re right. But that was pretty keen stuff
last night. That first bit won't do Parmalee any good, and that Buck
Benson stuff--you can't tell me a little more of that wouldn't make
Benson look around for a new play."

"But I do tell you just that. It won't hurt Parmalee a bit; and
Benson can go on Bensoning to the end of time--to big money. You keep
forgetting this twenty-million audience. Go out and buy a picture
magazine and read it through, just to remind you. They want hokum, and
pay for it. Even this thing of Baird's, with all the saving slapstick,
is over the heads of a good half of them. I'll make a bet with you now,
anything you name, that it won't gross two thirds as much as Benson's
next Western, and in that they'll cry their eyes out when he kisses his
horse good-bye. See if they don't. Or see if they don't bawl at the next
old gray-haired mother with a mop and a son that gets in bad.

"Why, if you give 'em hokum they don't even demand acting. Look at our
own star, Mercer. You know as well as I do that she not only can't act,
but she's merely a beautiful moron. In a world where right prevailed
she'd be crowned queen of the morons without question. She may have an
idea that two and two make four, but if she has it's only because she
believes everything she hears. And look at the mail she gets. Every last
one of the twenty million has written to tell her what a noble actress
she is. She even believes that.

"Baird can keep on with the burlesque stuff, but his little old
two-reelers'll probably have to pay for it, especially if he keeps those
high-priced people. I'll bet that one new man of his sets him back seven
hundred and fifty a week. The Lord knows he's worth every cent of it. My
boy, tell me, did you ever in all your life see a lovelier imitation of
a perfectly rotten actor? There's an artist for you. Who is he, anyway?
Where'd he come from?" Merton Gill again listened; he was merely
affecting to busy himself with a fork. It was good acting.

"I don't know," replied Henshaw. "Some of the crowd last night said he
was just an extra that Baird dug up on the lot here. And, on the subject
of burlesque, they also said Baird was having him do some Edgar Wayne
stuff in a new one."

"Fine!" The Governor beamed. "Can't you see him as the honest, likable
country boy? I bet he'll be good to his old mother in this one, too, and
get the best of the city slickers in the end. For heaven's sake don't
let me miss it! Thi