Ella?”
“Hullo, Maizie. All right. Stage Four, at 8:30, in your swellest evening
stuff.”
At the door the Montague girl called to an approaching group who seemed
to have heard by wireless or occult means the report of new activity in
the casting office. “Hurry, you troupers. You can eat to-morrow night,
maybe!” They hurried. She turned to Merton Gill. “Seems like old times,”
she observed.
“Does it?” he replied coldly. Would this chit never understand that he
disapproved of her trifling ways?
He went on, rejoicing that he had not been compelled to part, even
temporarily, with a first-class full-dress suit, hitherto worn only in
the privacy of Lowell Hardy’s studio. It would have been awkward, he
thought, if the demand for it had been much longer delayed. He would
surely have let that go before sacrificing his Buck Benson outfit. He
had traversed the eucalyptus avenue in this ecstasy, and was on a busier
thoroughfare. Before a motion-picture theatre he paused to study the
billing of Muriel Mercer in Hearts Aflame. The beauteous girl, in
an alarming gown, was at the mercy of a fiend in evening dress whose
hellish purpose was all too plainly read in his fevered eyes. The girl
writhed in his grasp. Doubtless he was demanding her hand in marriage.
It was a tense bit. And to-morrow he would act with this petted idol of
the screen. And under the direction of that Mr. Henshaw who seemed to
take screen art with proper seriousness. He wondered if by any chance
Mr. Henshaw would call upon him to do a quadruple transition, hate,
fear, love, despair. He practised a few transitions as he went on to
press his evening clothes in the Patterson kitchen, and to dream, that
night, that he rode his good old pal, Pinto, into the gilded cabaret to
carry off Muriel Mercer, Broadway’s pampered society pet, to the clean
life out there in the open spaces where men are men.
At eight the following morning he was made up in a large dressing room
by a grumbling extra who said that it was a dog’s life plastering grease
paint over the maps of dubs. He was presently on Stage Four in the
prescribed evening regalia for gentlemen. He found the cabaret set,
a gilded haunt of pleasure with small tables set about an oblong of
dancing floor. Back of these on three sides were raised platforms with
other tables, and above these discreet boxes, half masked by drapery,
for the seclusion of more retiring merry-makers. The scene was deserted
as yet, but presently he was joined by another early comer, a beautiful
young woman of Spanish type with a thin face and eager, dark eyes. Her
gown was glistening black set low about her polished shoulders, and she
carried a red rose. So exotic did she appear he was surprised when she
addressed him in the purest English.
“Say, listen here, old timer! Let’s pick a good table right on the edge
before the mob scene starts. Lemme see--” She glanced up and down the
rows of tables. “The cam’ras’ll be back there, so we can set a little
closer, but not too close, or we’ll be moved over. How ‘bout this here?
Let’s try it.” She sat, motioning him to the other chair. Even so early
in his picture career did he detect that in facing this girl his back
would be to the camera. He hitched his chair about.
“That’s right,” said the girl, “I wasn’t meaning to hog it. Say, we was
just in time, wasn’t we?”
Ladies and gentlemen in evening dress were already entering. They looked
inquiringly about and chose tables. Those next to the dancing space
were quickly filled. Many of the ladies permitted costly wraps of fur or
brocade to spill across the backs of their chairs. Many of the gentlemen
lighted cigarettes from gleaming metal cases. There was a lively
interchange of talk.
“We better light up, too,” said the dark girl. Merton Gill had neglected
cigarettes and confessed this with some embarrassment. The girl
presented an open case of gold attached to a chain pendent from her
girdle. They both smoked. On their table were small plates, two wine
glasses half filled with a pale liquid, and small coffee-cups. Spirals
of smoke ascended over a finished repast. Of course if the part called
for cigarettes you must smoke whether you had quit or not.
The places back of the prized first row were now filling up with the
later comers. One of these, a masterful-looking man of middle
age--he would surely be a wealthy club-man accustomed to command
tables--regarded the filled row around the dancing space with frank
irritation, and paused significantly at Merton’s side. He seemed
about to voice a demand, but the young actor glanced slowly up at him,
achieving a superb transition--surprise, annoyance, and, as the invader
turned quickly away, pitying contempt.
“Atta boy!” said his companion, who was, with the aid of a tiny
gold-backed mirror suspended with the cigarette case, heightening the
crimson of her full lips.
Two cameras were now in view, and men were sighting through them. Merton
saw Henshaw, plump but worried looking, scan the scene from the rear. He
gave hurried direction to an assistant who came down the line of tables
with a running glance at their occupants. He made changes. A couple here
and a couple there would be moved from the first row and other couples
would come to take their places. Under the eyes of this assistant the
Spanish girl had become coquettish. With veiled glances, with flashing
smiles from the red lips, with a small gloved hand upon Merton Gill’s
sleeve, she allured him. The assistant paused before them. The Spanish
girl continued to allure. Merton Gill stared moodily at the half-empty
wine glass, then exhaled smoke as he glanced up at his companion in
profound ennui. If it was The Blight of Broadway probably they would
want him to look bored.
