Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa - "The Mahabharata of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2"

Francois Coppee - "A Romance of Youth, v2"

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New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Merton of the Movies

H >> Harry Leon Wilson >> Merton of the Movies




When this was done Henshaw bustled into the group. "I want about a
dozen or fifteen good types for the cafe," he explained to his
assistant. Merton Gill instinctively stood forward, and was
presently among those selected. "You'll do," said Henshaw, nodding.
The director, of course, had not remembered that this was the actor
he had distinguished in The Blight of Broadway, yet he had again
chosen him for eminence. It showed, Merton felt, that his conviction
about the screen value of his face was not ill founded.

The selected types were now herded into a dark, narrow, low-ceiled
room with a divan effect along its three walls. A grizzled Arab made
coffee over a glowing brazier. Merton Gill sat cross-legged on the
divan and became fearful that he would be asked to smoke the
narghileh which the assistant director was now preparing. To one who
balked at mere cigarettes, it was an evil-appearing device. His
neighbour who had been puzzled at prayer-time now hitched up his
flowing robe to withdraw a paper of cigarettes from the pocket of a
quite occidental garment.

"Go on, smoke cigarettes," said the assistant director.

"Have one?" said Merton's neighbour, and he took one. It seemed you
couldn't get away from cigarettes on the screen. East and West were
here one. He lighted it, though smoking warily. The noble sheik, of
undoubtedly Asiatic origin, came to the doorway overlooking the
assistant director's work on the narghileh. A laden camel halted
near him, sneered in an evil manner at the bystanders, and then,
lifting an incredible length of upper lip, set his yellow teeth in
the nearest shoulder. It was the shoulder of the noble sheik, who
instantly rent the air with a plaintive cry: "For the love of
Mike!--keep that man-eater off'n me, can't you?"

His accent had not been that of the Arabian waste-land. Merton Gill
was disappointed. So the fellow was only an actor, after all. If he
had felt sympathy at all, it would now have been for the camel. The
beast was jerked back with profane words and the sheik, rubbing his
bitten shoulder, entered the cafe, sitting cross-legged at the end
of the divan nearest the door.

"All right, Bob." The assistant director handed him the tube of the
water pipe, and the sheik smoked with every sign of enjoyment.
Merton Gill resolved never to play the part of an Arab sheik--at the
mercy of man-eating camels and having to smoke something that looked
murderous.

Under Henshaw's direction the grizzled proprietor now served tiny
cups of coffee to the sheik and his lesser patrons. Two of these
played dominoes, and one or two reclined as in sleep. Cameras were
brought up. The interior being to his satisfaction, Henshaw
rehearsed the entrance of a little band of European tourists. A
beautiful girl in sports garb, a beautiful young man in khaki and
puttees, a fine old British father with gray side whiskers shaded by
a sun-hat with a flowing veil twined about it. These people sat and
were served coffee, staring in a tourist manner at their novel
surroundings. The Bedouins, under stern command, ignored them,
conversing among themselves over their coffee--all but the sheik.

The sheik had been instantly struck by the fair young English girl.
His sinister eyes hung constantly upon her, shifting only when she
regarded him, furtively returning when she ceased. When they left
the cafe, the sheik arose and placed himself partly in the girl's
way. She paused while his dark eyes caught and held hers. A long
moment went before she seemed able to free herself from the hypnotic
tension he put upon her. Then he bowed low, and the girl with a
nervous laugh passed him.

It could be seen that the sheik meant her no good. He stepped to the
door and looked after the group. There was evil purpose in his gaze.

Merton Gill recalled something of Henshaw's words the first day he
had eaten at the cafeteria: "They find this deserted tomb just at
nightfall, and he's alone there with the girl, and he could do
anything, but the kick for the audience is that he's a gentleman and
never lays a finger on her."

This would be the story. Probably the sheik would now arrange with
the old gentleman in the sun-hat to guide the party over the desert,
and would betray them in order to get the beautiful girl into his
power. Of course there would be a kick for the audience when the
young fellow proved to be a gentleman in the deserted tomb for a
whole night--any moving-picture audience would expect him under
these propitious circumstances to be quite otherwise, if the girl
were as beautiful as this one. But there would surely be a greater
kick when the sheik found them in the tomb and bore the girl off on
his camel, after a fight in which the gentleman was momentarily
worsted. But the girl would be rescued in time. And probably the
piece would be called Desert Passion.

