Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/181

 They trooped to the front in two lines and passed from the picture. Here they milled about, waiting for further orders.

"Rotten!" called the director. "Rotten and then some. Listen. You came like a lot of children marching out of a public school. Don't come in lines, break it up, push each other, fight to get ahead, and you're noisy, too. You're shouting. You're saying, 'What's this? What's it all about? What's the matter? Which way did he go?' Say anything you want to, but keep shouting anything at all. Say 'Thar's gold in them hills!' if you can't think of anything else. Go on, now, boys, do it again and pep it, see. Turn the juice on, open up the old mufflers."

The men went back through the rear doors. The late caller would here have left, being fed up with this sort of stuff, but at that moment he descried the Montague girl back behind a light-standard. She had not noted him, but was in close talk with a man he recognized as Jeff Baird, arch perpetrator of the infamous Buckeye comedies. They came toward him, still talking, as he looked.

"We'll finish here to-morrow afternoon, anyway," the girl was saying.

"Fine," said Baird. "That makes everything jake. Get over on the set whenever you're through. Come over to-night if they don't shoot here, just to give us a look-in."

"Can't," said the girl. "Soon as I get out o' this dump I got to eat on the lot and everything and be over to Baxter's layout—she'll be doing tank stuff till all hours—shipwreck and murder and all like that. Gosh, I hope it ain't cold. I don't mind the water, but I certainly hate to get out and wait in wet clothes while Sig Rosenblatt is thinking about a retake."

"Well"—Baird turned to go—"take care of yourself—don't dive and forget to come up. Come over when you're ready."

"Sure! S'long!" Here the girl, turning from Baird, noted Merton Gill beside her.