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<h2> CHAPTER XX. ONWARD AND UPWARD </h2>
<p>At the first showing of the Buckeye company's new five-reel comedy—Five
Reels-500 Laughs—entitled Brewing Trouble, two important members of
its cast occupied balcony seats and one of them throughout the piece
brazenly applauded the screen art of her husband. "I don't care who sees
me," she would reply ever and again to his whispered protests.</p>
<p>The new piece proved to be a rather broadly stressed burlesque of the type
of picture drama that has done so much to endear the personality of Edgar
Wayne to his public. It was accorded a hearty reception. There was nothing
to which it might be compared save the company's previous Hearts on Fire,
and it seemed to be felt that the present offering had surpassed even that
masterpiece of satire.</p>
<p>The Gills, above referred to, watched the unwinding celluloid with vastly
different emotions. Mrs. Gill was hearty in her enjoyment, as has been
indicated. Her husband, superficially, was not displeased. But beneath
that surface of calm approval—beneath even the look of bored
indifference he now and then managed—there still ran a complication
of emotions, not the least of which was honest bewilderment. People
laughed, so it must be funny. And it was good to be known as an artist of
worth, even if the effects of your art were unintended.</p>
<p>It was no shock to him to learn now that the mechanical appliance in his
screen-mother's kitchen was a still, and that the grape juice the honest
country boy purveyed to the rich New Yorker had been improved in rank
defiance of a constitutional amendment. And even during the filming of the
piece he had suspected that the little sister, so engagingly played by the
present Mrs. Gill, was being too bold. With slight surprise, therefore, as
the drama unfolded, he saw that she had in the most brazen manner invited
the attentions of the city villains.</p>
<p>She had, in truth, been only too eager to be lured to the great city with
all its pitfalls, and had bidden the old home farewell in her simple
country way while each of the villains in turn had awaited her in his
motor-car. What Merton had not been privileged to watch were the later
developments of this villainy. For just beyond the little hamlet at a
lonely spot in the road each of the motor-cars had been stopped by a
cross-eyed gentleman looking much like the clerk in the hotel, save that
he was profusely bewhiskered and bore side-arms in a menacing fashion.</p>
<p>Declaring that no scoundrel could take his little daughter from him, he
deprived the villains of their valuables, so that for a time at least they
should not bring other unsuspecting girls to grief. As a further
precaution he compelled them to abandon their motor-cars, in which he
drove off with the rescued daughter. He was later seen to sell the cars at
a wayside garage, and, after dividing their spoils with his daughter, to
hail a suburban trolley upon which they both returned to the home nest,
where the little girl would again languish at the gate, a prey to any
designing city man who might pass.</p>
<p>She seemed so defenceless in her wild-rose beauty, her longing for pretty
clothes and city ways, and yet so capably pro by this opportune father who
appeared to foresee the moment of her flights.</p>
<p>He learned without a tremor that among the triumphs of his inventive
genius had been a machine for making ten—dollar bills, at which the
New York capitalist had exclaimed that the state right for Iowa alone
would bring one hundred thousand dollars. Even more remunerative, it would
seem, had been his other patent—the folding boomerang. The manager
of the largest boomerang factory in Australia stood ready to purchase this
device for ten million dollars. And there was a final view of the little
home after prosperity had come to its inmates so long threatened with
ruin. A sign over the door read "Ye Olde Fashioned Gifte Shoppe," and
under it, flaunted to the wayside, was the severely simple trade-device of
a high boot.</p>
<p>These things he now knew were to be expected among the deft infamies of a
Buckeye comedy. But the present piece held in store for him a complication
that, despite his already rich experience of Buckeye methods, caused him
distressing periods of heat and cold while he watched its incredible
unfolding. Early in the piece, indeed, he had begun to suspect in the
luring of his little sister a grotesque parallel to the bold advances made
him by the New York society girl. He at once feared some such
interpretation when he saw himself coy and embarrassed before her
down-right attack, and he was certain this was intended when he beheld
himself embraced by this reckless young woman who behaved in the manner of
male screen idols during the last dozen feet of the last reel. But how
could he have suspected the lengths to which a perverted spirit of satire
would lead the Buckeye director?</p>
<p>For now he staggered through the blinding snow, a bundle clasped to his
breast. He fell, half fainting, at the door of the old home. He groped for
the knob and staggered in to kneel at his mother's feet. And she sternly
repulsed him, a finger pointing to the still open door.</p>
<p>Unbelievably the screen made her say, "He wears no ring. Back to the snow
with 'em both! Throw 'em Way Down East!"</p>
<p>And Baird had said the bundle would contain one of his patents!</p>
<p>Mrs. Gill watched this scene with tense absorption. When the mother's iron
heart had relented she turned to her husband. "You dear thing, that was a