He wished he could know the ending of the story. Indeed he sincerely
wished he could work in it to the end, not alone because he was
curious about the fate of the young girl in the bad sheik's power.
Undoubtedly the sheik would not prove to be a gentleman, but Merton
would like to work to the end of the story because he had no place
to sleep and but little assurance of wholesome food. Yet this, it
appeared, was not to be. Already word had run among the extra
people. Those hired to-day were to be used for to-day only. Tomorrow
the desert drama would unfold without them.

Still, he had a day's pay coming. This time, though, it would be but
five dollars--his dress suit had not been needed. And five dollars
would appease Mrs. Patterson for another week. Yet what would be the
good of sleeping if he had nothing to eat? He was hungry now. Thin
soup, ever so plenteously spiced with catsup, was inadequate
provender for a working artist. He knew, even as he sat there cross-
legged, an apparently self-supporting and care-free Bedouin, that
this ensuing five dollars would never be seen by Mrs. Patterson.

There were a few more shots of the cafe's interior during which one
of the inmates carefully permitted his half--consumed cigarette to
go out. After that a few more shots of the lively street which, it
was now learned, was a street in Cairo. Earnest efforts were made by
the throngs in these scenes to give the murderous camel plenty of
head room. Some close-ups were taken of the European tourists while
they bargained with a native merchant for hammered brassware and
rare shawls.

The bad sheik was caught near the group bending an evil glare upon
the beauteous English girl, and once the camera turned while she
faced him with a little shiver of apprehension. Later the sheik was
caught bargaining for a camel train with the innocent-looking old
gentleman in the sun-hat. Undoubtedly the sheik was about to lead
them into the desert for no good purpose. A dreadful fate seemed in
store for the girl, but she must be left to face it without the
support of Merton Gill.

The lately hired extras were now dismissed. They trooped back to the
dressing room to doff their flowing robes and remove the Bedouin
make-up. Merton Gill went from the dressing room to the little
window through which he had received his robe and his slip was
returned to him signed by the assistant director. It had now become
a paper of value, even to Mrs. Patterson; but she was never to know
this, for its owner went down the street to another window and
relinquished it for a five-dollar bill.

The bill was adorned with a portrait of Benjamin Harrison smugly
radiating prosperity from every hair in his beard. He was clearly
one who had never gone hungry nor betrayed the confidence of a
society woman counting upon her room rent strictly in advance. The
portrait of this successful man was borne swiftly to the cafeteria
where its present owner lavishly heaped a tray with excellent food
and hastened with it to a table. He ate with but slight regard for
his surroundings. Beulah Baxter herself might have occupied a
neighbouring table without coming to his notice at once. He was very
hungry. The catsup-laden soup had proved to be little more than an
appetizer.

In his first ardour he forgot his plight. It was not until later in
the meal that the accusing face of Mrs. Patterson came between him
and the last of his stew which he secured with blotters of bread.
Even then he ignored the woman. He had other things to think of. He
had to think of where he should sleep that night. But for once he
had eaten enough; his optimism was again enthroned.

Sleeping, after all, was not like eating. There were more ways to
manage it. The law of sleep would in time enforce itself, while
eating did nothing of the sort. You might sleep for nothing, but
someone had to be paid if you ate. He cheerfully paid eighty cents
for his repast. The catsup as an appetizer had been ruinous.

It was late in the afternoon when he left the cafeteria and the
cheerful activities of the lot were drawing to a close. Extra people
from the various stages were hurrying to the big dressing room,
whence they would presently stream, slips in hand, toward the
cashier's window. Belated principals came in from their work to
resume their choice street garments and be driven off in choice
motor cars.

Merton Gill in deep thought traversed the street between the big
stages and the dressing rooms. Still in deep thought he retraced his
steps, and at the front office turned off to the right on a road
that led to the deserted street of the Western town. His head bowed
in thought he went down this silent thoroughfare, his footsteps
echoing along the way lined by the closed shops. The Happy Days
Saloon and Joe--Buy or Sell, the pool-room and the restaurant, alike
slept for want of custom. He felt again the eeriness of this
desertion, and hurried on past the silent places.

