"We both got to be patient," he pointed out. "We can't succeed all
at once, just remember that."

"Oh, I'm patient, and I'm determined; and I know you are, too,
Merton. But the way my things keep coming back--well, I guess we'd
both get discouraged if it wasn't for our sense of humour."

"I bet we would," agreed Merton. "And good-night!"

He went on to the Gashwiler Emporium and let himself into the dark
store. At the moment he was bewailing that the next installment of
The Hazards of Hortense would be shown on a Saturday night, for on
those nights the store kept open until nine and he could see it but
once. On a Tuesday night he would have watched it twice, in spite of
the so-called comedy unjustly sharing the bill with it.

Lighting a match, he made his way through the silent store, through
the stock room that had so lately been the foul lair of Snake le
Vasquez, and into his own personal domain, a square partitioned off
from the stockroom in which were his cot, the table at which he
studied the art of screen acting, and his other little belongings.
He often called this his den. He lighted a lamp on the table and
drew the chair up to it.

On the boards of the partition in front of him were pasted many
presentments of his favourite screen actress, Beulah Baxter, as she
underwent the nerve-racking Hazards of Hortense. The intrepid girl
was seen leaping from the seat of her high-powered car to the cab of
a passing locomotive, her chagrined pursuers in the distant