“You two stay where you are,” said the assistant, and passed on.
“Good work,” said the girl. “I knew you was a type the minute I made
you.”
Red-coated musicians entered an orchestra loft far down the set. The
voice of Henshaw came through a megaphone: “Everybody that’s near
the floor fox-trot.” In a moment the space was thronged with dancers.
Another voice called “Kick it!” and a glare of light came on.
“You an’ me both!” said the Spanish girl, rising.
Merton Gill remained seated. “Can’t,” he said. “Sprained ankle.” How was
he to tell her that there had been no chance to learn this dance back
in Simsbury, Illinois, where such things were frowned upon by pulpit
and press? The girl resumed her seat, at first with annoyance, then
brightened. “All right at that,” she said. “I bet we get more footage
this way.” She again became coquettish, luring with her wiles one who
remained sunk in ennui.
A whistle blew, a voice called “Save it!” and the lights jarred off.
Henshaw came trippingly down the line. “You people didn’t dance. What’s
the matter?” Merton Gill glanced up, doing a double transition, from
dignified surprise to smiling chagrin. “Sprained ankle,” he said, and
fell into the bored look that had served him with the assistant. He
exhaled smoke and raised his tired eyes to the still luring Spanish
girl. Weariness of the world and women was in his look. Henshaw scanned
him closely.
“All right, stay there--keep just that way--it’s what I want.” He
continued down the line, which had become hushed. “Now, people. I
want some flashes along here, between dances--see what I mean? You’re
talking, but you’re bored with it all. The hollowness of this night
life is getting you; not all of you--most of you girls can keep on
smiling--but The Blight of Broadway shows on many. You’re beginning to
wonder if this is all life has to offer--see what I mean?” He continued
down the line.
From the table back of Merton Gill came a voice in speech to the
retreating back of Henshaw: “All right, old top, but it’ll take a good
lens to catch any blight on this bunch--most of ‘em haven’t worked a
lick in six weeks, and they’re tickled pink.” He knew without turning
that this was the Montague girl trying to be funny at the expense
of Henshaw who was safely beyond hearing. He thought she would be a
disturbing element in the scene, but in this he was wrong, for he
bent upon the wine glass a look more than ever fraught with jaded
world-weariness. The babble of Broadway was resumed as Henshaw went back
to the cameras.
Presently a camera was pushed forward. Merton Gill hardly dared look up,
but he knew it was halted at no great distance from him. “Now, here’s
rather a good little bit,” Henshaw was saying. “You, there, the girl in
black, go on--tease him the way you were, and he’s to give you that same
look. Got that cigarette going? All ready. Lights! Camera!” Merton
was achieving his first close-up. Under the hum of the lights he was
thinking that he had been a fool not to learn dancing, no matter how the
Reverend Otto Carmichael denounced it as a survival from the barbaric
Congo. He was also thinking that the Montague girl ought to be kept away
from people who were trying to do really creative things, and he was
bitterly regretting that he had no silver cigarette case. The gloom of
his young face was honest gloom. He was aware that his companion leaned
vivaciously toward him with gay chatter and gestures. Very slowly he
inhaled from a cigarette that was already distasteful--adding no little
to the desired effect--and very slowly he exhaled as he raised to hers
the bored eyes of a soul quite disillusioned. Here, indeed, was the
blight of Broadway.
“All right, first rate!” called Henshaw. “Now get this bunch down here.”
The camera was pushed on.
“Gee, that was luck!” said the girl. “Of course it’ll be cut to a flash,
but I bet we stand out, at that.” She was excited now, no longer needing
to act.
From the table back of Merton came the voice of the Montague girl: “Yes,
one must suffer for one’s art. Here I got to be a baby-vamp when I’d
rather be simple little Madelon, beloved by all in the village.”
He restrained an impulse to look around at her. She was not serious and
should not be encouraged. Farther down the set Henshaw was beseeching
a table of six revellers to give him a little hollow gayety. “You’re
simply forcing yourselves to have a good time,” he was saying; “remember
that. Your hearts aren’t in it. You know this night life is a mockery.
Still, you’re playing the game. Now, two of you raise your glasses to
drink. You at the end stand up and hold your glass aloft. The girl next
to you there, stand up by him and raise your face to his--turn sideways
more. That’s it. Put your hand up to his shoulder. You’re slightly
lit, you know, and you’re inviting him to kiss you over his glass. You
others, you’re drinking gay enough, but see if you can get over that
it’s only half-hearted. You at the other end there--you’re staring at
your wine glass, then you look slowly up at your partner but without any
life. You’re feeling the blight, see? A chap down the line here just did
it perfectly. All ready, now! Lights! Camera! You blonde girl, stand
up, face raised to him, hand up to his shoulder. You others, drinking,
laughing. You at the end, look up slowly at the girl, look away--about
there--bored, weary of it all--cut! All right. Not so bad. Now this next
bunch, Paul.”