beautiful piece of work. You're set now. That cinches your future. Only,
dearest, never, never, never let it show on your face that you think it's
funny. That's all you'll ever have to be afraid of in your work."</p>
<p>"I won't," he said stoutly.</p>
<p>He shivered—or did he shudder?—and quickly reached to take her
hand. It was a simple, direct gesture, yet somehow it richly had the
quality of pleading.</p>
<p>"Mother understands," she whispered. "Only remember, you mustn't seem to
think it's funny."</p>
<p>"I won't," he said again. But in his torn heart he stubbornly cried, "I
don't, I don't!"</p>
<p>* * * * * * *</p>
<p>Some six months later that representative magazine, Silver Screenings,
emblazoned upon its front cover a promise that in the succeeding number
would appear a profusely illustrated interview by Augusta Blivens with
that rising young screen actor, Merton Gill.</p>
<p>The promise was kept. The interview wandered amid photographic
reproductions of the luxurious Hollywood bungalow, set among palms and
climbing roses, the actor and his wife in their high-powered roadster
(Mrs. Gill at the wheel); the actor in his costume of chaps and sombrero,
rolling a cigarette; the actor in evening dress, the actor in his famous
scene of the Christmas eve return in Brewing Trouble; the actor regaining
his feet in his equally famous scene of the malignant spurs; the actor and
his young wife, on the lawn before the bungalow, and the young wife
aproned, in her kitchen, earnestly busy with spoon and mixing bowl.</p>
<p>"It is perhaps not generally known," wrote Miss Blivens, "that the honour
of having discovered this latest luminary in the stellar firmament should
be credited to Director Howard Henshaw of the Victor forces. Indeed, I had
not known this myself until the day I casually mentioned the Gills in his
presence. I lingered on a set of Island Love, at present being filmed by
this master of the unspoken drama, having but a moment since left that
dainty little reigning queen of the celluloid dynasty, Muriel Mercer.
Seated with her in the tiny bijou boudoir of her bungalow dressing room on
the great Holden lot, its walls lined with the works of her favourite
authors—for one never finds this soulful little girl far from the
books that have developed her mentally as the art of the screen has
developed her emotionally—she had referred me to the director when I
sought further details of her forthcoming great production, an idyl of
island romance and adventure. And presently, when I had secured from him
the information I needed concerning this unique little drama of the great
South Seas, I chanced to mention my approaching encounter with the young
star of the Buckeye forces, an encounter to which I looked forward with
some dismay.</p>
<p>"Mr. Henshaw, pausing in his task of effecting certain changes in the
interior of the island hut, reassured me. 'You need have no fear about
your meeting with Gill,' he said. 'You will find him quite simple and
unaffected, an artist, and yet sanely human.' It was now that he revealed
his own part in the launching of this young star. 'I fancy it is not
generally known,' he continued, 'that to me should go the honour of having
"discovered" Gill. It is a fact, however. He appeared as an extra one
morning in the cabaret scene we used in Miss Mercer's tremendous hit, The
Blight of Broadway. Instantly, as you may suppose, I was struck by the
extraordinary distinction of his face and bearing. In that crowd composed
of average extra people he stood out to my eye as one made for big things.
After only a moment's chat with him I gave him a seat at the edge of the
dancing floor and used him most effectively in portraying the basic idea
of this profoundly stirring drama in which Miss Mercer was to achieve one
of her brightest triumphs.</p>
<p>"'Watch that play to-day; you will discover young Gill in many of the
close-ups where, under my direction, he brought out the psychological, the
symbolic—if I may use the term—values of the great idea
underlying our story. Even in these bits he revealed the fine artistry
which he has since demonstrated more broadly under another director.</p>
<p>"'To my lasting regret the piece was then too far along to give him a more
important part, though I intended to offer him something good in our next
play for Muriel Mercer—you may recall her gorgeous success in Her
Father's Wife—but I was never able to find the chap again. I made
inquiries, of course, and felt a really personal sense of loss when I
could get no trace of him. I knew then, as well as I know now, that he was
destined for eminence in our world of painted shadows. You may imagine my
chagrin later when I learned that another director was to reap the rewards
of a discovery all my own.'</p>
<p>"And so," continued Miss Blivens, "it was with the Henshaw words still in
my ears that I first came into the presence of Merton Gill, feeling that
he would-as he at once finely did—put me at my ease. Simple,
unaffected, modest, he is one whom success has not spoiled. Both on the
set where I presently found him—playing the part of a titled roue in
the new Buckeye comedy—to be called, one hears, 'Nearly Sweethearts
or Something'-and later in the luxurious but homelike nest which the young
star has provided for his bride of a few months-she was 'Flips' Montague,
one recalls, daughter of a long line of theatrical folk dating back to
days of the merely spoken drama-he proved to be finely unspoiled and
surprisingly unlike the killingly droll mime of the Buckeye constellation.