Emerging from the lower end of this street he came upon a log cabin
where activity still survived. He joined the group before its door.
Inside two cameras were recording some drama of the rude frontier.
Over glowing coals in the stone fireplace a beautiful young girl
prepared food in a long-handled frying pan. At a table in the room's
centre two bearded miners seemed to be appraising a buckskin pouch
of nuggets, pouring them from hand to hand. A candle stuck in a
bottle flickered beside them. They were honest, kindly faced miners,
roughly dressed and heavily bearded, but it could be seen that they
had hearts of gold. The beautiful young girl, who wore a simple
dress of blue calico, and whose hair hung about her fair face in
curls of a radiant buff, now served them food and poured steaming
coffee from a large pot.

The miners seemed loth to eat, being excited by the gold nuggets.
They must have struck it rich that day, Merton Gill divined, and now
with wealth untold they would be planning to send the girl East to
school. They both patted her affectionately, keeping from her the
great surprise they had in store.

The girl was arch with them, and prettily kissed each upon his bald
head. Merton at once saw that she would be the daughter of neither;
she would be their ward. And perhaps they weren't planning to send
her to school. Perhaps they were going to send her to fashionable
relatives in the East, where she would unwittingly become the rival
of her beautiful but cold-hearted cousin for the hand of a rich
young stock-broker, and be ill-treated and long for the old miners
who would get word of it and buy some fine clothes from Joe--Buy or
Sell, and go East to the consternation of the rich relatives and see
that their little mountain flower was treated right.

As he identified this photo-play he studied the interior of the
cabin, the rough table at which the three now ate, the makeshift
chairs, the rifle over the fireplace, the picks and shovels, the
shelf along the wall with its crude dishes, the calico curtain
screening off what would be the dressing room of the little mountain
flower. It was a home-like room, for all its roughness. Along one
wall were two bunks, one above the other, well supplied with
blankets.

The director, after a final shot of one of the miners being scalded
by his coffee which he drank from a saucer, had said, "All right,
boys! We'll have the fight first thing in the morning."

Merton Gill passed on. He didn't quite know what the fight would be
about. Surely the two miners wouldn't fight. Perhaps another miner
of loose character would come along and try to jump their claim, or
attempt some dirty work with the little girl. Something like that.
He carried with him the picture of the homey little ulterior, the
fireplace with its cooking utensils, the two bunks with their ample
stock of blankets--the crude door closed with a wooden bar and a
leather latch-string, which hung trustfully outside.

In other circumstances--chiefly those in which Merton Gill had now
been the prominent figure in the film world he meant one day to
become--he would on this night have undoubtedly won public attention
for his mysterious disappearance. The modest room in the Patterson
home, to which for three months he had unfailingly come after the
first picture show, on this night went untenanted. The guardian at
the Holden gate would have testified that he had not passed out that
way, and the way through the offices had been closed at five,
subsequent to which hour several witnesses could have sworn to
seeing him still on the lot.

In the ensuing search even the tank at the lower end of the lot
might have been dragged--without result.

Being little known to the public, however, and in the Patterson home
it being supposed that you could never tell about motion-picture
actors, his disappearance for the night caused absolutely no
slightest ripple. Public attention as regarded the young man
remained at a mirror-like calm, unflawed by even the mildest
curiosity. He had been seen, perhaps, though certainly not noted
with any interest, to be one of the group watching a night scene in
front of one of the Fifth Avenue mansions.

Lights shone from the draped windows of this mansion and from its
portals issued none other than Muriel Mercer, who, as Vera
Vanderpool, freed at last from the blight of Broadway, was leaving
her palatial home to cast her lot finally with the ardent young
tenement worker with the high forehead. She descended the brown-
stone steps, paused once to look back upon the old home where she
had been taught to love pleasure above the worth-while things of
life, then came on to the waiting limousine, being greeted here by
the young man with the earnest forehead who had won her to the
better way.

