e juice on, open up the old mufflers."

The men went back through the rear doors. The late caller would here
have left, being fed up with this sort of stuff, but at that moment he
descried the Montague girl back behind a light-standard. She had not
noted him, but was in close talk with a man he recognized as Jeff Baird,
arch perpetrator of the infamous Buckeye comedies. They came toward him,
still talking, as he looked.

"We'll finish here to-morrow afternoon, anyway," the girl was saying.

"Fine," said Baird. "That makes everything jake. Get over on the set
whenever you're through. Come over tonight if they don't shoot here,
just to give us a look-in."

"Can't," said the girl. "Soon as I get out o' this dump I got to eat on
the lot and everything and be over to Baxter's layout--she'll be doing
tank stuff till all hours--shipwreck and murder and all like that. Gosh,
I hope it ain't cold. I don't mind the water, but I certainly hate to
get out and wait in wet clothes while Sig Rosenblatt is thinking about a
retake."

"Well"--Baird turned to go--"take care of yourself--don't dive and
forget to come up. Come over when you're ready."

"Sure! S'long!" Here the girl, turning from Baird, noted Merton Gill
beside her. "Well, well, as I live, the actin' kid once more! Say,
you're getting to be a regular studio hound, ain't you?"

For the moment he had forgotten his troubles. He was burning to ask her
if Beulah Baxter would really work in a shipwreck scene that night
at the place where he had watched the carpenters and the men on the
sailboat; but as he tried to word this he saw that the girl was again
scanning him with keen eyes. He knew she would read the collar, the
beard, perhaps even a look of mere hunger that he thought must now be
showing.

"Say, see here, Trouper, what's the shootin' all about, anyway? You up
against it--yes." There was again in her eye the look of warm concern,
and she was no longer trying to be funny. He might now have admitted
a few little things about his screen career, but again the director
interrupted.

"Miss Montague--where are you? Oh! Well, remember you're behind the
piano during that gun play just now, and you stay hid till after the
boys get out. We'll shoot this time, so get set."

She sped off, with a last backward glance of questioning. He waited
but a moment before leaving. He was almost forgetting his hunger in the
pretty certain knowledge that in a few hours he would actually