Indeed one cannot but be struck at once by the deep vein of seriousness
underlying the comedian's surface drollery. His sense of humour must be
tremendous; and yet only in the briefest flashes of his whimsical manner
can one divine it.</p>
<p>"'Let us talk only of my work,' he begged me. 'Only that can interest my
public.' And so, very seriously, we talked of his work.</p>
<p>"'Have you ever thought of playing serious parts?' I asked, being now
wholly put at my ease by his friendly, unaffected ways.</p>
<p>"He debated a moment, his face rigidly set, inscrutable to my glance. Then
he relaxed into one of those whimsically appealing smiles that somehow are
acutely eloquent of pathos. 'Serious parts—with this low-comedy face
of mine!' he responded. And my query had been answered. Yet he went on,
'No, I shall never play Hamlet. I can give a good imitation of a bad actor
but, doubtless, I should give a very bad imitation of a good one.</p>
<p>"Et vailet, Messieurs." I remarked to myself. The man with a few simple
strokes of the brush had limned me his portrait. And I was struck again
with that pathetic appeal in face and voice as he spoke so confidingly.
After all, is not pure pathos the hall-mark of great comedy? We laugh, but
more poignantly because our hearts are tugged at. And here was a master of
the note pathetic.</p>
<p>"Who that has roared over the Gill struggle with the dreadful spurs was
not even at the climax of his merriment sympathetically aware of his
earnest persistence, the pained sincerity of his repeated strivings, the
genuine anguish distorting his face as he senses the everlasting futility
of his efforts? Who that rocked with laughter at the fox-trot lesson in
Object, Alimony, could be impervious to the facial agony above those
incompetent, disobedient, heedless feet?</p>
<p>"Here was honest endeavour, an almost prayerful determination, again and
again thwarted by feet that recked not of rhythm or even of bare
mechanical accuracy. Those feet, so apparently aimless, so little under
control, were perhaps the most mirthful feet the scored failure in the
dance. But the face, conscious of their clumsiness, was a mask of fine
tragedy.</p>
<p>"Such is the combination, it seems to me, that has produced the artistry
now so generally applauded, an artistry that perhaps achieved its full
flowering in that powerful bit toward the close of Brewing Trouble—the
return of the erring son with his agony of appeal so markedly portrayed
that for the moment one almost forgot the wildly absurd burlesque of which
it formed the joyous yet truly emotional apex. I spoke of this.</p>
<p>"'True burlesque is, after all, the highest criticism, don't you think?'
he asked me. 'Doesn't it make demands which only a sophisticated audience
can meet-isn't it rather high-brow criticism?' And I saw that he had
thought deeply about his art.</p>
<p>"'It is because of this,' he went on, 'that we must resort to so much of
the merely slap-stick stuff in our comedies. For after all, our picture
audience, twenty million people a day—surely one can make no great
demands upon their intelligence.' He considered a moment, seemingly lost
in memories of his work. 'I dare say,' he concluded, 'there are not twenty
million people of taste and real intelligence in the whole world.'</p>
<p>"Yet it must not be thought that this young man would play the cynic. He
is superbly the optimist, though now again he struck a note of almost
cynic whimsicality. 'Of course our art is in its infancy—' He waited
for my nod of agreement, then dryly added, 'We must, I think, consider it
the Peter Pan of the arts. And I dare say you recall the outstanding
biological freakishness of Peter.' But a smile—that slow, almost
puzzled smile of his—accompanied the words.</p>
<p>"'You might,' he told me at parting, 'call me the tragic comedian.' And
again I saw that this actor is set apart from the run of his brethren by
an almost uncanny gift for introspection. He has ruthlessly analysed
himself. He knows, as he put it, 'what God meant him to be.' Was here a
hint of poor Cyrano?</p>
<p>"I left after some brief reference to his devoted young wife, who, in
studio or home, is never far from his side. "'It is true that I have
struggled and sacrificed to give the public something better and finer,'
he told me then; 'but I owe my real success all to her.' He took the young
wife's hand in both his own, and very simply, unaffectedly, raised it to
his cheek where he held it a moment, with that dreamy, remembering light
in his eyes, as of one striving to recall bits of his past.</p>
<p>"'I think that's all,' he said at last. But on the instant of my going he
checked me once more. 'No, it isn't either.' He brightened. 'I want you to
tell your readers that this little woman is more than my wife—she is
my best pal; and, I may also add, my severest critic.'"</p>
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