"After your friend left the restaurant," she was saying, "I thought I'd go out and tell you about me being from Mendocino. Just as I left the door the hook-and-ladder came by. Then I stood by you watching the fire, you know, till the Samax people drove up. Then I forgot everything but getting the picture for the fire scene in 'The Crowning Defeat.' I asked you to see Mr. Kenoke for me, and you did—and it was dandy of you, too. Now I'll tell you about my scenarios; then I want to talk about nothing but Mendocino County.
"Well, I write scenarios for moving-picture production," she went on. "That's one reason why I wanted the cashier's job—so I could have the use of the boss' old typewriter. I've been paying a public stenographer fifty cents a thousand words to copy my work, and it cuts into the profits when you get so little for a scenario.
"I've been writing them a year now. I've sold ten. That's not very many, is it?—when you know; that I have written over fifty. I've sold most of mine to this Samax Company, through the mail; and one day I went to their Western studio, here in the city, and told them who I was and got acquainted with Mr. Kenoke. He's their best producer, I think.
"As it happened, I am now working on a play that calls for a big fire scene. I was worried about it, because they send so many of my scenarios back with the comment that they are too difficult to produce. It's a dandy plot, and I hated to give it up just because it would require a burning building. They would hardly buy a building and burn it down just to please me, you know.
"But when they hear of a fire they get right to it, if they can, and take rescue scenes, and so forth, then have their contract writers work up a scenario in which the scenes can be used. But that's hack work. Mine is different, you see. My scenario called for a fire, and couldn't be produced without it. Quite different from having a fire call for a scenario.
"Well, now you know. I couldn't explain then, you see. There wasn't time, and, besides, I was too excited. I doubted if you would have understood, either—you just from the country.
"Now don't think I'm making fun of you. But it's the truth, isn't it? And it was certainly great of you to go the way you did, not having the least idea of what you were up against."
"It wasn't much," Hiram said in his unassuming way.
"Yes, it was," the girl said with a lack of the enthusiasm which had marked her former grateful utterances. Her eyes were far away, and it was apparent that another matter held precedence in her mind. "You just got into Frisco last night, your partner said."
"Yes, ma'am."