clock, and I
may as well wipe the Acme slate clean this forenoon, so I can talk
business without any come-back from Mart, or any tag ends to pick up.
Grab your slickers and let's move."

That was a busy day for Luck Lindsay, in spite of the fact that it was a
stormy one. His interview with Mart, which he endured mostly for the sake
of the Happy Family, developed into a quarrel which severed beyond
mending his connection with the Acme.

It was noon when he reached his hotel, and his wrath had not cooled with
the trip into town. There were two 'phone calls in his mail, he
discovered, and one bore an urgent request that he call Hollywood
something-or-other the moment he returned. This was from the Great
Western Film Company, and Luck's eyes brightened while he read it. He
went straight to his room and called up the Great Western.

Presently he found himself speaking to the great Dewitt himself, and his
blood was racing with the possibilities of the interview. Dewitt had
heard that Luck was leaving the Acme--extras may be depended upon for
carrying gossip from one studio to another,--and was wasting no time in
offering him a position. His Western director, Robert Grant Burns whom
Luck knew well, had been carried to the hospital with typhoid fever which
he had contracted while out with his company in what is known as Nigger
Sloughs,--a locality more picturesque than healthful. Dewitt feared that
it was going to be a long illness at the very best. Would Luck consider
taking the company and going on with the big five-reel feature which
Burns had just begun? Dewitt was prepared to offer special inducements
and to make the position a permanent one. He would give Burns a dramatic
company to produce features at the studio, he said, and would give Luck
the privilege of choosing his own scenarios and producing them in his own
way. Could Luck arrange to meet Dewitt at four that afternoon?

Luck could, by cancelling his appointment with a smaller and less
important company, which he did promptly and with no compunctions
whatever. He did more than that; he postponed the other two appointments,
knowing in his heart that his chances would not be lessened thereby.
After that he built a castle or two while he waited for the appointment.
The Great Western Company had been a step higher than he had hoped to
reach. Robert Grant Burns he had considered a fixture with the company.
It had never entered his mind that he might possibly land wit