out the numbers of those motion-picture companies which he did not
remember readily. Then, beginning at the first number on his hastily
compiled list, he woke five different managers out of their precious
eight-o'clock sleep to answer his questions.

Whatever they may have thought of Luck Lindsay just then, they replied
politely, and did not tell him offhand that there was no possible opening
for him in their companies. Three of them made appointments with him at
their offices. One promised to call him up just as soon as he "had a line
on anything." One said that, with the rainy weather coming on, they were
cutting down to straight studio stuff, but that he would keep Luck in
mind if anything turned up.

Then I suppose the whole five called him names behind his back,
figuratively speaking, for being such an early riser on such a day. Not
one of them asked him any questions about his reasons for leaving the
Acme; reasons, in the motion-picture business, are generally invented
upon demand and have but a fictitious value at best. And since it is
never a matter of surprise when any director or any member of any company
decides to try a new field, it would seem that change is one of the most
unchanging features of the business.

Luck had no qualms of conscience, either for his treatment of Martinson
and his overtures, or for his disturbances of five other perfectly
inoffensive movie managers. He dressed with mechanical precision and with
his mind shuttling back and forth from his Big Picture to the
possibilities of his next position. He folded his scenario and placed it
in a long envelope, hunted until he found his rubbers, took his raincoat
over his arm and his umbrella in his hand, and went blithely to the
elevator. It was too stormy for his machine, so he caught a street car