A BREACH IN THE CITY WALLS
During these weeks of waiting outside the gate the little woman beyond the window had continued to be friendly but not encouraging to the aspirant for screen honours late of Simsbury, Illinois. For three weeks had he waited faithfully, always within call, struggling and sacrificing to give the public something better and finer, and not once had he so much as crossed the line that led to his goal.
Then on a Monday morning he found the waiting-room empty and his friend beyond the window suffering the pangs of headache. "It gets me something fierce right through here," she confided to him, placing her finger-tips to her temples.
"Ever use Eezo Pain Wafers?" he demanded in quick sympathy. She looked at him hopefully.
"Never heard of 'em."
"Let me get you some."
"You dear thing, fly to it!"
He was gone while she reached for her purse, hurrying along the eucalyptus-lined street of choice home sites to the nearest drug store. He was fearing someone else might bring the little woman another remedy; even that her headache might go before he returned with his. But he found her still suffering.
"Here they are." He was breathless. "You take a couple now and a couple more in half an hour if the ache hasn't stopped." "Bless your heart! Come around inside." He was through the door and in the dimly lit little office behind that secretive partition. "And here's something else," he continued. "It's a menthol pencil and you take this cap off--see?--and rub your forehead with it. It'll be a help."She swallowed two of the magic wafers with the aid of water from the cooler, and applied the menthol.
"You're a dear," she said, patting his sleeve. "I feel better already. Sometimes these things come on me and stay all day." She was still applying the menthol to throbbing temples. "Say, don't you get tired hanging around outside there? How'd you like to go in and look around the lot? Would you like that?"Would he! "Thanks!" He managed it without choking, "If I wouldn't be in the way.""You won't. Go on--amuse yourself." The telephone rang. Still applying the menthol she held the receiver to her ear. "No, nothing to-day, dear. Say, Marie, did you ever take Eezo Pain Wafers for a headache? Keep 'em in mind--they're great. Yes, I'll let you know if anything breaks. Goo'-by, dear."Merton Gill hurried through a narrow corridor past offices where typewriters clicked and burst from gloom into the dazzling light of the Holden lot. He paused on the steps to reassure himself that the great adventure was genuine. There was the full stretch of greensward of which only an edge had shown as he looked through the gate. There were the vast yellow-brick, glass-topped structures of which he had seen but the ends. And there was the street up which he had looked for so many weeks, flanked by rows of offices and dressing rooms, and lively with the passing of many people. He drew a long breath and became calculating. He must see everything and see it methodically. He even went now along the asphalt walk to the corner of the office building from which he had issued for the privilege of looking back at the gate through which he had so often yearningly stared from across the street.
Now he was securely inside looking out. The watchman sat at the gate, bent low over his paper. There was, it seemed, more than one way to get by him. People might have headaches almost any time. He wondered if his friend the casting director were subject to them. He must carry a box of the Eezo wafers.
He strolled down the street between the rows of offices and the immense covered stages. Actors in costume entered two of these and through their open doors he could see into their shadowy interiors.
He would venture there later. Just now he wished to see the outside of things. He contrived a pace not too swift but business-like enough to convey the impression that he was rightfully walking this forbidden street. He seemed to be going some place where it was of the utmost importance that he should be, and yet to have started so early that there was no need for haste.
He sounded the far end of that long street visible from outside the gate, discovering its excitements to wane gently into mere blacksmith and carpenter shops. He retraced his steps, this time ignoring the long row of offices for the opposite line of stages.
From one dark interior came the slow, dulled strains of an orchestra and from another shots rang out. He met or passed strangely attired people, bandits, priests, choir boys, gentlemen in evening dress with blue-black eyebrows and careful hair. And he observed many beautiful young women, variously attired, hurrying to or from the stages. One lovely thing was in bridal dress of dazzling white, a veil of lace floating from her blonde head, her long train held up by a coloured maid. She chatted amiably, as she crossed the street, with an evil-looking Mexican in a silver-corded hat--a veritable Snake de Vasquez.
But the stages could wait. He must see more streets. Again reaching the office that had been his secret gateway to these delights, he turned to the right, still with the air of having business at a certain spot to which there was really no need for him to hurry.
There were fewer people this way, and presently, as if by magic carpet, he had left all that sunlight and glitter and cheerful noise and stood alone in the shadowy, narrow street of a frontier town.