Merton Gill was beginning to loathe cigarettes. He wondered if Mr.
Henshaw would mind if he didn’t smoke so much, except, of course, in the
close-ups. His throat was dry and rough, his voice husky. His companion
had evidently played more smoking parts and seemed not to mind it.
Henshaw was now opposite them across the dancing floor, warning his
people to be gay but not too gay. The glamour of this night life must be
a little dulled.
“Now, Paul, get about three medium shots along here. There’s a good
table--get that bunch. And not quite so solemn, people; don’t overdo it.
You think you’re having a good time, even if it does turn to ashes in
your mouth--now, ready; lights! Camera!”
“I like Western stuff better,” confided Merton to his companion. She
considered this, though retaining her arch manner. “Well, I don’t know.
I done a Carmencita part in a dance-hall scene last month over to the
Bigart, and right in the mi’st of the fight I get a glass of somethin’
all over my gown that practically rooned it. I guess I rather do this
refined cabaret stuff--at least you ain’t so li’ble to roon a gown.
Still and all, after you been warmin’ the extra bench for a month one
can’t be choosy. Say, there’s the princ’ples comin’ on the set.”
He looked around. There, indeed, was the beautiful Muriel Mercer,
radiant in an evening frock of silver. At the moment she was putting a
few last touches to her perfect face from a make-up box held by a maid.
Standing with her was another young woman, not nearly so beautiful, and
three men. Henshaw was instructing these. Presently he called through
his megaphone: “You people are excited by the entrance of the famous
Vera Vanderpool and her friends. You stop drinking, break off your talk,
stare at her--see what I mean?--she makes a sensation. Music, lights,
camera!”
Down the set, escorted by a deferential head-waiter, came Muriel Mercer
on the arm of a middle-aged man who was elaborately garnished but whose
thin dyed mustaches, partially bald head, and heavy eyes, proclaimed him
to Merton Gill as one who meant the girl no good. They were followed
by the girl who was not so beautiful and the other two men. These were
young chaps of pleasing exterior who made the progress laughingly. The
five were seated at a table next the dancing space at the far end. They
chatted gayly as the older man ordered importantly from the head-waiter.
Muriel Mercer tapped one of the younger men with her plumed fan and they
danced. Three other selected couples danced at the same time, though
taking care not to come between the star and the grinding camera.
The older man leered at the star and nervously lighted a gold-tipped
cigarette which he immediately discarded after one savage bite at it.
It could be seen that Vera Vanderpool was the gayest of all that gay
throng. Upon her as yet had come no blight of Broadway, though she
shrank perceptibly when the partially bald one laid his hand on her
slender wrist as she resumed her seat. Food and wine were brought. Vera
Vanderpool drank, with a pretty flourish of her glass.
Now the two cameras were moved forward for close-ups. The older man was
caught leering at Vera. It would surely be seen that he was not one to
trust. Vera was caught with the mad light of pleasure in her beautiful
eyes. Henshaw was now speaking in low tones to the group, and presently
Vera Vanderpool did a transition. The mad light of pleasure died from
her eyes and the smile froze on her beautiful mouth. A look almost of
terror came into her eyes, followed by a pathetic lift of the upper lip.
She stared intently above the camera. She was beholding some evil thing
far from that palace of revels.
“Now they’ll cut back to the tenement-house stuff they shot last week,”
explained the Spanish girl.
“Tenement house?” queried Merton. “But I thought the story would be that
she falls in love with a man from the great wind-swept spaces out West,
and goes out there to live a clean open life with him--that’s the way
I thought it would be--out there where she could forget the blight of
Broadway.”
“No, Mercer never does Western stuff. I got a little girl friend
workin’ with her and she told me about this story. Mercer gets into
this tenement house down on the east side, and she’s a careless society
butterfly; but all at once she sees what a lot of sorrow there is in
this world when she sees these people in the tenement house, starving to
death, and sick kids and everything, and this little friend of mine does
an Italian girl with a baby and this old man here, he’s a rich swell
and prominent in Wall Street and belongs to all the clubs, but he’s the
father of this girl’s child, only Mercer don’t know that yet. But she
gets aroused in her better nature by the sight of all this trouble, and
she almost falls in love with another gentleman who devotes all his
time to relieving the poor in these tenements--it was him who took her
there--but still she likes a good time as well as anybody, and she’s
stickin’ around Broadway and around this old guy who’s pretty good
company in spite of his faults. But just now she got a shock at
remembering the horrible sights she has seen; she can’t get it out
of her mind. And pretty soon she’ll see this other gentleman that she
nearly fell in love with, the one who hangs around these tenements doing
good--he’ll be over at one of them tables and she’ll leave her party and
go over to his table and say, ‘Take me from this heartless Broadway to
your tenements where I can relieve their suffering,’ so she goes out and
gets in a taxi with him, leaving the old guy with not a thing to do
but pay the check. Of course he’s mad, and he follows her down to
the tenements where she’s relieving the poor--just in a plain black
dress--and she finds out he’s the real father of this little friend of
mine’s child, and tells him to go back to Broadway while she has chosen
the better part and must live her life with these real people. But
he sends her a note that’s supposed to be from a poor woman dying of
something, to come and bring her some medicine, and she goes off alone
to this dive in another street, and it’s the old guy himself who has
sent the note, and he has her there in this cellar in his power. But the
other gentleman has found the note and has follered her, and breaks in
the door and puts up a swell fight with the old guy and some toughs he
has hired, and gets her off safe and sound, and so they’re married and
live the real life far away from the blight of Broadway. It’s a swell
story, all right, but Mercer can’t act it. This little friend of mine
can act all around her. She’d be a star if only she was better lookin’.
