This Mr. Griffith did enjoy. He would draw his chair up center, and leisurely, and in a rather teasing way, look the company over. And when you were being looked at you thought, “Ah, it’s going to be me.” But in a few minutes some one else would be looked at. “No, it was going to be he.” A long look at Owen, a long look at Charlie, a long look at Arthur, and then the director would speak: “Arthur, I’ll try you first.” One by one, in the same way the company would be picked. There would be a few rough rehearsals; some one wouldn’t suit; the chief would decide the part was more in Owen’s line. Such nervousness until we got all set! Indeed, we put forth our best efforts. There was too much competition and no one had a cinch on a line of good parts. When we did “The Cricket on the Hearth,” Mr. Griffith rehearsed all his women in the part of _Dot_, Marion Leonard, Florence Lawrence, Violet Merserau, and then he was nice to me. Miss Merserau, however, portrayed _May Plummer_--making her movie début. Herbert Pryor played _John Perrybingle_, and Owen Moore, _Edward Plummer_. Sometimes after rehearsing a story all day our director would chuck it as “no good” and begin on another. He never used a script and he rehearsed in sequence the scenes of every story until each scene dovetailed smoothly, and the acting was O. K. He worked out his story using his actors as chessmen. He knew what he wanted and the camera never began to grind until every little detail satisfied him. There was some incentive for an actor to do his best. More was asked of us than to be just a “type,” and the women couldn’t get by with just “pretty looks.” We worked hard, but we liked it. With equal grace we all played leads one day and decorated the back drop the next. On a day when there would be no work whatever for you, you’d reluctantly depart. Sometimes Mr. Griffith almost had to drive the non-working actors out of the studio. The place was small and he needed room. Sometimes when rehearsing a picture he liked a lot, it would be as late as 3 P.M. before a fainting, lunchless lot of actors would hear those welcome words, “All right, everybody, get your lunches and make up.” Then Bobbie Harron would circulate the Childs’ menu card and the thirty-cent allotment would be checked off. Roast beef or a ham-and-egg sandwich, pie, tea, coffee, or milk usually nourished us. And it was a funny thing, that no matter how rich one was, or how one might have longed for something different, even might have been ill and needed something special, none of us ever dreamed of spending a nickel of his own.