Books: Merton of the Movies

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"After this picture," she told him, "Jeff was going to sew you up
with a long-time contract, probably at a hundred and fifty per. But
I've told him plain I won't stand for it. No five-year contract, and
not any contract at that figure. Maybe three years at two hundred
and fifty, I haven't decided yet. I'll wait and see--" she broke off
to regard him with that old puzzling light far back in her eyes--
"wait and see how you get over in these two pieces."

"But I know you'll go big, and so does Jeff. We've caught you in the
rushes enough to know that. And Jeff's a good fellow, but naturally
he'll get you for as little as he can. He knows all about money even
if he don't keep Yom Kippur. So I'm watching over you, son--I'm your
manager, see? And I've told him so, plain. He knows he'll have to
give you just what you're worth. Of course he's entitled to
consideration for digging you up and developing you, but a three-
year contract will pay him out for that. Trust mother."

"I do," he told her. "I'd be helpless without you. It kind of scares
me to think of getting all that money. I won't know what to do with
it."

"I will; you always listen to me, and you won't be camping on the
lot any more. And don't shoot dice with these rough-necks on the
lot." "I won't," he assured her. "I don't believe in gambling." He
wondered about Sarah's own salary, and was surprised to learn that
it was now double his own. It was surprising, because her acting
seemed not so important to the piece as his. "It seems like a lot of
money for what you have to do," he said.

"There," she smiled warmly, "didn't I always say you were a natural-
born trouper? Well, it is a lot of money for me, but you see I've
helped Jeff dope out both of these pieces. I'm not so bad at gags--I
mean the kind of stuff he needs in these serious dramas. This big
scene of yours, where you go off to the city and come back a wreck
on Christmas night--that's mine. I doped it out after the piece was
started--after I'd had a good look at the truck driver that plays
opposite you."

Truck driver? It appeared that Miss Montague was actually applying
this term to the New York society girl who in private life was
burdened with an ailing family. He explained now that Mr. Baird had
not considered her ideal for the part, but had chosen her out of
kindness.

Again there flickered far back in her eyes those lights that baffled
him. There was incredulity in her look, but she seemed to master it.

"But I think it was wonderful of you," he continued, "to write that
beautiful scene. It's a strong scene, Sarah. I didn't know you could
write, too. It's as good as anything Tessie Kearns ever did, and
she's written a lot of strong scenes."

Miss Montague seemed to struggle with some unidentified emotion.
After a long, puzzling gaze she suddenly said: "Merton Gill, you
come right here with all that make-up on and give mother a good big
kiss!"

Astonishingly to himself, he did so in the full light of day and
under the eyes of one of the New York villains who had been
pretending that he walked a tight-rope across the yard. After he had
kissed the girl, she seized him by both arms and shook him. "I'd
ought to have been using my own face in that scene," she said. Then
she patted his shoulder and told him that he was a good boy.

The pretending tight-rope walker had paused to applaud. "Your act's
flopping, Bo," said Miss Montague. "Work fast." Then she again
addressed the good boy: "Wait till you've watched that scene before
you thank me," she said shortly.

"But it's a strong scene," he insisted.

"Yes," she agreed. "It's strong."

He told her of the other instance of Baird's kindness of heart.

"You know I was a little afraid of playing scenes with the cross-
eyed man, but Mr. Baird said he was trying so hard to do serious
work, so I wouldn't have him discharged. But shouldn't you think
he'd save up and have his eyes straightened? Does he get a very
small salary?"

The girl seemed again to be harassed by conflicting emotions, but
mastered them to say, "I don't know exactly what it is, but I guess
he draws down about twelve fifty a week."

"Only twelve dollars and fifty cents a week!"

"Twelve hundred and fifty," said the girl firmly.

"Twelve hundred and fifty dollars a week!" This was monstrous,
incredible. "But then why doesn't he have his eyes--"

Miss Montague drew him to her with both her capable arms. "My boy,
my boy!" she murmured, and upon his painted forehead she now
imprinted a kiss of deep reverence. "Run along and play," she
ordered. "You're getting me all nervous." Forthwith she moved to the
centre of the yard where the tight-rope walker still endangered his
life above the heads of a vast audience.

