. It's pretty well doped out, and there's
a big part in it for you--big things to be done in a big way, see what I
mean."

"Well, I'm glad I suited you," Merton replied. "I tried to give the best
that was in me to a sincere interpretation of that fine part. And it
was a great surprise to me. I never thought I'd be working for you, Mr.
Baird, and of course I wouldn't have been if you had kept on doing those
comedies. I never would have wanted to work in one of them." "Of course
not," agreed Baird cordially. "I realized that you were a serious
artist, and you came in the nick of time, just when I was wanting to be
serious myself, to get away from that slap-stick stuff into something
better and finer. You came when I needed you. And, look here, Merton, I
signed you on at forty a week--"

"Yes, sir: I was glad to get it."

"Well, I'm going to give you more. From the beginning of the new picture
you're on the payroll at seventy-five a week. No, no, not a word--" as
Merton would have thanked him. "You're earning the money. And for the
picture after that--well, if you keep on giving the best that's in you,
it will be a whole lot more. Now take a good rest till we're ready for
you."

At last he had won. Suffering and sacrifice had told. And Baird had
spoken of the Montague girl as his leading lady--quite as if he were a
star. And seventy-five dollars a week! A sum Gashwiler had made him work
five weeks for. Now he had something big to write to his old friend,
Tessie Kearns. She might spread the news in Simsbury, he thought. He
contrived a close-up of Gashwiler hearing it, of Mrs. Gashwiler hearing
it, of Metta Judson hearing it.

They would all be incredulous until a certain picture was shown at the
Bijou Palace, a gripping drama of mother-love, of a clean-limbed young
American type wrongfully accused of a crime and taking the burden of it
upon his own shoulders for the sake of the girl he had come to love; of
the tense play of elemental forces in the great West, the regeneration
of a shallow society girl when brought to adversity by the ruin of her
old father; of the lovers reunited in that West they both loved.

And somehow--this was still a puzzle--the very effective weaving in
and out of the drama of the world's most popular screen idol, played so
expertly by Clifford Armytage who looked enough like him to be his twin
brother.

Fresh from joyous moments in the projection room, the Montague girl
gazed at Baird acros