My capital was nearly gone. I had been with Crampton over a week, and there seemed to be little chance of getting work. Barton had taken a couple of my drawings over to Judge, but there was nothing doing. It looked as if I would have to start checking freight again. One day I passed a laundry on Columbus Avenue. In the window was a sign: ARTIST WANTED. I presented myself. They needed a series of six drawings for a prospectus, to demonstrate the advantages of this laundry over other laundries. One of these drawings was to represent a Chinese Laundryman squirting water out of his mouth over a shirt. Fifty cents a drawing was the price offered. I stuck out for a dollar. We compromised at four dollars for the set. Benton had drawing materials he had borrowed from Barton to illustrate a book by Nathan, Menken and Wright: Europe After 8:15. I made use of them and collected the four dollars.
Although I left Crampton's studio early in the morning and came back late at night I felt I was beginning to outstay my welcome. When I got the $4. Benton said:
"Why don't you share my studio? The rent is only eleven bucks a month. Give me the four bucks now and you'll only owe me $1.50 at the end of the month."
"Where do you think I'm going to sleep?" I said.
"There's a mattress under my couch that Betts used before I threw him out," said Benton.
We dragged it into the light. A pretty moth eaten affair it was, with the stuffing coming out of it. Of course there were no sheets or blankets. But it was summer. I paid over the $4. and then went to fetch my suitcase from Crampton's studio.
I woke up the next morning with big white welts all over my body. I thought they were mosquito bites until I spotted a couple of bedbugs crawling up the wall. I was furious and wanted to move out at once. But Benton swore he had spent the $4.
"Funny, they never bother me," he said.
We hauled the mattress out in the hall and left it there. I spent the rest of the morning searching for bedbugs and found two more. I squashed them against the wall. They were full of my blood."Where the hell am I going to sleep tonight?" I said.
Miss Atwell came in later on and I showed her the dead bedbugs.
"What I want to know is where I'm going to sleep tonight," I said.
"Ralph has a spare mattress," she said, "I'll go and ask him for it."
She came back later and said it was all right with Barton. I only had to go and fetch the mattress. She had a girl with her who was posing for an illustrator in the building, Graham Coots. She said he was looking for a model of my type and asked me if I wanted to come around with her and see him.
Mr. Coots had four illustrations to make, and he offered me 50 cents an hour. I accepted gladly. The job netted me six dollars. I gave Benton $1.50, but at the end of the week I had to lend him $4. to pay the rent, or both of us would have followed the mattress out in the hall. I got more work from another illustrator, who drew from photographs, but it paid much less as he could make about ten photos in one morning of the girl and me. She was a sweet darkeyed kid with fair hair and a beautiful figure. She had a certain gentleness that made me think of Daisy, and a way of looking at you like Daisy, too, though the only actual resemblance was the color of her hair. We got to like each other; and when there was no more work for me she would bring fruit or a box of sardines to the studio. She worked steadily and always had a little money.
An accident happened to Ralph Barton. He was working on a centerpage for Puck and the floor of his studio gave way and he and his chair nearly fell through into Robert Chandler's studio below. Miss Atwell came to Benton's studio for help and I followed her back. Fortunately, the legs of the chair were caught in the rafters and we got Barton back in his studio with a lot of ink and plaster on him, and a nosebleed. He made the people who owned the Arcade buy him a new suit and give him a bigger studio to hush the matter up.
That night I was waked by a loud and persistent noise. I went out in the corridor and there were a couple of cops there and the Chinese herb doctor who lived on the other side of us and Madame Zaida from across the hall. The cops were pulling a colored man and woman from a door next to Madame Zaida that had a big sign on it: HIGH TABERNACLE of EXALTED ALL AMERICAN HOLY HOLIER and HOLIEST ROLLERS. The colored couple were glassy-eyed and foamy and making curious noises in their throats. When the police took them away I went back to bed. Benton was still snoring, though I had left our door open.
