Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/250

 right way," began Baird. "Mother's mopping along there and sloshes some water on this Mexican's boot—where are you, Pedro? Come here and get this. The old lady sloshes water on you while you're playing monte here, so you yell Carramba or something, and kick at her. You don't land on her, of course, but her son rushes up and grabs your arm—here, do it this way." Baird demonstrated. "Grab his wrist with one hand and his elbow with the other and make as if you broke his arm across your knee—you know, like you were doing joojitsey. He slinks off with his broken arm, and you just dust your hands off and embrace your mother again.

"Then you go back to the bar, not looking at Pedro at all. See? He's insulted your mother, and you've resented it in a nice, dignified, gentlemanly way. Try it."

Pedro sat at the table and picked up his cards. He was a foul-looking Mexican and seemed capable even of the enormity he was about to commit. The scene was rehearsed to Baird's satisfaction, then shot. The weeping old lady, blinded by her tears, awkward with her mop, the brutal Mexican, his prompt punishment.

The old lady was especially pathetic as she glared at her insulter from where she lay sprawled on the floor, and muttered, "Carramba, huh? I dare you to come outside and say that to me!"

"Good work," applauded Baird when the scene was finished. "Now we're getting into the swing of it. In about three days here we'll have something that exhibitors can clean up on, see if we don't."

The three days passed in what for Merton Gill was a whirlwind of dramatic intensity. If at times he was vaguely disquieted by a suspicion that the piece was not wholly serious, he had only to remember the intense seriousness of his own part and the always serious manner of Baird in directing his actors. And indeed there were but few moments when he was even faintly pricked by this suspicion. It seemed a bit incongruous that Hoffmeyer, the delicatessen merchant, should arrive on a bicycle, dressed in cowboy attire