She joined him. She became a performer on the slack wire. With a
parasol to balance her, she ran to the centre of an imaginary wire
that swayed perilously, and she swung there, cunningly maintaining a
precarious balance. Then she sped back to safety at the wire's end,
threw down her parasol, caught the handkerchief thrown to her by the
first performer, and daintily touched her face with it, breathing
deeply the while and bowing.

He thought Sarah was a strange child--"One minute one thing and the
next minute something else."

CHAPTER XVII

MISS MONTAGUE USES HER OWN FACE

Work on the piece dragged slowly to an end. In these latter days the
earnest young leading man suffered spells of concern for his
employer. He was afraid that Mr. Baird in his effort to struggle out
of the slough of low comedy was not going to be wholly successful.
He had begun to note that the actors employed for this purpose were
not invariably serious even when the cameras turned. Or, if serious,
they seemed perhaps from the earnestness of their striving for the
worth-while drama, to be a shade too serious. They were often, he
felt, over-emphatic in their methods. Still, they were, he was
certain, good actors. One could always tell what they meant.

It was at these times that he especially wished he might be allowed
to view the "rushes." He not only wished to assure himself for
Baird's sake that the piece would be acceptably serious, but he
wished, with a quite seemly curiosity, to view his own acting on the
screen. It occurred to him that he had been acting a long time
without a glimpse of himself. But Baird had been singularly firm in
this matter, and the Montague girl had sided with him. It was best,
they said, for a beginning actor not to see himself at first. It
might affect his method before this had crystallized; make them
self-conscious, artificial.

He was obliged to believe that these well-wishers of his knew best.
He must not, then, trifle with a screen success that seemed assured.
He tried to be content with this decision. But always the misgivings
would return. He would not be really content until he had watched
his own triumph. Soon this would be so securely his privilege that
not even Baird could deny it, for the first piece in which he had
worked was about to be shown. He looked forward to that.

It was toward the end of the picture that his intimacy with the
Montague girl grew to a point where, returning from location to the
studio late, they would dine together. "Hurry and get ungreased,
Son," she would say, "and you can take an actress out to dinner."
Sometimes they would patronize the cafeteria on the lot, but
oftener, in a spirit of adventure, they would search out exotic
restaurants. A picture might follow, after which by street-car he
would escort her to the Montague home in a remote, flat region of
palm-lined avenues sparsely set with new bungalows.

She would disquiet him at these times by insisting that she pay her
share of the expense, and she proved to have no mean talent for
petty finance, for she remembered every item down to the street-car
fares. Even to Merton Gill she seemed very much a child once she
stepped from the domain of her trade. She would stare into shop
windows wonderingly, and never failed to evince the most childish
delight when they ventured to dine at an establishment other than a
cafeteria.

At times when they waited for a car after these dissipations he
suffered a not unpleasant alarm at sight of a large-worded
advertisement along the back of a bench on which they would sit.
"You furnish the Girl, We furnish the House," screamed the bench to
him above the name of an enterprising tradesman that came in time to
bite itself deeply into his memory.

Of course it would be absurd, but stranger things, he thought, had
happened. He wondered if the girl was as afraid of him as of other
men. She seemed not to be, but you couldn't tell much about her. She
had kissed him one day with a strange warmth of manner, but it had
been quite publicly in the presence of other people. When he left
her at her door now it was after the least sentimental of partings,
perhaps a shake of her hard little hand, or perhaps only a "S'long--
see you at the show-shop!"

It was on one of these nights that she first invited him to dine
with the Montague family. "I tried last night to get you on the
telephone," she explained, "but they kept giving me someone else, or
maybe I called wrong. Ain't these six-figured Los Angeles telephone
numbers the limit? When you call 208972 or something, it sounds like
paging a box-car. I was going to ask you over. Ma had cooked a
lovely mess of corned beef and cabbage. Anyway, you come eat with us
to-morrow night, will you? She'll have something else cooked up that
will stick to the merry old slats. You can come home with me when we
get in from work."

So it was that on the following night he enjoyed a home evening with
the Montagues. Mrs. Montague had indeed cooked up something else,
and had done it well; while Mr. Montague offered at the sideboard a
choice of amateur distillations and brews which he warmly
recommended to the guest. While the guest timidly considered, having
had but the slightest experience with intoxicants, it developed that
the confidence placed in his product by the hospitable old craftsman
was not shared by his daughter.

