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. Istarted 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 Ihad 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.
