nois, where such things were frowned upon by pulpit
and press? The girl resumed her seat, at first with annoyance, then
brightened. "All right at that," she said. "I bet we get more footage
this way." She again became coquettish, luring with her wiles one who
remained sunk in ennui.

A whistle blew, a voice called "Save it!" and the lights jarred off.
Henshaw came trippingly down the line. "You people didn't dance. What's
the matter?" Merton Gill glanced up, doing a double transition, from
dignified surprise to smiling chagrin. "Sprained ankle," he said, and
fell into the bored look that had served him with the assistant. He
exhaled smoke and raised his tired eyes to the still luring Spanish
girl. Weariness of the world and women was in his look. Henshaw scanned
him closely.

"All right, stay there--keep just that way--it's what I want." He
continued down the line, which had become hushed. "Now, people. I
want some flashes along here, between dances--see what I mean? You're
talking, but you're bored with it all. The hollowness of this night
life is getting you; not all of you--most of you girls can keep on
smiling--but The Blight of Broadway shows on many. You're beginning to
wonder if this is all life has to offer--see what I mean?" He continued
down the line.

From the table back of Merton Gill came a voice in speech to the
retreating back of Henshaw: "All right, old top, but it'll take a good
lens to catch any blight on this bunch--most of 'em haven't worked a
lick in six weeks, and they're tickled pink." He knew without turning
that this was the Montague girl trying to be funny at the expense
of Henshaw who was safely beyond hearing. He thought she would be a
disturbing element in the scene, but in this he was wrong, for he
bent upon the wine glass a look more than ever fraught with jaded
world-weariness. The babble of Broadway was resumed as Henshaw went back
to the cameras.

Presently a camera was pushed forward. Merton Gill hardly dared look up,
but he knew it was halted at no great distance from him. "Now, here's
rather a good little bit," Henshaw was saying. "You, there, the girl in
black, go on--tease him the way you were, and he's to give you that same
look. Got that cigarette going? All ready. Lights! Camera!" Merton
was achieving his first close-up. Under the hum of the lights he was
thinking that he had been a fool not to learn dancing, no matter how the
Reverend Otto Carmichael denounced it as a surv