"Keep off it," she warned, and then to her father, "Say, listen, Pa,
have a heart; that boy's got to work to-morrow." "So be it, my
child," replied Mr. Montague with a visible stiffening of manner.
"Sylvester Montague is not the man to urge strong drink upon the
reluctant or the over-cautious. I shall drink my aperatif alone."

"Go to it, old Pippin," rejoined his daughter as she vanished to the
kitchen.

"Still, a little dish of liquor at this hour," continued the host
suggestively when they were alone.

"Well"--Merton wished the girl had stayed--"perhaps just a few
drops."

"Precisely, my boy, precisely. A mere dram." He poured the mere dram
and his guest drank. It was a colourless, fiery stuff with an
elusive taste of metal. Merton contrived an expression of pleasure
under the searching glance of his host. "Ah, I knew you would relish
it. I fancy I could amaze you if I told you how recently it was
made. Now here"--He grasped another bottle purposely--"is something
a full ten days older. It has developed quite a bouquet. Just a
drop--"

The guest graciously yet firmly waved a negation.

"Thanks," he said, "but I want to enjoy the last--it--it has so much
flavour."

"It has; it has, indeed. I'll not urge you, of course. Later you
must see the simple mechanism by which I work these wonders. Alone,
then, I drink to you."

Mr. Montague alone drank of two other fruits of his loom before the
ladies appeared with dinner. He was clean--shaven now and his fine
face glowed with hospitality as he carved roast chickens. The talk
was of the shop: of what Mr. Montague scornfully called "grind
shows" when his daughter led it, and of the legitimate hall-show
when he gained the leadership. He believed that moving pictures had
sounded the knell of true dramatic art and said so in many ways.

He tried to imagine the sensations of Lawrence Barrett or Louis
James could they behold Sylvester Montague, whom both these
gentlemen had proclaimed to be no mean artist, enacting the role of
a bar-room rowdy five days on end by reclining upon a sawdust floor
with his back supported by a spirits barrel. The supposititious
comments of the two placed upon the motion-picture industry the
black guilt of having degraded a sterling artist to the level of a
peep-show mountebank. They were frankly disgusted at the spectacle,
and their present spokesman thought it as well that they had not
actually lived to witness it--even the happier phases of this so-
called art in which a mere chit of a girl might earn a living wage
by falling downstairs for a so-called star, or the he-doll
whippersnapper--Merton Gill flinched in spite of himself--could name
his own salary for merely possessing a dimpled chin.

Further, an artist in the so-called art received his payment as if
he had delivered groceries at one's back door. "You, I believe--"--
The speaker addressed his guest--"are at present upon a pay-roll;
but there are others, your elders-possibly your betters, though I do
not say that--"

"You better not," remarked his daughter, only to be ignored.

"--others who must work a day and at the close of it receive a slip
of paper emblazoned 'Talent Pay Check.' How more effectively could
they cheapen the good word 'talent'? And at the foot of this slip
you are made to sign, before receiving the pittance you have earned,
a consent to the public exhibition for the purpose of trade or
advertising, of the pictures for which you may have posed. Could
tradesmen descend to a lower level, I ask you?"

"I'll have one for twelve fifty to-morrow night," said Mrs.
Montague, not too dismally. "I got to do a duchess at a reception,
and I certainly hope my feet don't hurt me again."

"Cheer up, old dears! Pretty soon you can both pick your parts,"
chirped their daughter. "Jeff's going to give me a contract, and
then you can loaf forever for all I care. Only I know you won't, and
you know you won't. Both of you'd act for nothing if you couldn't do
it for money. What's the use of pretending?"

"The chit may be right, she may be right," conceded Mr. Montague
sadly.

Later, while the ladies were again in the kitchen, Mr. Montague,
after suggesting, "Something in the nature of an after-dinner
cordial," quaffed one for himself and followed it with the one he
had poured out for a declining guest who still treasured the flavour
of his one aperitif.

He then led the way to the small parlour where he placed in action
on the phonograph a record said to contain the ravings of John
McCullough in his last hours. He listened to this emotionally.

"That's the sort of technique," he said, "that the so--called silver
screen has made but a memory." He lighted his pipe, and identified
various framed photographs that enlivened the walls of the little
room. Many of them were of himself at an earlier age.