You bet Mercer don’t allow any lookers on the same set with her. Do you
make that one at the table with her now? Just got looks enough to
show Mercer off. Mercer’s swell-lookin’, I’ll give her that, but for
actin’--say, all they need in a piece for her is just some stuff to go
in between her close-ups. Don’t make much difference what it is. Oh,
look! There comes the dancers. It’s Luzon and Mario.”
Merton Gill looked. These would be hired dancers to entertain the
pleasure-mad throng, a young girl with vine leaves in her hair and a
dark young man of barbaric appearance. The girl was clad in a mere whisp
of a girdle and shining breast plates, while the man was arrayed chiefly
in a coating of dark stain. They swirled over the dance floor to the
broken rhythm of the orchestra, now clinging, now apart, working to
a climax in which the man poised with his partner perched upon one
shoulder. Through the megaphone came instructions to applaud the couple,
and Broadway applauded--all but Merton Gill, who stared moodily into
his coffee cup or lifted bored eyes to the scene of revelry. He was not
bored, but his various emotions combined to produce this effect very
plausibly. He was dismayed at this sudden revelation of art in the dance
so near him. Imogene Pulver had once done an art dance back in Simsbury,
at the cantata of Esther in the vestry of the Methodist church, and
had been not a little criticised for her daring; but Imogene had been
abundantly clad, and her gestures much more restrained. He was trying
now to picture how Gashwiler would take a thing like this, or Mrs.
Gashwiler, for that matter! One glimpse of those practically unclad
bodies skipping and bounding there would probably throw them into a
panic. They couldn’t have sat it through. And here he was, right up in
front of them, and not turning a hair.
This reflection permitted something of the contemptuous to show in the
random glances with which he swept the dancers? He could not look at
them steadily, not when they were close, as they often were. Also,
he loathed the cigarette he was smoking. The tolerant scorn for the
Gashwilers and his feeling for the cigarette brought him again into
favourable notice. He heard Henshaw, but did not look up.
“Get another flash here, Paul. He’s rather a good little bit.” Henshaw
now stood beside him. “Hold that,” he said. “No, wait.” He spoke to
Merton’s companion. “You change seats a minute with Miss Montague, as if
you’d got tired of him--see what I mean? Miss Montague--Miss Montague.”
The Spanish girl arose, seeming not wholly pleased at this bit of
directing. The Montague girl came to the table. She was a blithesome
sprite in a salmon-pink dancing frock. Her blonde curls fell low over
one eye which she now cocked inquiringly at the director.
“You’re trying to liven him up,” explained Henshaw. “That’s
all--baby-vamp him. He’ll do the rest. He’s quite a good little bit.”
The Montague girl flopped into the chair, leaned roguishly toward Merton
Gill, placed a small hand upon the sleeve of his coat and peered archly
at him through beaded lashes, one eye almost hidden by its thatch of
curls. Merton Gill sunk low in his chair, cynically tapped the ash from
his tenth cigarette into the coffee cup and raised bored eyes to hers.
“That’s it--shoot it, Paul, just a flash.”
The camera was being wheeled toward them. The Montague girl, with her
hand still on his arm, continued her wheedling, though now she spoke.
“Why, look who’s here. Kid, I didn’t know you in your stepping-out
clothes. Say, listen, why do you always upstage me? I never done a thing
to you, did I? Go on, now, give me the fishy eye again. How’d you ace
yourself into this first row, anyway? Did you have to fight for it? Say,
your friend’ll be mad at me putting her out of here, won’t she? Well,
blame it on the gelatin master. I never suggested it. Say, you got
Henshaw going. He likes that blighted look of yours.”
He made no reply to this chatter. He must keep in the picture. He merely
favoured her with a glance of fatigued indifference. The camera was
focused.
“All ready, you people. Do like I said, now. Lights, camera!”
Merton Gill drew upon his cigarette with the utmost disrelish, raised
the cold eyes of a disillusioned man to the face of the leering Montague
girl, turned aside from her with every sign of apathy, and wearily
exhaled the smoke. There seemed to be but this one pleasure left to him.
