Page:Minnie Flynn (1925).pdf/71

 thing else she mustn't let anyone know, especially the casting director, Sam Binns, that she had had no previous experience before a camera.

Minnie was yet to learn how dreaded the casting director is, for this man, though his power is primarily negative, is the stepping stone into the "movies."

"Well, little girl, here we are at last," said Al.

Minnie was disappointed in the studio. She wasn't quite sure how she had dreamed this money market would look, but she certainly hadn't expected to find, on a half-acre lot, a ramshackle, rambling old building with several newly added wings.

They passed through the Employees' Entrance, not unlike the one in the department store. Then they walked down a long dark hall until they came to the door of Sam Binns' office.

"You're here now," whispered Al, "don't be self-conscious, and don't make any slips. Sam's a shrewd little guy, and if he gets on to it that you're lying, he'll block your way into every other studio."

"Then why can't I tell him the truth?" Minnie's throat was so contracted that her voice was stifled and thin.

"My God, Min, do I have to go over all that with you again? No! You could have said you were a rank out-and-out amateur a year ago. But it's different now. They're sick of having people come to the studios that don't know anything about the game; that can't act or never saw a camera before. As Sam says, 'There's thousands of people come flocking to the studios every day looking to break into the movies.' He was up in Alaska during the gold rush, and in California when the oil gushers came in, and he says that people are always ready to stake anything on a gamble that lets them in on the ground floor of any get-rich-quick proposition."