"My dear mother-in-law," he said, pointing to another. "A sterling
artist, and in her time an ornament of the speaking stage. I was on
tour when her last days came. She idolized me, and passed away with
my name on her lips. Her last request was that a photograph of me
should be placed in her casket before it went to its final resting
place."

He paused, his emotion threatening to overcome him. Presently he
brushed a hand across his eyes and continued, "I discovered later
that they had picked out the most wretched of all my photographs--an
atrocious thing I had supposed was destroyed. Can you imagine it?"

Apparently it was but the entrance of his daughter that saved him
from an affecting collapse. His daughter removed the record of John
McCullough's ravings, sniffed at it, and put a fox-trot in its
place.

"He's got to learn to dance," she explained, laying hands upon the
guest.

"Dancing--dancing!" murmured Mr. Montague, as if the very word
recalled bitter memories.

With brimming eyes he sat beating time to the fox-trot measure while
Merton Gill proved to all observers that his mastery of this dance
would, if ever at all achieved, be only after long and discouraging
effort.

"You forget all about your feet," remarked the girl as they paused,
swaying to the rhythm. "Remember the feet--they're important in a
dance. Now!--" But it was hard to remember his feet or, when he did
recall them, to relate their movements even distantly to the music.
When this had died despairingly, the girl surveyed her pupil with
friendly but doubting eyes.

"Say, Pa, don't he remind you of someone? Remember the squirrel that
joined out with us one time in the rep show and left 'East Lynne'
flat right in the middle of the third act while he went down and
announced the next night's play--the one that his name was Eddie
Duffy and he called himself Clyde Maltravers?"

"In a way, in a way," agreed Mr. Montague dismally. "A certain lack
of finish in the manner, perhaps."

"Remember how Charlie Dickman, the manager, nearly murdered him for
it in the wings? Not that Charlie didn't have a right to. Well, this
boy dances like Eddie Duffy would have danced."

"He was undeniably awkward and forgetful," said Mr. Montague. "Well
do I recall a later night. We played Under the Gaslight; Charlie
feared to trust him with a part, so he kept the young man off stage
to help with the train noise when the down express should dash
across. But even in this humble station he proved inefficient. When
the train came on he became confused, seized the cocoanut shells
instead of the sand-paper, and our train that night entered to the
sound of a galloping horse. The effect must have been puzzling to
the audience. Indeed, many of them seemed to consider it ludicrous.
Charlie Dickman confided in me later. 'Syl, my boy,' says he, 'this
bird Duffy has caused my first gray hairs.' It was little wonder
that he persuaded young Duffy to abandon the drama. He was not meant
for the higher planes of our art. Now our young friend here"--he
pointed to the perspiring Merton Gill--"doesn't even seem able to
master a simple dance step. I might say that he seems to out-Duffy
Duffy--for Duffy could dance after a fashion."

"He'll make the grade yet," replied his daughter grimly, and again
the music sounded. Merton Gill continued unconscious of his feet,
or, remembering them, he became deaf to the music. But the girl
brightened with a sudden thought when next they rested.

"I got it!" she announced. "We'll have about two hundred feet of
this for the next picture--you trying to dance just the way you been
doing with me. If you don't close to a good hand I'll eat my last
pay-check."

The lessons ceased. She seemed no longer to think it desirable that
her pupil should become proficient in the modern steps. He was
puzzled by her decision. Why should one of Baird's serious plays
need an actor who forgot his feet in a dance?

There were more social evenings at the Montague home. Twice the
gathering was enlarged by other members of the film colony, a supper
was served and poker played for inconsiderable stakes. In this game
of chance the Montague girl proved to be conservative, not to say
miserly, and was made to suffer genuinely when Merton Gill displayed
a reckless spirit in the betting. That he amassed winnings of
ninety-eight cents one night did not reassure her. She pointed out
that he might easily have lost this sum.

She was indeed being a mother to the defenceless boy. It was after a
gambling session that she demanded to be told what he was doing with
his salary. His careless hazarding of poker-chips had caused her to
be fearful of his general money sense.

Merton Gill had indeed been reckless. He was now, he felt, actually
one of the Hollywood set. He wondered how Tessie Kearns would regard
his progress. Would she be alarmed to know he attended those gay
parties that so often brought the film colony into unfavourable
public notice? Jolly dinners, dancing, gambling, drinking with
actresses--for Mr. Montague had at last turned out a beer that met
with the approval not only of his guests but of his own more
exacting family. The vivacious brew would now and again behave
unreasonably at the moment of being released, but it was potable
when subdued.

