"Good work! Keep it up," said Henshaw and went back to his cameras.
The lights jarred on; desperate gaming was filmed. "More life at the roulette tables," megaphoned Henshaw. "Crowd closer around that left-hand faro table. You're playing for big stakes." The gaming became more feverish. The mad light of pleasure was in every eye, yet one felt that the blight of Broadway was real.
The camera was wheeled forward and Merton Gill joyously quit smoking while Henshaw secured flashes of various groups, chiefly of losers who were seeing the hollowness of it all. He did not, however, disdain a bit of comedy.
"Miss Montague."
"Yes, Mr. Henshaw." The Montague girl paused in the act of sprinkling chips over a roulette lay-out.
"Your escort has lost all his chips and you've lost all he bought for you--"The girl and her escort passed to other players the chips before them, and waited.
"Your escort takes out his wallet, shows it to you empty, and shrugs his shoulders. You shrug, too, but turn your back on him, facing the camera, and take some bills out of your stocking--see what I mean?
Give her some bills, someone."
"Never mind, Mr. Henshaw; I already got some there." The pantomime was done, the girl turned, stooped, withdrew flattened bills from one of the salmon-pink stockings and flourished them at her escort who achieved a transition from gloom to joy. Merton Gill, observing this shameless procedure, plumbed the nether depths of disgust for Broadway's night life.
The camera was now wheeled toward him and he wearily lighted another cigarette. "Get a flash of this chap," Henshaw was saying. The subject leaned forward in his chair, gazing with cynical eyes at the fevered throng. Wine, women, song, all had palled. Gambling had no charm--he looked with disrelish at the cigarette he had but just lighted.
"All right, Paul, that's good. Now get that bunch over at the crap table."Merton Gill lost no time in relinquishing his cigarette. He dropped it into the wine glass which became a symbol of Broadway's dead-sea fruit. Thereafter he smoked only when he was in the picture. He felt that he was becoming screen wise. And Henshaw had remembered him.
The cast of The Blight of Broadway might not be jewelled with his name, but his work would stand out. He had given the best that was in him.
He watched the entrance of Muriel Mercer, maddest of all the mad throng, accompanied by the two young men and the girl who was not so beautiful. He watched her lose steadily, and saw her string of pearls saved by the elderly scoundrel who had long watched the beautiful girl as only the Wolf of Wall Street could watch one so fair. He saw her leave upon his arm, perhaps for further unwholesome adventure along Broadway. The lights were out, the revelry done.
Merton Gill beyond a doubt preferred Western stuff, some heart-gripping tale of the open spaces, or perhaps of the frozen north, where he could be the hard-riding, straight-shooting, two-fisted wonder-man, and not have to smoke so many cigarettes--only one now and then, which he would roll himself and toss away after a few puffs. Still, he had shown above the mob of extra people, he thought. Henshaw had noticed him. He was coming on.
The Montague girl hailed him as he left the set. "Hullo, old trouper. I caught you actin' again to-day, right out before the white folks. Well, so far so good. But say, I'm glad all that roulette and stuff was for the up-and-down stage and not on the level. I'd certainly have lost everything but my make-up. So long, Kid!" She danced off to join a group of other women who were leaving. He felt a kindly pity for the child. There could be little future in this difficult art for one who took it so lightly; who talked so frankly to strangers without being introduced.
At luncheon in the cafeteria he waited a long time in the hope of encountering Henshaw, who would perhaps command his further services in the cause of creative screen art. He meant to be animated at this meeting, to show the director that he could be something more than an actor who had probed the shams of Broadway. But he lingered in vain. He thought Henshaw would perhaps be doing without food in order to work on the scenario for Robinson Crusoe, Junior.
He again stopped to thank his friend, the casting director, for securing him his first chance. She accepted his thanks smilingly, and asked him to drop around often. "Mind, you don't forget our number," she said.
He was on the point of making her understand once for all that he would not forget the number, that he would never forget Gashwiler's address, that he had been coming to this studio too often to forget its location. But someone engaged her at the window, so he was obliged to go on without enlightening the woman. She seemed to be curiously dense.
