Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Fiction; Motion picture industry -- Fiction
“Merton Gill, what in the sacred name of Time are you meanin’ to do
with that dummy? For the good land’s sake! Have you gone plumb crazy, or
what? Put that thing down!”
The newcomer was a portly man of middle age dressed in ill-fitting
black. His gray hair grew low upon his brow and he wore a parted beard.
The conqueror of Snake le Vasquez was still frozen, though he had
instantly ceased to be Buck Benson, the strong, silent, two-gun man of
the open spaces. The irritated voice came again:
“Put that dummy down, you idiot! What you think you’re doin’, anyway?
And say, what you got that other one in here for, when it ought to be
out front of the store showin’ that new line of gingham house frocks?
Put that down and handle it careful! Mebbe you think I got them things
down from Chicago just for you to play horse with. Not so! Not so at
all! They’re to help show off goods, and that’s what I want ‘em doin’
right now. And for Time’s sake, what’s that revolver lyin’ on the floor
for? Is it loaded? Say, are you really out of your senses, or ain’t you?
What’s got into you lately? Will you tell me that? Skyhootin’ around
in here, leavin’ the front of the store unpertected for an hour or two,
like your time was your own. And don’t tell me you only been foolin’ in
here for three minutes, either, because when I come back from lunch just
now there was Mis’ Leffingwell up at the notions counter wanting some
hooks and eyes, and she tells me she’s waited there a good thutty
minutes if she’s waited one. Nice goin’s on, I must say, for a boy
drawin’ down the money you be! Now you git busy! Take that one with the
gingham frock out and stand her in front where she belongs, and then put
one them new raincoats on the other and stand him out where he belongs,
and then look after a few customers. I declare, sometimes I git clean
out of patience with you! Now, for gosh’s sake, stir your stumps!”
“Oh, all right--yes, sir,” replied Merton Gill, though but half
respectfully. The “Oh, all right” had been tainted with a trace of
sullenness. He was tired of this continual nagging and fussing over
small matters; some day he would tell the old grouch so.
And now, gone the vivid tale of the great out-of-doors, the wide plains
of the West, the clash of primitive-hearted men for a good woman’s love.
Gone, perhaps, the greatest heart picture of a generation, the picture
at which you laugh with a lump in your throat and smile with a tear in
your eye, the story of plausible punches, a big, vital theme masterfully
handled--thrills, action, beauty, excitement--carried to a sensational
finish by the genius of that sterling star of the shadowed world,
Clifford Armytage--once known as Merton Gill in the little hamlet of
Simsbury, Illinois, where for a time, ere yet he was called to screen
triumphs, he served as a humble clerk in the so-called emporium of Amos
G. Gashwiler--Everything For The Home. Our Prices Always Right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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