Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/136

 utterly. He made it gripping—the supreme heart-interest drama of his season a big thing done in a big way, and yet censor-proof. Not even the white-souled censors of the great state of Pennsylvania could have outlawed its realism, brutal though this was in such great moments as when Gashwiler carved the roast beef. So able was his artistry that Merton's nostrils would sometimes betray him—he could swear they caught rich aromas from that distant board.

Not only had the fare purveyed by his favourite pharmacy put a blight upon him equal to Broadway's blight, but even of this tasteless stuff he must be cautious in his buying. A sandwich, not too meaty at the centre, coffee tasting strangely of other things sold in a pharmacy, a segment of pie fair-seeming on its surface, but lacking the punch, as he put it, of Metta Judson's pie, a standardized, factory-made, altogether formal and perfunctory pie—these were the meagre items of his accustomed luncheon and dinner.

He had abandoned breakfast, partly because it cost money and partly because a gentleman in eastern Ohio had recently celebrated his hundred and third birthday by reason, so he confided to the press, of having always breakfasted upon a glass of clear cold water. Probably ham and eggs or corned-beef hash would have cut him off at ninety, and water from the tap in the Patterson kitchen was both clear and cold. It was not so much that he cared to live beyond ninety or so, but he wished to survive until things began to pick up on the Holden lot, and if this did bring him many more years, well and good. Further, if the woman in the casting office persisted, as she had for ten days, in saying "Nothing yet" to inquiring screen artists, he might be compelled to intensify the régime of the Ohio centenarian. Perhaps a glass of clear cold water at night, after a hearty midday meal of drugstore sandwiches and pie, would work new wonders.

It seemed to be the present opinion of other waiters on the extra bench that things were never going to pick up on the Holden lot nor on any other lot. Strongly marked types, ready to add distinction to the screen of painted shadows,