“Cut!” said Henshaw, and somewhere lights jarred off. “Just stick there
a bit, Miss Montague. We’ll have a couple more shots when the dancing
begins.”
Merton resented this change. He preferred the other girl. She lured him
but not in so pronounced, so flagrant a manner. The blight of Broadway
became more apparent than ever upon his face. The girl’s hand still
fluttered upon his sleeve as the music came and dancers shuffled by
them.
“Say, you’re the actin’ kid, all right.” She was tapping the floor
with the heel of a satin slipper. He wished above all things that she
wouldn’t call him “Kid.” He meditated putting a little of Broadway’s
blight upon her by saying in a dignified way that his real name was
Clifford Armytage. Still, this might not blight her--you couldn’t tell
about the girl.
“You certainly are the actin’est kid on this set, I’ll tell the lot
that. Of course these close-ups won’t mean much, just about one second,
or half that maybe. Or some hick in the cuttin’ room may kill ‘em dead.
Come on, give me the fish-eye again. That’s it. Say, I’m glad I didn’t
have to smoke cigarettes in this scene. They wouldn’t do for my type,
standin’ where the brook and river meet up. I hate a cigarette worse’n
anything. You--I bet you’d give up food first.”
“I hate ‘em, too,” he muttered grudgingly, glad to be able to say this,
even though only to one whose attentions he meant to discourage. “If I
have to smoke one more it’ll finish me.”
“Now, ain’t that the limit? Too bad, Kid!”
“I didn’t even have any of my own. That Spanish girl gave me these.”
The Montague girl glanced over his shoulder at the young woman whose
place she had usurped. “Spanish, eh? If she’s Spanish I’m a Swede right
out of Switzerland. Any-way, I never could like to smoke. I started to
learn one summer when I was eight. Pa and Ma and I was out with a tent
Tom-show, me doing Little Eva, and between acts I had to put on pants
and come out and do a smoking song, all about a kid learning to smoke
his first cigar and not doin’ well with it, see? But they had to cut it
out. Gosh, what us artists suffer at times! Pa had me try it a couple of
years later when I was doin’ Louise the blind girl in the Two Orphans,
playin’ thirty cents top. It was a good song, all right, with lots of
funny gags. I’d ‘a’ been the laughing hit of the bill if I could ‘a’
learned not to swallow. We had to cut it out again after the second
night. Talk about entering into your part. Me? I was too good.”
If the distant camera glanced this way it caught merely the persistent
efforts of a beautiful debutante who had not yet felt the blight of
Broadway to melt the cynicism of one who suffered it more and more
acutely each moment. Her hand fluttered on his sleeve and her left eye
continuously beguiled him from under the overhanging curl. As often as
he thought it desirable he put the bored glance upon her, though mostly
he stared in dejection at the coffee cup or the empty wine glass. He
was sorry that she had had that trouble with the cigar, but one who as
Little Eva or poor persecuted Louise, the blind girl, had to do a song
and dance between the acts must surely come from a low plane of art.
He was relieved when, at megaphoned directions, an elderly fop came to
whirl her off in the dance. Her last speech was: “That poor Henshaw--the
gelatin master’ll have megaphone-lip by to-night.”
He was left alone at his table. He wondered if they might want a
close-up of him this way, uncompanioned, jaded, tired of it all, as if
he would be saying: “There’s always the river!” But nothing of this sort
happened. There was more dancing, more close-ups of Muriel Mercer being
stricken with her vision of tenement misery under the foul glare of
a middle-aged roue inflamed with wine. And there was a shot of Muriel
perceiving at last the blight of Broadway and going to a table at which
sat a pale, noble-looking young man with a high forehead, who presently
led her out into the night to the real life of the worthy poor.
Later the deserted admirer became again a roue inflamed with wine and
submitted to a close-up that would depict his baffled rage. He clenched
his hands in this and seemed to convey, with a snarling lift of his lip,
that the girl would yet be his. Merton Gill had ceased to smoke. He
had sounded on Broadway even the shallow pleasure of cigarettes. He was
thoroughly blighted.
At last a megaphoned announcement from the assistant director dismissing
the extras, keeping the star, the lead, and a few small-part people, to
clean up medium shots, “dramatics,” and other work requiring no crowd.
“All you extra people here to-morrow morning, eight-thirty, same clothes
and make-up.” There was a quick breaking up of the revelry. The Broadway
pleasure-seekers threw off the blight and stormed the assistant director
for slips of paper which he was now issuing. Merton Gill received one,
labelled “Talent check.” There was fine print upon it which he took
no pains to read, beyond gathering its general effect that the Victor
Film-art Company had the full right to use any photographs of him that
its agents might that day have obtained. What engrossed him to the
exclusion of this legal formality was the item that he would now be paid
seven dollars and fifty cents for his day’s work--and once he had been
forced to toil half a week for this sum! Emerging from the stage into
the sunlight he encountered the Montague girl who hailed him as he would
have turned to avoid her.
