and the interview
had to wail. But, anyway, you could smoke where you wished in that
house, and Gashwiler couldn't smoke any closer to his house than the
front porch. Even trying it there he would be nagged, and fussily asked
why he didn't go out to the barn. He was a poor fish, Gashwiler; a
country storekeeper without a future. A clod!

Merton, after waiting in line, obtained his mail, consisting of three
magazines--Photo Land, Silver Screenings, and Camera. As he stepped away
he saw that Miss Tessie Kearns stood three places back in the line. He
waited at the door for her. Miss Kearns was the one soul in Simsbury who
understood him. He had confided to her all his vast ambitions; she had
sympathized with them, and her never-failing encouragement had done
not a little to stiffen his resolution at odd times when the haven of
Hollywood seemed all too distant. A certain community of ambitions had
been the foundation of this sympathy between the two, for Tessie Kearns
meant to become a scenario writer of eminence, and, like Merton, she
was now both studying and practising a difficult art. She conducted the
millinery and dressmaking establishment next to the Gashwiler Emporium,
but found time, as did Merton, for the worthwhile things outside her
narrow life.

She was a slight, spare little figure, sedate and mouselike, of middle
age and, to the village, of a quiet, sober way of thought. But, known
only to Merton, her real life was one of terrific adventure, involving
crime of the most atrocious sort, and contact not only with the great
and good, but with loathsome denizens of the underworld who would commit
any deed for hire. Some of her scenarios would have profoundly
shocked the good people of Simsbury, and she often suffered tremors of
apprehension at the thought that one of them might be enacted at the
Bijou Palace right there on Fourth Street, with her name brazenly
announced as author. Suppose it were Passion's Perils! She would surely
have to leave town after that! She would be too ashamed to stay. Still
she would be proud, also, for by that time they would be calling her
to Hollywood itself. Of course nothing so distressing--or so grand--had
happened yet, for none of her dramas had been accepted; but she was
coming on. It might happen any time.

She joined Merton, a long envelope in her hand and a brave little smile
on her pinched face.

"Which one is it?" he asked, referring to the envelope.

"It's Passion's