The Mighty Gristmille gave her no time to recover but plunged right ahead with his ethological processes concerning herself.

“The story of this picture which I am about to make in order that it may ring down the ages is soul-grasping and spirit stirring,” said the director to Verbeena in a greatly animated manner, “and that’s all you need to know about it in order to know about what you are doing. In fact, there’s no particular reason that you should know what you are doing. But,” he grasped her chin sharply and threw her head back with an artistic touch that jarred her teeth, “it is important that you do what I say. And don’t you try to do anything else unless you are ambitious to end your life as a canned chicken.”

“But——” stammered Verbeena who was beginning to suspect deep down after all she perhaps was really a girl.

“But nothing—and throw away that cigarette butt too. I’m not against cigarettes. All heroes and vamps smoke yards of ’em on orders. But in this scene you’re a sweet thing—just a sweet thing—though God knows if I’ll be able to prove it to the camera eye or anybody else.

“Here—take this rose—smell it.”

“It doesn’t smell at all,” said Verbeena.

“They don’t when made of paper,” said the great Gristmille. And for some reason she saw that he suddenly gently smiled. He regarded Verbeena with a new light in his eye—one nearly of approval. “Just about the right intelligence,” he was murmuring to himself, “out of which to mold a great star. I’ll show Dave Belasco where he stands yet.”

But his terrifying eyes blazed anew at Verbeena Mayonnaise.

“Now—here don’t hold that flower like it was a flagpole in a Suffragette parade! Turn your wrist a bit, give a flaunting yet a timorous grace to it and now you step over—lots of hip work-hip-hip-hippy—O, for God’s sake, hippy! The boyish beauty’s off the map in the scene—hip work now—hip work—rotten—rotten—rotten—hip work, hip, hip, hippy—and you give the flower to our hero.”

“Why am I giving him the flower?”

“None of your damned business! Give it to him—that’s all you have to do. I’m doing all the knowing why for this outfit.

“Heaven save the day, I didn’t tell you to hit him with it! Give it to him—timidly—timidly—you are afraid of him.”

There was just a flash of the old dear, boyish Verbeena.

“I don’t care who he is, I’m not afraid of him,” she declared stoutly.

“Is that so?” said the director severely. “But remember you are afraid of me! And don’t try to tell me you are not!”

“I——”

“Don’t ever open your mouth like that when speaking! You are a heroine—not a walrus! Now then—the tender scene—giving the flower to Rinaldo—shush, I didn’t mean to let that much out as to the story but—well, you might as well know right now that the hero is Rinaldo Ringrose—that’s Mr. Arbuckle’s name in the picture.

“Now then, advance—hip, hip, hip—that’s better—a little better—except that you still look like a boy in skirts, one of those damn pretty ones and a damn silly one at that.”

Verbeena gasped. Through her thick lashes she regarded this man of the gyratory wealth of gestures whose dominating spirit it was manifest was to be seen. She feared—began to fear—almost started to be afraid that the Verbeena of old was dead or nearly corpsical. Her old doughty self, she grovelingly began to consider, was starting to decline. Her fighting stamina she felt would soon be selling for date seeds on the Sahara Exchange.

And yet how noble he was!

His manner of using a cigarette case was so much more graceful than her own.

And he seemed to know everything. Certainly he thought he did.

And all his men gave him such blind obedience. He had a trick of flashing the sun in their eyes from his cigarette case that probably caused them to do this, she deducted.

Two days passed before he finally decided she had given the hero the rose properly. That, doubtless, was why they used artificial roses. A real one couldn’t last out a rehearsal.

But somehow, in the depths of her harrowed, deeply embittered, astonished young soul, she was humbly glad that at last she had given the hero the rose properly.

“That’s that,” said the High Mandarin of the Movies, “and although worse than bad eggs, in other things you may stand a chance of realizing my genius for me in the soul-stirring, magnificent, marvelous, magnitudinous work of art I am on the brink of creating. Come—come—a little loud and prolonged applause—everybody please. I thank you.

“The next scene will call for you saying a tender farewell—keep remembering your sex, madame—with your lover under a tree. An apple tree in full bloom.”

“There aren’t apple trees on the desert,” Verbeena with simply idiotic indiscretion observed.

The director flung his hat on the sand, kicked it in the air, ran around the desert on all fours for a mile, then arose majestically.

“How dare you! Can’t you see that under one of those tall palm trees the shadows wouldn’t fall right on the picture? No blossoming apple trees on the desert, eh? I guess you don’t know me! Billy, an apple tree, full blossom!”

The man addressed obeyed swiftly. In a jiffy he had brought one from the property aeroplane and raised it in place.

“O, Good Lord,” again and again reverberated in the ears of Verbeena, “you squint so with that snub-nosed face of yours! You—gently—gently, gently into his arms. You’re not wrestling him—you’re loving him—you—not that sidelong glance—a big look into his eyes and now then—remember although we’ve only begun here, this is the end of the picture—the final close-up—now, extend lips in full, both—stick ’em way out—that’s it—now then, kiss—kiss—hold that—hold it—kiss, kiss, kiiiiiiiisssssssssss!”

“You know nothing of kissing! Nothing! And you’re supposed to have had Oriental training too! Here—come here—like THIS! Kiss—kiss—LIKE THIS!!”

A gleam of anger shot into Verbeena’s tired eyes but she was powerless. The compelling [Pg 142]
[Pg 143]quality of this terrible creature, the force with which he held her, the exultant, horrible, heavy, hot, and, she could feel, relentless, half savagely cruel, indifferent way he was doing it to her!

She dropped to her knees at the end of it begging for mercy.

He laughed at her coldly.

“You must get the idea of it—the sooner the better,” he said with a hauteur that made her cringe back into her old caterpillar crouch.

“Now the next scene—and we must hurry up or the light will be bad—is where you are shot out of the top of a palm tree by your lover in mistake for a squirrel.

“Come now—action—Cameras!—Cameras train on that palm tree over there. The tallest one, of course. Remember, Mrs. Amut, you fall dead—a dead fall—right straight out of the tree on your face. What’s that? Dangerous? Nonsense! And what if it is? What do you suppose we are paying you for? What’s a cracked nose for art’s sake! No more nonsense, no more words—up you go!”

Verbeena climbed.

Sometime later on being restored to consciousness wherein she knew what was going on around her, she heard the great Gristmille saying:

“Very well, hop up there, leading woman! All ready for the next scene.”

“What—what is it?” faltered Verbeena.

“How dare you ask questions? Your instructions will all come in due time. And now’s the time!

“In the next scene you fall from your horse—you’re shot or something, perhaps struck in the back with a lance—I haven’t quite made up my mind—and then you will be run over by a herd of wild Arabian horses with Mr. Arbuckle pursuing in the hope of rescue borne by eleven camels, one for the hope and ten for Mr. Arbuckle.

“Come now—quick—and remember you are not to look frightened as the horses—about two thousand of them—rush over you. As a heroine you are calm-eyed in the face of certain death. If you do we’ll have to keep repeating the scene and I don’t want to give too much time to it.

“Come on now—there must be no delay—the horses are ready—at great expense—they are ready and now—hey, Billy, Jim, Grady, Bert—quick—how dare she!—quick—catch that girl!”

But Verbeena’s early education when she used to beat all the Harrow boys at sprinting served her well.

She covered the three miles back to her own Oasis leaving all pursuers in the ruck. Time 42-1/2 seconds, but record not official.