“Say, trouper, I thought I’d tell you in case you didn’t know--we don’t
take our slips to that dame in that outside cafeteria any more. She
always pinches off a quarter or may be four bits. They got it fixed
now so the cash is always on tap in the office. I just thought I’d tell
you.”
“Thanks,” he said, still with the jaded air of the disillusioned. He
had only the vaguest notion of her meaning, but her intention had been
kindly. “Thank you very much.”
“Oh, don’t mention it. I just thought I’d tell you.” She glanced after
him shrewdly.
Nearing the office he observed a long line of Broadway revellers waiting
to cash their slips. Its head was lost inside the building and it
trailed far outside. No longer was any blight to be perceived. The slips
were ready in hand. Instead of joining the line Merton decided upon
luncheon. It was two o’clock, and though waiters with trays had been
abundant in the gilded cabaret, the best screen art had not seemed to
demand a serving of actual food. Further, he would eat in the cafeteria
in evening dress, his make-up still on, like a real actor. The other
time he had felt conspicuous because nothing had identified him with the
ordinary clientele of the place.
The room was not crowded now. Only a table here and there held late
comers, and the choice of foods when he reached the serving counter
at the back was limited. He permitted himself to complain of this in a
practised manner, but made a selection and bore his tray to the centre
of the room. He had chosen a table and was about to sit, when he
detected Henshaw farther down the room, and promptly took the one next
him. It was probable that Henshaw would recall him and praise the work
he had done. But the director merely rolled unseeing eyes over him as
he seated himself, and continued his speech to the man Merton had before
seen him with, the grizzled dark man with the stubby gray mustache
whom he called Governor. Merton wondered if he could be the governor of
California, but decided not. Perhaps an ex-governor.
“She’s working out well,” he was saying. “I consider it one of the best
continuities Belmore has done. Not a line of smut in it, but to make up
for that we’ll have over thirty changes of costume.”
Merton Gill coughed violently, then stared moodily at his plate of baked
beans. He hoped that this, at least, would recall him to Henshaw who
might fix an eye on him to say: “And, by the way, here is a young actor
that was of great help to me this morning.” But neither man even glanced
up. Seemingly this young actor could choke to death without exciting
their notice. He stared less moodily at the baked beans. Henshaw would
notice him sometime, and you couldn’t do everything at once.
The men had finished their luncheon and were smoking. The animated
Henshaw continued his talk. “And about that other thing we were
discussing, Governor, I want to go into that with you. I tell you if we
can do Robinson Crusoe, and do it right, a regular five-thousand-foot
program feature, the thing ought to gross a million. A good, clean,
censor-proof picture--great kid show, run forever. Shipwreck stuff,
loading the raft, island stuff, hut stuff, goats, finding the footprint,
cannibals, the man Friday--can’t you see it?”
The Governor seemed to see it. “Fine--that’s so!” He stared above the
director’s head for the space of two inhalations from his cigarette,
imbuing Merton Gill with gratitude that he need not smoke again that
day. “But say, look here, how about your love interest?”
Henshaw waved this aside with his own cigarette and began to make marks
on the back of an envelope. “Easy enough--Belmore can fix that up. We
talked over one or two ways. How about having Friday’s sister brought
over with him to this island? The cannibals are going to eat her, too.
Then the cannibals run to their canoes when they hear the gun, just the
same as in the book. And Crusoe rescues the two. And when he cuts the
girl’s bonds he finds she can’t be Friday’s real sister, because she’s
white--see what I mean? Well, we work it out later that she’s the
daughter of an English Earl that was wrecked near the cannibal island,
and they rescued her, and Friday’s mother brought her up as her own
child. She’s saved the papers that came ashore, and she has the Earl’s
coat-of-arms tattooed on her shoulder blade, and finally, after Crusoe
has fallen in love with her, and she’s remembered a good deal of her
past, along comes the old Earl, her father, in a ship and rescues them
all. How about that?” Henshaw, brightly expectant, awaited the verdict
of his chief.
“Well--I don’t know.” The other considered. “Where’s your conflict,
after the girl is saved from the savages? And Crusoe in the book wears a
long beard. How about that? He won’t look like anything--sort of hairy,
and that’s all.”
Henshaw from the envelope on which he drew squares and oblongs appeared
to gain fresh inspiration. He looked up with new light in his eyes. “I
got it--got the whole thing. Modernize it. This chap is a rich young New
Yorker, cruising on his yacht, and he’s wrecked on this island and gets
a lot of stuff ashore and his valet is saved, too--say there’s some
good comedy, see what I mean?--valet is one of these stiff English lads,
never been wrecked on an island before and complains all the time about
the lack of conveniences. I can see a lot of good gags for him, having
to milk the goats, and getting scared of the other animals, and no place
to press his master’s clothes--things like that, you know. Well, the
young fellow explores the island and finds another party that’s been
wrecked on the other side, and it’s the girl and the man that got her
father into his power and got all of his estate and is going to make
beggars of them if the girl won’t marry him, and she comes on the
young fellow under some palms and they fall in love and fix it up to
double-cross the villain--Belmore can work it out from there. How about
that? And say, we can use a lot of trims from that South Sea piece we
did last year, all that yacht and island stuff--see what I mean?”