I had not heard from Newson for over a month, though I had written him giving him my address. One day he came to see us and saw Benton's stuff and liked it. He and Benton talked French part of the time. Newson was very thirsty and suggested buying a drink. The suggestion was approved at once, and Benton and I filled up on free lunch. While we ate Benton gave Newson an earful of El Grecco and Cezanne and proposed painting his portrait for $10. After some deliberation Newson accepted—Benton having convinced him that the picture would be worth a great deal in a few years time. I told Newson I had not heard from the Edison people about my stories so I supposed they were no good. He said he would ring up Charlie Edison that night and give me the dope when he came to pose for Benton the next day. Before Newson left Benton got an advance of $3. from him to buy canvas and paint. In the morning Newson said Charlie thought the best thing for me to do was run up and see Sumner Williams. So I got on an uptown subway and went to the Bronx.
I had just asked for Sumner at the studio when a young man with kinky fair hair and a loud businesslike manner, carrying a board with a lot of papers clipped to it, came out followed by a white-haired man with a turned-up nose and swarthy complexion. There were a lot of people sitting around waiting for jobs. When these two came out everyone sat up straight, eagerness in their faces.
"Who knows how to play golf?" bawled the young man with kinky hair, though the waiting-room was small.
A man with an old-fashioned overcoat, long hair and a red nose stood up.
"You play golf?" asked the swarthy white-haired man.
"For twenty years," said the red nosed man, "—for twenty years I supported the late Richard Mansfield. I have toured the United States with Southern and Marlowe. I played Laertes with Robert Mantell and—"
"Did you play golf with him?" shouted the young man with kinky hair.
"No, sir, but I judged this a fitting opportunity—"
"Get the hell out of here," shouted the young man with kinky hair.
"This is your fault, Sol," said the swarthy man. "I told you last night I needed a professional for the scene where Eddie learns to play golf."
"Well I thought—"
"All you do is think," snapped the swarthy man. "Fine way to run the casting office. Whole morning lost and every one made up and ready to go."
"For the love of Mike," groaned Sol, "ain't there anyone here plays golf?"
I did not know much about golf myself, but I came forward and said that while I was not a professional, I had won a few cups. And if I could help out I would be glad to do so on account of my friend, Mr. Charles Edison.
"Jesus, great!" shouted Sol. "What's your name?"
I gave it and he scribbled something on a slip and handed it to me. I read after my name. Mr. See. $5. S.H.
"Go and make up for Mr. See right away," he said.
"He don't need no makeup," said swarthy Mr. See. "He'll do as he is. Come on, get my people in the cars."
A rotund stage Irishman with several inches of upper lip appeared in a small hat and a check suit.
"Eddie," said Mr. See, "here's the guy's going to teach you golf."
In a few minutes I was on the way to the golf course jammed into a crowded car between Eddie O'Connor and the juvenile leading man, Arthur Housman.
Things started off well. I had the luck to get in a fine drive to begin with, which kept my bluff from being called. I rehearsed the scene with Eddie O'Connor where I showed him how to hold his driver and drive. The next thing he had to do was miss the ball, which he had no difficulty in doing, and take a slapstick fall. Then he had to dig a hole in the ground a foot or two from the tee. A few more antics and he got down on his knees to it. By the time the scene had been photographed it was nearly two o'clock, and as Mr. See and Eddie O'Connor felt hungry, we all went to lunch at a nearby roadhouse. After some hesitation I ordered a steak and mashed potatoes and nobody objected and I felt much better after it. Free lunch gets monotonous as a steady diet. When we got back to the studio I saw the fair kinky haired Sol, and he persuaded the cashier to give me $5. for the work slip he had slipped me before we started off.
"Kid, you sure saved my life," he said. "I clean forgot about that golfer. Old Charlie See near had me bughouse. Any time you want to work, you only got to let me know."
I thanked him and went up to see Sumner Williams on the top floor. Sumner said:
"One of our directors, Mr. Ridgely, likes that Cuban story you sent in, Family Honor, but there appears to be a scene that bothers him—a girl falling off a horse or something. Why don't you go down and have a talk with him? He's on the set."