The missing youth might later have been observed, but probably was
not, walking briskly in the chill night toward the gate that led to
the outer world. But he wheeled abruptly before reaching this gate,
and walked again briskly, this time debouching from the main
thoroughfare into the black silence of the Western village. Here his
pace slackened, and halfway down the street he paused irresolutely.
He was under the wooden porch of the Fashion Restaurant--Give our
Tamales a Trial. He lingered here but a moment, however, then lurked
on down the still thoroughfare, keeping well within the shadow of
the low buildings. Just beyond the street was the log cabin of the
big-hearted miners. A moment later he could not have been observed
even by the keenest eye.

Nothing marked his disappearance, at least nothing that would have
been noted by the casual minded. He had simply gone. He was now no
more than the long-vanished cowboys and sheriffs and gamblers and
petty tradesmen who had once peopled this street of silence and
desolation.

A night watchman came walking presently, flashing an electric torch
from side to side. He noticed nothing. He was, indeed, a rather
imaginative man, and he hoped he would not notice anything. He did
not like coming down this ghostly street, which his weak mind would
persist in peopling with phantom crowds from long-played picture
dramas. It gave him the creeps, as he had more than once confessed.
He hurried on, flashing his torch along the blind fronts of the
shops in a perfunctory manner. He was especially nervous when he
came to corners. And he was glad when he issued from the little
street into the wider one that was well lighted.

How could he have been expected to notice a very trifling
incongruous detail as he passed the log cabin? Indeed many a keener-
eyed and entirely valorous night watchman might have neglected to
observe that the leathern latch-string of the cabin's closed door
was no longer hanging outside.



CHAPTER VIII

CLIFFORD ARMYTAGE, THE OUTLAW


Dawn brought the wide stretches of the Holden lot into gray relief.
It lightened the big yellow stages and crept down the narrow street
of the Western town where only the ghosts of dead plays stalked. It
burnished the rich fronts of the Fifth Avenue mansions and in the
next block illumined the rough sides of a miner's cabin.

With more difficulty it seeped through the blurred glass of the one
window in this structure and lightened the shadows of its interior
to a pale gray. The long-handled frying-pan rested on the hearth
where the little girl had left it. The dishes of the overnight meal
were still on the table; the vacant chairs sprawled about it; and
the rifle was in its place above the rude mantel; the picks and
shovels awaited the toil of a new day. All seemed as it had been
when the director had closed the door upon it the previous night.

But then the blankets in the lower bunk were seen to heave and to be
thrust back from the pale face of Merton Gill. An elbow came into
play, and the head was raised. A gaze still vague with sleep
travelled about the room in dull alarm. He was waking up in his
little room at the Patterson house and he couldn't make it look
right. He rubbed his eyes vigorously and pushed himself farther up.
His mind resumed its broken threads. He was where he had meant to be
from the moment he had spied the blankets in those bunks.

In quicker alarm, now, he reached for his watch. Perhaps he had
slept too late and would be discovered--arrested, jailed! He found
his watch on the floor beside the bunk. Seven o'clock. He was safe.
He could dress at leisure, and presently be an early-arriving actor
on the Holden lot. He wondered how soon he could get food at the
cafeteria. Sleeping in this mountain cabin had cursed him with a
ravenous appetite, as if he had indeed been far off in the keen air
of the North Woods.

He crept from the warm blankets, and from under the straw mattress--
in which one of the miners had hidden the pouch of nuggets--he took
his newly pressed trousers. Upon a low bench across the room was a
battered tin wash--basin, a bucket of water brought by the little
girl from the spring, and a bar of yellow soap. He made a quick
toilet, and at seven-thirty, a good hour before the lot would wake
up, he was dressed and at the door.

It might be chancy, opening that door; so he peered through a narrow
crack at first, listening intently. He could hear nothing and no one
was in sight. He pushed the latch--string through its hole, then
opened the door enough to emit his slender shape.

A moment later, ten feet from the closed door, he stood at ease,
scanning the log cabin as one who, passing by, had been attracted by
its quaint architecture. Then glancing in both directions to be
again sure that he was unobserved, he walked away from his new home.

