Like the Montague girl, Baird was chiefly impressed with the Westerns. He looked a long time at them, especially at the one where Merton’s face was emotionally averted from his old pal, Pinto, at the moment of farewell. Regarding Baird, as he stood holding this art study up to the light, Merton became aware for the first time that Baird suffered from some nervous affliction, a peculiar twitching of the lips, a trembling of the chin, which he had sometimes observed in senile persons. All at once Baird seemed quite overcome by this infirmity. He put a handkerchief to his face and uttered a muffled excuse as he hastily left the room. Outside, the noise of his heavy tread died swiftly away down the hall. The Montague girl remained at the desk. There was a strange light in her eyes and her face was still flushed. She shot a glance of encouragement at Merton. “Don’t be nervous, old Kid; he likes ‘em all right.” He reassured her lightly: “Oh, I’m not a bit nervous about him. It ain’t as if he was doing something worth while, instead of mere comedies.” The girl’s colour seemed to heighten. “You be sure to tell him that; talk right up to him. Be sure to say ‘mere comedies.’ It’ll show him you know what’s what. And as a matter of fact, Kid, he’s trying to do something worth while, right this minute, something serious. That’s why he’s so interested in you.” “Well, of course, that’s different.” He was glad to learn this of Baird. He would take the man seriously if he tried to be serious, to do something fine and distinctive. Baird here returned, looking grave. The Montague girl seemed more strangely intense. She beckoned the manager to her side. “Now, here, Jeff, here was something I just naturally had to laugh at.” Baird had not wholly conquered those facial spasms, but he controlled himself to say, “Show me!” “Now, Merton,” directed the girl, “take that same pose again, like you did for me, the way you are in this picture.” As Merton adjusted himself to the Parmalee pose she handed the picture to Baird. “Now, Jeff, I ask you--ain’t that Harold to the life--ain’t it so near him that you just have to laugh your head off?” It was even so. Baird and the girl both laughed convulsively, the former with rumbling chuckles that shook his frame. When he had again composed himself he said, “Well, Mr. Gill, I think you and I can do a little business. I don’t know what your idea about a contract is, but--” Merton Gill quickly interrupted. “Well, you see I’d hardly like to sign a contract with you, not for those mere comedies you do. I’ll do anything to earn a little money right now so I can pay back this young lady, but I wouldn’t like to go on playing in such things, with cross-eyed people and waiters on roller skates, and all that. What I really would like to do is something fine and worth while, but not clowning in mere Buckeye comedies.”