Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/266

 "I'm sure I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Baird, and I'll try to give you the very best that is in me"

"I'm sure of that, my boy; you needn't tell me. But now—what I want you to do while you got this lay-off between pieces, chase out and watch all the Edgar Wayne pictures you can find. There was one up on the Boulevard last week I'd like you to watch half-a-dozen times. It may be at another house down this way, or it may be out in one of the suburbs. I'll have someone outside call up and find where it is to-day and they'll let you know. It's called Happy Homestead or something snappy like that, and it kind of suggests a layout for this new piece of mine, see what I mean? It'll suggest things to you.

"Edgar and his mother and little sister live on this farm and Edgar mixes in with a swell dame down at the summer hotel, and a villain tries to get his old mother's farm and another villain takes his little sister off up to the wicked city, and Edgar has more trouble than would patch Hell a mile, see? But it all comes right in the end, and the city girl falls for him when she sees him in his stepping-out clothes.

"It's a pretty little thing, but to my way of thinking it lacks strength; not enough punch to it. So we're sort of building up on that general idea, only we'll put in the pep that this piece lacked. If I don't miss my guess, you'll be able to show Wayne a few things about serious acting—especially after you've studied his methods a little bit in this piece."

"Well, if you think I can do it," began Merton, then broke off in answer to a sudden thought. "Will my mother be the same actress that played it before, the one that mopped all the time?"

"Yes, the same actress, but a different sort of mother. She—she's more enterprising; she's a sort of chemist, in a way; puts up preserves and jellies for the hotel. She never touches a mop in the whole piece and dresses neat from start to finish."

"And does the cross-eyed man play in it? Sometimes, in