Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/146

 he get too enthusiastic in the big fight scene. Whenever the fun began to wax too fast and furious, the leading man would cast a panic-stricken glance at the director, who would roar "Cut!" through his megaphone—that being the signal to stop the action.

Well, that little word "Cut!" was the one thing that Grenadier Tompkins thought was wrong with the movies, he told me bitterly when he cornered me on deck one night while we're waiting for the dinner bugle. He moaned that all he heard from morning to night was that bellowed "Cut!" It was fastening on what nerves he had and driving him triple cuckoo. He eats, drinks and sleeps the word. Walking along the deck, he will halt instantly and mechanically when some practical joker bawls "Cut!" Dressing, he'll stop and stand rigid; eating, he'll drop knife and fork; and any word that would make the Grenadier drop his knife while he was eating must certainly be engraved on his brain.

May Allah be praised, as they say in Yonkers, that I remembered all that—later!

The night before our noble vessel parked at Southampton there was a formal dance in the grand salon, and that gave me and Hazel a chance to make most of the other girls aboard wish they had come over by rail, or at least kept off a boat containing two such well filled evening gowns as we displayed. The sturdy