He did not slink furtively. He took the middle of the street and
there was a bit of swagger to his gait. He felt rather set up about
this adventure. He reached what might have been called the lot's
civic centre and cast a patronizing eye along the ends of the big
stages and the long, low dressing--room building across from them.
Before the open door of the warehouse he paused to watch a truck
being loaded with handsome furniture--a drawing room was evidently
to be set on one of the stages. Rare rugs and beautiful chairs and
tables were carefully brought out. He had rather a superintending
air as he watched this process. He might have been taken for the
owner of these costly things, watching to see that no harm befell
them. He strolled on when the truck had received its load. Such
people as he had met were only artisans, carpenters, electricians,
property-men. He faced them all confidently, with glances of
slightly amused tolerance. They were good men in their way but they
were not actors--not artists.

In the neatly landscaped little green place back of the office
building a climbing rose grew on a trellis. He plucked a pink bud,
fixed it in his lapel, and strolled down the street past the
dressing rooms. Across from these the doors of the big stages were
slid back, and inside he could see that sets were being assembled.
The truckload of furniture came to one of these doors and he again
watched it as the stuff was carried inside.

For all these workmen knew, he might presently be earning a princely
salary as he acted amid these beautiful objects, perhaps attending a
reception in a Fifth Avenue mansion where the father of a beautiful
New York society girl would tell him that he must first make good
before he could aspire to her hand. And he would make good--out
there in the great open spaces, where the girl would come to him
after many adventures and where they would settle to an untroubled
future in the West they both loved.

He had slept; he knew where--with luck--he could sleep again; and he
had money in his pocket for several more ample meals. At this moment
he felt equal to anything. No more than pleasantly aware of his
hunger, sharpened by the walk in this keen morning air, he made a
nonchalant progress toward the cafeteria. Motor cars were now
streaming through the gate, disgorging other actors--trim young men
and beautiful young women who must hurry to the dressing rooms while
he could sit at ease in a first-class cafeteria and eat heavily of
sustaining foods. Inside he chose from the restricted menu offered
by the place at this early hour and ate in a leisurely, almost
condescending manner. Half-a-dozen other early comers wolfed their
food as if they feared to be late for work, but he suffered no such
anxiety. He consumed the last morsel that his tray held, drained his
cup of coffee, and jingled the abundant silver coin in his pocket.

True, underneath it, as he plumed himself upon his adventure, was a
certain pestering consciousness that all was not so well with him as
observers might guess. But he resolutely put this away each time it
threatened to overwhelm him. He would cross no bridge until he came
to it. He even combated this undercurrent of sanity by wording part
of an interview with himself some day to appear in Photo Land:

"Clifford Armytage smiled that rare smile which his admirers have
found so winning on the silver screen--a smile reminiscent, tender,
eloquent of adversities happily surmounted. 'Yes,' he said frankly
in the mellow tones that are his, 'I guess there were times when I
almost gave up the struggle. I recall one spell, not so many years
ago, when I camped informally on the Holden lot, sleeping where I
could find a bed and stinting myself in food to eke out my little
savings. Yet I look back upon that time'--he mischievously pulled
the ears of the magnificent Great Dane that lolled at his feet--'as
one of the happiest in my career, because I always knew that my day
would come. I had done only a few little bits, but they had stood
out, and the directors had noticed me. Not once did I permit myself
to become discouraged, and so I say to your readers who may feel
that they have in them the stuff for truly creative screen art--'"

He said it, dreaming above the barren tray, said it as Harold
Parmalee had said it in a late interview extorted from him by
Augusta Blivens for the refreshment of his host of admirers who read
Photo Land. He was still saying it as he paid his check at the
counter, breaking off only to reflect that fifty-five cents was a
good deal to be paying for food so early in the day. For of course
he must eat again before seeking shelter of the humble miner's
cabin.

It occurred to him that the blankets might be gone by nightfall. He
hoped they would have trouble with the fight scene. He hoped there
would be those annoying delays that so notoriously added to the cost
of producing the screen drama--long waits, when no one seemed to
know what was being waited for, and bored actors lounged about in
apathy. He hoped the fight would be a long fight. You needed
blankets even in sunny California.

He went out to pass an enlivening day, fairly free of misgiving. He
found an abundance of entertainment. On one stage he overlooked for
half an hour a fragment of the desert drama which he had assisted
the previous day. A covered incline led duskily down to the deserted
tomb in which the young man and the beautiful English girl were to
take shelter for the night. They would have eluded the bad sheik for
a little while, and in the tomb the young man would show himself to
be a gentleman by laying not so much as a finger upon the
defenceless girl.