Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/152

 scalded by his coffee which he drank from a saucer, had said, "All right, boys! We'll have the fight first thing in the morning."

Merton Gill passed on. He didn't quite know what the fight would be about. Surely the two miners wouldn't fight. Perhaps another miner of loose character would come along and try to jump their claim, or attempt some dirty work with the little girl. Something like that. He carried with him the picture of the homey little interior, the fireplace with its cooking utensils, the two bunks with their ample stock of blankets—the crude door closed with a wooden bar and a leather latch-string, which hung trustfully outside.

In other circumstances—chiefly those in which Merton Gill had now been the prominent figure in the film world he meant one day to become—he would on this night have undoubtedly won public attention for his mysterious disappearance. The modest room in the Patterson home, to which for three months he had unfailingly come after the first picture show, on this night went untenanted. The guardian at the Holden gate would have testified that he had not passed out that way, and the way through the offices had been closed at five, subsequent to which hour several witnesses could have sworn to seeing him still on the lot. In the ensuing search even the tank at the lower end of the lot might have been dragged—without result.

Being little known to the public, however, and in the Patterson home it being supposed that you could never tell about motion-picture actors, his disappearance for the night caused absolutely no slightest ripple. Public attention as regarded the young man remained at a mirror-like calm, unflawed by even the mildest curiosity. He had been seen, perhaps, though certainly not noted with any interest, to be one of the group watching a night scene in front of one of the Fifth Avenue mansions.

Lights shone from the draped windows of this mansion and from its portals issued none other than Muriel Mercer,