Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/202

 He smoked, himself; he even drank considerable. He was his own worst enemy. But you can see it's a good solid-gold watch and keeps time, and you hold it till I pay you back, will you?"

The girl took the watch, examining it carefully, noting the inscription engraved on the case. There were puzzling glints in her eyes as she handed it back to him. "No; I'll tell you, it'll be my watch until you pay me back, but you keep it for me. I haven't any place to carry it except the pocket of my jacket, and I might lose it, and then where'd we be?"

"Well, all right." He cheerfully took back the watch. His present ecstasy would find him agreeable to all proposals.

"And say," continued the girl, "what about this Gashweller, or whatever his name is? He said he'd take you back, did he? A farm?"

"No, an emporium—and you forgot his name just the way that lady in the casting office always does. She's funny. Keeps telling me not to forget the address, when of course I couldn't forget the town where I lived, could I? Of course it's a little town, but you wouldn't forget it when you lived there a long time—not when you got your start there."

"So you got your start in this town, did you?"

He wanted to talk a lot now. He prattled of the town and his life there, of the eight-hour talent-tester and the course in movie-acting. Of Tessie Kearns and her scenarios, not yet prized as they were sure to be later. Of Lowell Hardy, the artistic photographer, and the stills that he had made of the speaker as Clifford Armytage. Didn't she think that was a better stage name than Merton Gill, which didn't seem to sound like so much? Anyway, he wished he had his stills here to show her. Of course some of them were just in society parts, the sort of thing that Harold Parmalee played—had she noticed that he looked a good deal like Harold Parmalee? Lots of people had.

Tessie Kearns thought he was the dead image of Parmalee.