right quick? You can't keep a thing from this old bey. Now you just
came over here to this desk and look at this fine batch of stills he had
taken by a regular artist back in Cranberry."

"Ah!" exclaimed Baird unctuously, "I bet they're good. Show me." He went
to the desk. "Be seated, Mr. Gill, while I have a look at these."

Merton Gill, under the eye of Baird which clung to him with something
close to fascination, sat down. He took the chair with fine dignity,
a certain masterly deliberation. He sat easily, and seemed to await a
verdict confidently foreknown. Baird's eyes did not leave him for the
stills until he had assumed a slightly Harold Parmalee pose. Then his
head with the girl's bent over the pictures, he began to examine them.

Exclamations of delight came from the pair. Merton Gill listened
amiably. He was not greatly thrilled by an admiration which he had
long believed to be his due. Had he not always supposed that things of
precisely this sort would be said about those stills when at last they
came under the eyes of the right people?

Like the Montague girl, Baird was chiefly impressed with the Westerns.
He looked a long time at them, especially at the one where Merton's
face was emotionally averted from his old pal, Pinto, at the moment of
farewell. Regarding Baird, as he stood holding this art study up to the
light, Merton became aware for the first time that Baird suffered from
some nervous affliction, a peculiar twitching of the lips, a trembling
of the chin, which he had sometimes observed in senile persons. All
at once Baird seemed quite overcome by this infirmity. He put a
handkerchief to his face and uttered a muffled excuse as he hastily left
the room. Outside, the noise of his heavy tread died swiftly away down
the hall.

The Montague girl remained at the desk. There was a strange light in her
eyes and her face was still flushed. She shot a glance of encouragement
at Merton.

"Don't be nervous, old Kid; he likes 'em all right." He reassured her
lightly: "Oh, I'm not a bit nervous about him. It ain't as if he was
doing something worth while, instead of mere comedies."

The girl's colour seemed to heighten. "You be sure to tell him that;
talk right up to him. Be sure to say 'mere comedies.' It'll show him
you know what's what. And as a matter of fact, Kid, he's trying to do
something worth while, right this minute, something serious. That's why
he's so interested in you."

"Well, of cours