Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/319

 Merton Gill, who had first grown hot, was now cold. Icy drops were on his chilled brow. How had Hearts on Fire gone wrong?

Then they were in the great open spaces of the Come All Ye dance hall. There was the young actor in his Buck Benson costume, protecting his mother from the brutality of a Mexican, getting his man later by firing directly into a mirror—Baird had said it would come right in the exposure, but it hadn't. And the witless cackled.

He saw his struggle with the detective. With a real thrill he saw himself bear his opponent to the ground, then hurl him high and far into the air, to be impaled upon the antlers of an elk's head suspended back of the bar. He saw himself lightly dust his sleeves after this feat, and turn aside with the words, "That's one Lodge he can join."

Then followed a scene he had not been allowed to witness. There swung Marcel, the detective, played too emphatically by the cross-eyed man. An antler point suspended him by the seat of his trousers. He hung limply a moment, then took from his pocket a saw with which he reached up to contrive his release. He sawed through the antler and fell. He tried to stand erect, but appeared to find this impossible. A subtitle announced: "He had put a permanent wave in Marcel."

This base fooling was continuously blown upon by gales of stupid laughter. But not yet did Merton Gill know the worst. The merriment persisted through his most affecting bit, the farewell to his old pal outside—how could they have laughed at a simple bit of pathos like that? But the watching detective was seen to weep bitterly.

"Look a' him doin' Buck Benson," urged the hoarse neighbour gleefully. "You got to hand it to that kid—say, who is he, anyway?"

Followed the thrilling leap from a second-story window to the back of the waiting pal. The leap began thrillingly, but not only was it shown that the escaping man had donned a coat and a false mustache in the course of his fall, but at its