CHAPTER V
THE MOVIES TEMPT
Winter passed. Spring came.
On the Rialto’s hard pavements, day in and day out, Mr. Griffith, his ear to the ground, was wearing out good shoe leather. But nothing like a job materialized, until, meeting up with an old acquaintance, Max Davidson, he heard about moving pictures. Since youthful days in a Louisville stock company these two had not met. And the simple confidences they exchanged this day brought results that were most significant, not only to David Griffith, but to millions of unsuspecting people the world over.
Mr. Davidson had been going down to a place on 11 East Fourteenth Street and doing some kind of weird acting before a camera—little plays, he explained, of which a camera took pictures.
“You’ve heard of moving pictures, haven’t you?”
“Why, I don’t know; suppose I have, but I’ve never seen one. Why?”
“I work in them during the summer; make five dollars some days when I play a leading part, but usually it’s three. Keeps you going, and you get time to call on managers too. Now you could write the little stories for the pictures. They pay fifteen dollars sometimes for good ones. Don’t feel offended at the suggestion. It’s not half bad, really. We spend lots of days working out in the country. Lately we’ve been doing pictures where they use horses, and it’s just like getting paid for enjoying a nice horseback ride. Anybody can ride well enough for the pictures. Just manage to stay on the horse, that’s all.”
“Ye gods,” said the tempted one, “some of my friends might see me. Then I would be done for. Where do they show these pictures? I’ll go see one first.”
“Oh, nobody’ll ever see you—don’t worry about that.”
“Well, that does make it different. I’ll think it over. Where’s the place, you said?”