The other considered profoundly. “Yes, you got a story there, but it
won’t be Robinson Crusoe, don’t you see?”
Again Henshaw glanced up from his envelope with the light of
inspiration. “Well, how about this? Call it Robinson Crusoe, Junior!
There you are. We get the value of the name and do the story the way we
want it, the young fellow being shaved every day by the valet, and he
can invite the other party over to dine with him and receive them in
evening dress and everything. Can’t you see it? If that story wouldn’t
gross big then I don’t know a story. And all easy stuff. We can use the
trims for the long shots, and use that inlet, toward the other end
of Catalina for the hut and the beach; sure-fire stuff, Governor--and
Robinson Crusoe, Junior is a cinch title.”
“Well, give Belmore as much dope as you’ve got, and see what he can work
out.”
They arose and stood by the counter to pay their checks.
“If you want to see the rushes of that stuff we shot this morning be
over to the projection room at five,” said Henshaw as they went out.
Neither had observed the rising young screen actor, Clifford Armytage,
though he had coughed violently again as they left. He had coughed most
plausibly, moreover, because of the cigarettes.
At the cashier’s window, no longer obstructed, he received his money,
another five-dollar bill adorned with the cheerfully prosperous face of
Benjamin Harrison and half that amount in silver coin. Then, although
loath to do this, he went to the dressing room and removed his make-up.
That grease paint had given him a world of confidence.
At the casting office he stopped to tell his friend of the day’s camera
triumph, how the director had seemed to single him out from a hundred or
so revellers to portray facially the deadly effect of Broadway’s night
life.
“Good work!” she applauded. “Before long you’ll be having jobs oftener.
And don’t forget, you’re called again to-morrow morning for the
gambling-house scene.”
She was a funny woman; always afraid he would forget something he could
not possibly forget. Once more in the Patterson kitchen he pressed his
suit and dreamt of new eminences in his chosen art.
The following morning he was again the first to reach the long dressing
room, the first to be made up by the grumbling extra, the first to reach
the big stage. The cabaret of yesterday had overnight been transformed
into a palatial gambling hell. Along the sides of the room and at its
centre were tables equipped for strange games of chance which only his
picture knowledge enabled him to recognize. He might tarry at these
tables, he thought, but he must remember to look bored in the near
presence of Henshaw. The Spanish girl of yesterday appeared and he
greeted her warmly. “I got some cigarettes this time,” he said, “so let
me pay you back all those I smoked of yours yesterday.” Together they
filled the golden case that hung from her girdle.
“It’s swell, all right,” said the girl, gazing about the vast room now
filling with richly clad gamblers.
“But I thought it was all over except the tenement-house scenes where
Vera Vanderpool has gone to relieve the poor,” he said.
The girl explained. “This scene comes before the one we did yesterday.
It’s where the rich old boy first sees Vera playing roulette, and she
loses a lot of money and is going to leave her string of pearls, but
he says it’s a mere trifle and let him pay her gambling losses, so in
a weak moment she does, and that’s how he starts to get her into his
power. You’ll see how it works out. Say, they spent some money on this
set, all right.”
It was indeed a rich set, as the girl had said. It seemed to Merton Gill
that it would be called on the screen “One of those Plague Spots that
Eat like a Cancer at the Heart of New York.” He lighted a cigarette and
leaned nonchalantly against a pillar to smile a tired little smile at
the pleasure-mad victims of this life who were now grouping around the
roulette and faro tables. He must try for his jaded look.
“Some swell shack!” The speaker was back of him, but he knew her for the
Montague girl, and was instantly enabled to increase the blighted look
for which he had been trying. “One natty little hovel, I’ll tell the
world,” the girl continued. “Say, this puts it all over the Grand
Central station, don’t it? Must be right smack at the corner of Broadway
and Fifth Avenue. Well, start the little ball rolling, so I can make a
killing.” He turned his head slightly and saw her dance off to one of
the roulette tables, accompanied by the middle-aged fop who had been her
companion yesterday.
Henshaw and his assistant now appeared and began grouping the players
at the various tables. Merton Gill remained leaning wearily against his
massive pillar, trying to appear blase under the chatter of the Spanish
girl. The groups were arranged to the liking of Henshaw, though only
after many trials. The roulette ball was twirled and the lively rattle
of chips could be heard. Scanning his scene, he noted Merton and his
companion.
“Oh, there you are, you two. Sister, you go and stand back of that crowd
around the faro table. Keep craning to look over their shoulders, and
give us your side view. I want to use this man alone. Here.” He led
Merton to a round table on which were a deck of cards and some neatly
stacked chips. “Sit here, facing the camera. Keep one hand on the cards,
sort of toying with ‘em, see what I mean?”