I went downstairs to the studio and Mr. Ridgely was directing a very dramatic scene in a film version of the popular Milton Hayes poem, The Green Eye of the Yellow God. The setting was the veranda of a bungalow in India and Charles Ogle was staggering about in a green uniform with a lot of gold braid on it, and white trousers and a pith helmet, clutching at his throat. Miss Sawyer, the leading lady, was watching him, clutching at hers, and they were surrounded by some people in evening dress and others that looked like crystal gazers. When the scene was finished I went up to Mr. Ridgely and told him I was the author of Family Honor and knew Charlie Edison, and Sumner Williams had sent me to see him. Mr. Ridgely was very pleasant and told me my story would make a suitable vehicle for Charles Ogle and Mabel Trunelle. But there was the question of the heroine being shot off a galloping horse in the last sequence, which was very dangerous. If it were not for that, Mr. Plimpton, the manager, and Mr. Preston Kendall, the head of the scenario department, were prepared to take Family Honor and pay $25. for it, Mr. Ridgely said. I explained that the heroine did not have to make the fall herself, as when the shooting took place she was carrying the dispatch through the enemy lines disguised as her young brother who had shown the white feather at the last moment.
"Well," said Mr. Ridgely, "all depends on finding a suitable double."
When I asked how much they paid doubles Mr. Ridgely said the same as every other extra:—$5. I said when a person risked his life falling off a galloping horse down a cliff he should get more than an ordinary extra. Mr. Ridgely said the insurance took care of that. I thought for a while and then said if it was $10. I would take the fall myself in a minute, but no one could be expected to risk his life for $5.
"Oh, you ride, do you?" he said.
"This is a matter of falling off, so it doesn't really matter whether I do or not, but I do," I said.
"Well, look here. I'll make a deal with you," he said. "We'll shoot the last sequence first. Tomorrow you can get the uniform and the cape. We'll go out with the cameraman, pick the location, and shoot the scene. If it turns out all right I'll give you $10.00 for the fall, and my next production will be Family Honor. I think that's fair enough."
We rented what appeared to be a Cuban uniform, and a cape, and then went off to find a place to make the scene. We passed some impressive looking rocks a few miles from the studio that Mr. Ridgely thought would be splendid to fall onto. After observing them carefully I said they were fine, but there were no rocks in Cuba. Mr. Ridgely said:
"Oh, indeed, I thought Morro Castle was built on a rock."
"On the coast there are rocks, of course," I said quickly— never having been there— but there are none in the interior where the scene is laid."
Mr. Ridgely said he had forgotten that, and our details must be kept straight. After a while we came to a high cliff that skirted a disused gravel pit. I noticed that it was a sand cliff and pointed to it and said: "Cuba!"
So we stopped the car and got out. We climbed up the cliff, and it looked a lot steeper from above than from below, but at least it was better than the rocks, and there was room enough for a horse to gallop around on the top of it. The cameraman said the light would be all right between three and five. When we got back after lunch he was already there, and some scraggly palms were stuck in the ground in front of the camera to give the Cuban atmosphere. I tried the horse out and then Mr. Ridgely gave me the signals: a whistle to start, and when the property man fired off a gun I was to throw up my arms and fall off the galloping horse, down the cliff. I felt a bit worried and said I would like to try the horse out a few more times on the top of the cliff, which was quite all right with everyone, so I rode the horse around it a few times to get him used to it. Then I put him at a gallop and Mr. Ridgely called up through the megaphone to ask if I was ready. I did not like the looks of the cliff, but I kept thinking how much better it was to fall over than the rocks, and $25. + $10. I unbuckled the stirrup leather next to the precipice and held the strap in my hand. When the whistle blew I started the horse at a gallop leaning all my weight in that stirrup intending to let go of the leather the minute they fired the shot so that the fall would look natural, and not as if I was throwing myself off. But when they fired the horse swerved, reared and dumped me right over the cliff, and I came near breaking my neck on the way down.
"Why didn't you throw up your hands? cried Mr. Ridgely when I got back. "Otherwise it was perfect!"
By the time they ran the rushes the next day my neck was leaning all to one side because it had been wrenched coming down the cliff. But on the screen the fall looked very realistic, which was the main thing—though for a week after that I was kept busy picking gravel out of myself.
Mr. Ridgely was scheduled to start production in two weeks. He agreed to give me a small part that would carry me through the picture and pay me $5. a day provided I worked on the scenario with him, which meant another $30.... Prosperity was beckoning me.