“Yes, sir,” said Merton.
“And watch Parmalee. Study him in this picture. You look like him already, but see if you can pick up some of his tricks, see what I mean? Because it’s a regular Parmalee part I’m going to have you do, see? Kind of a society part to start with, and then we work in some of your Western stuff at the finish. But get Parmalee as much as you can. That’s all now. Oh, yes, and can you leave these stills with me? Our publicity man may want to use them later.”
“All right, Mr. Baird, I’ll do just what you say, and of course you can keep the stills as long as I got an engagement with you, and I’m very glad you’re trying to do something really worth while.”
“Thanks,” said Baird, averting his face.
The girl followed him into the hall. “Great work, boy, and take it from me, you’ll go over. Say, honest now, I’m glad clear down into my boots.” She had both his hands again, and he could see that her eyes were moist. She seemed to be an impressionable little thing, hysterical one minute while looking at a bunch of good stills, and sort of weepy the next. But he was beginning to like her, in spite of her funny talk and free ways.
“And say,” she called after him when he had reached the top of the stairs, “you know you haven’t had much experience yet with a bunch of hard-boiled troupers; many a one will be jealous of you the minute you begin to climb, and maybe they’ll get fresh and try to kid you, see? But don’t you mind it—give it right back to them. Or tell me if they get too raw. Just remember I got a mean right when I swing free.”
“All right, thank you,” he replied, but his bewilderment was plain.
She stared a moment, danced up to him, and seized a hand in both of hers. “What I mean son, if you feel bothered any time—by anything—just come to me with it, see? I’m in this piece, and I’ll look out for you. Don’t forget that.” She dropped his hand, and was back in the office while he mumbled his thanks for what he knew she had meant as a kindness.
So she was to be in the Baird piece; she, too, would be trying to give the public something better and finer. Still, he was puzzled at her believing he might need to be looked out for. An actor drawing forty dollars a week could surely look out for himself. He emerged into the open of the Holden lot as one who had at last achieved success after long and gruelling privation. He walked briefly among the scenes of this privation, pausing in reminiscent mood before the Crystal Palace Hotel and other outstanding spots where he had so stoically suffered the torments of hunger and discouragement.
He remembered to be glad now that no letter of appeal had actually gone to Gashwiler. Suppose he had built up in the old gentleman’s mind a false hope that he might again employ Merton Gill? A good thing he had held out! Yesterday he was starving and penniless; to-day he was fed and on someone’s payroll for probably as much money a week as Gashwiler netted from his entire business. From sheer force of association, as he thus meditated, he found himself hungry, and a few moments later he was selecting from the food counter of the cafeteria whatever chanced to appeal to the eye—no weighing of prices now.