He scattered the piled chips loosely about the table, and called to a
black waiter: “Here, George, put one of those wine glasses on his left.”
The wine glass was placed. “Now kind of slump down in your chair, like
you saw the hollowness of it all--see what I mean?”
Merton Gill thought he saw. He exhaled smoke, toyed contemptuously with
the cards at his right hand and, with a gesture of repulsion, pushed the
wine glass farther away. He saw the hollowness of it all. The spirit of
wine sang in his glass but to deaf ears. Chance could no longer entice
him. It might again have been suspected that cigarettes were ceasing to
allure.
“Good work! Keep it up,” said Henshaw and went back to his cameras.
The lights jarred on; desperate gaming was filmed. “More life at
the roulette tables,” megaphoned Henshaw. “Crowd closer around that
left-hand faro table. You’re playing for big stakes.” The gaming became
more feverish. The mad light of pleasure was in every eye, yet one felt
that the blight of Broadway was real.
The camera was wheeled forward and Merton Gill joyously quit smoking
while Henshaw secured flashes of various groups, chiefly of losers who
were seeing the hollowness of it all. He did not, however, disdain a bit
of comedy.
“Miss Montague.”
“Yes, Mr. Henshaw.” The Montague girl paused in the act of sprinkling
chips over a roulette lay-out.
“Your escort has lost all his chips and you’ve lost all he bought for
you--”
The girl and her escort passed to other players the chips before them,
and waited.
“Your escort takes out his wallet, shows it to you empty, and shrugs his
shoulders. You shrug, too, but turn your back on him, facing the camera,
and take some bills out of your stocking--see what I mean? Give her some
bills, someone.”
“Never mind, Mr. Henshaw; I already got some there.” The pantomime was
done, the girl turned, stooped, withdrew flattened bills from one of the
salmon-pink stockings and flourished them at her escort who achieved
a transition from gloom to joy. Merton Gill, observing this shameless
procedure, plumbed the nether depths of disgust for Broadway’s night
life.
The camera was now wheeled toward him and he wearily lighted another
cigarette. “Get a flash of this chap,” Henshaw was saying. The subject
leaned forward in his chair, gazing with cynical eyes at the fevered
throng. Wine, women, song, all had palled. Gambling had no charm--he
looked with disrelish at the cigarette he had but just lighted.
“All right, Paul, that’s good. Now get that bunch over at the crap
table.”
Merton Gill lost no time in relinquishing his cigarette. He dropped it
into the wine glass which became a symbol of Broadway’s dead-sea fruit.
Thereafter he smoked only when he was in the picture. He felt that he
was becoming screen wise. And Henshaw had remembered him. The cast of
The Blight of Broadway might not be jewelled with his name, but his work
would stand out. He had given the best that was in him.
He watched the entrance of Muriel Mercer, maddest of all the mad throng,
accompanied by the two young men and the girl who was not so beautiful.
He watched her lose steadily, and saw her string of pearls saved by the
elderly scoundrel who had long watched the beautiful girl as only the
Wolf of Wall Street could watch one so fair. He saw her leave upon
his arm, perhaps for further unwholesome adventure along Broadway. The
lights were out, the revelry done.
Merton Gill beyond a doubt preferred Western stuff, some heart-gripping
tale of the open spaces, or perhaps of the frozen north, where he could
be the hard-riding, straight-shooting, two-fisted wonder-man, and not
have to smoke so many cigarettes--only one now and then, which he would
roll himself and toss away after a few puffs. Still, he had shown above
the mob of extra people, he thought. Henshaw had noticed him. He was
coming on.
The Montague girl hailed him as he left the set. “Hullo, old trouper. I
caught you actin’ again to-day, right out before the white folks. Well,
so far so good. But say, I’m glad all that roulette and stuff was for
the up-and-down stage and not on the level. I’d certainly have lost
everything but my make-up. So long, Kid!” She danced off to join a group
of other women who were leaving. He felt a kindly pity for the child.
There could be little future in this difficult art for one who took it
so lightly; who talked so frankly to strangers without being introduced.
At luncheon in the cafeteria he waited a long time in the hope of
encountering Henshaw, who would perhaps command his further services
in the cause of creative screen art. He meant to be animated at this
meeting, to show the director that he could be something more than an
actor who had probed the shams of Broadway. But he lingered in vain. He
thought Henshaw would perhaps be doing without food in order to work on
the scenario for Robinson Crusoe, Junior.
He again stopped to thank his friend, the casting director, for securing
him his first chance. She accepted his thanks smilingly, and asked him
to drop around often. “Mind, you don’t forget our number,” she said.
He was on the point of making her understand once for all that he would
not forget the number, that he would never forget Gashwiler’s address,
that he had been coming to this studio too often to forget its location.
But someone engaged her at the window, so he was obliged to go on
without enlightening the woman. She seemed to be curiously dense.