Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/188

 "But isn't she here at all—won't she do anything here?"

"Listen here, Kid; why should she loaf around on the set when she's paying me good money to double for her?"

"You—double for Beulah Baxter?" It was some more of the girl's nonsense, and a blasphemy for which he could not easily forgive her.

"Why not? Ain't I a good stunt actress? I'll tell the lot she hasn't found any one yet that can get away with her stuff better than what I do."

"But she—I heard her say herself she never allowed any one to double for her—she wouldn't do such a thing."

Here sounded a scornful laugh from Jimmie, the prop-boy. "Bunk!" said he at the laugh's end. "How long you been doublin' for her, Miss Montague? Two years, ain't it?—I know it was before I come here, and I been on the lot a year and a half. Say, he ought to see some the stuff you done for her out on location, like jumpin' into the locomotive engine from your auto and catchin' the brake beams when the train's movin', and goin' across that quarry on the cable, and ridin' down that lumber flume sixty miles per hour and ridin' some them outlaw buckjumpers—he'd ought to seen some that stuff, hey, Miss Montague?"

"That's right, Jimmie, you tell him all about me. I hate to talk of myself." Very wonderfully Merton Gill divined that this was said with a humorous intention. Jimmy was less sensitive to values. He began to obey.

"Well, I dunno—there's that motorcycle stuff. Purty good, I'll say. I wouldn't try that, no, sir, not for a cool million dollars. And that chase stuff on the roofs down town where you jumped across that court that wasn't any too darned narrow, an' say, I wisht I could skin up a tree the way you can. An' there was that time"

"All right, all right, Jimmie. I can tell him the rest sometime. I don't really hate to talk about myself—that's on the level. And say, listen here, Jimmie, you're my favourite sweetheart, ain't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," assented Jimmie, warmly.