It was a gay life, Merton felt. And as for the Montague girl's
questions and warnings about his money, he would show her! He had,
of course, discharged his debt to her in the first two weeks of his
work with Baird. Now he would show her what he really thought of
money.

He would buy her a gift whose presentation should mark a certain
great occasion. It should occur on the eve of his screen debut, and
would fittingly testify his gratitude. For the girl, after all, had
made him what he was. And the first piece was close to its premiere.
Already he had seen advance notices in the newspapers. The piece was
called Hearts On Fire, and in it, so the notices said, the comedy
manager had at last realized an ambition long nourished. He had done
something new and something big: a big thing done in a big way. The
Montague girl would see that the leading man who had done so much to
insure the success of Baird's striving for the worth-while drama was
not unforgetful of her favours and continuous solicitude.

He thought first of a ring, but across the blank brick wall of the
jewellery shop he elected to patronize was an enormous sign in
white: The House of Lucky Wedding Rings. This staring announcement
so alarmed him that he not only abandoned the plan for a ring-any
sort of ring might be misconstrued, he saw-but in an excess of
caution chose another establishment not so outspoken. If it kept
wedding rings at all, it was decently reticent about them, and it
did keep a profusion of other trinkets about which a possible
recipient could entertain no false notions. Wrist watches, for
example. No one could find subtle or hidden meanings in a wrist
watch.

He chose a bauble that glittered prettily on its black silk
bracelet, and was not shocked in the least when told by the engaging
salesman that its price was a sum for which in the old days
Gashwiler had demanded a good ten weeks of his life. Indeed it
seemed rather cheap to him when he remembered the event it should
celebrate. Still, it was a pleasing trifle and did not look cheap.

"Do you warrant it to keep good time?" he sternly demanded.

The salesman became diplomatic, though not without an effect of
genial man-to-man frankness. "Well, I guess you and I both know what
women's bracelet-watches are." He smiled a superior masculine smile
that drew his customer within the informed brotherhood. "Now here,
there's a platinum little thing that costs seven hundred and fifty,
and this one you like will keep just as good time as that one that
costs six hundred more. What could be fairer than that?"

"All right," said the customer. "I'll take it." During the remaining
formalities attending the purchase the salesman, observing that he
dealt with a tolerant man of the world, became even franker. "Of
course no one," he remarked pleasantly while couching the purchase
in a chaste bed of white satin, "expects women's bracelet-watches to
keep time. Not even the women."

"Want 'em for looks," said the customer.

"You've hit it, you've hit it!" exclaimed the salesman delightedly,
as if the customer had expertly probed the heart of a world-old
mystery.

He had now but to await his great moment. The final scenes of the
new piece were shot. Again he was resting between pictures. As the
date for showing the first piece drew near he was puzzled to notice
that both Baird and the Montague girl curiously avoided any mention
of it. Several times he referred to it in their presence, but they
seemed resolutely deaf to his "Well, I see the big show opens Monday
night."

He wondered if there could be some recondite bit of screen etiquette
which he was infringing. Actors were superstitious, he knew. Perhaps
it boded bad luck to talk of a forthcoming production. Baird and the
girl not only ignored his reference to Hearts on Fire, but they left
Baird looking curiously secretive and the Montague girl looking
curiously frightened. It perplexed him. Once he was smitten with a
quick fear that his own work in this serious drama had not met the
expectations of the manager.

However, in this he must be wrong, for Baird not only continued
cordial but, as the girl had prophesied, he urged upon his new actor
the signing of a long-time contract. The Montague girl had insisted
upon being present at this interview, after forbidding Merton to put
his name to any contract of which she did not approve. "I told Jeff
right out that I was protecting you," she said. "He understands he's
got to be reasonable."

It appeared, as they set about Baird's desk in the Buckeye office,
that she had been right. Baird submitted rather gracefully, after
but slight demur, to the terms which Miss Montague imposed in behalf
of her protege. Under her approving eye Merton Gill affixed his name
to a contract by which Baird was to pay him a salary of two hundred
and fifty dollars a week for three years.

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