Married life was a change for my wife and for me, neither of us having been married before. For a month or so all went well, then we had to move out of the bungalow on account of ants. We took another, larger, bungalow further down the road, and the Japanese brought his little doll of a wife along as maid.
There was a Galway Irishman, the semitic type, black haired, swarthy complexioned, with the end of the nose drooping a little over the upper lip like Mezzim's—a throw-back to Mylesian or Phoenecian days—working extra at Universal City. He was from Galway. A Claddah wedding ring with the clasped bands on it which he always wore proved his origin if his accent meant nothing to you. Padric, which is how he spelled his name, and I often spoke of the west of Ireland. I told him of my great-uncle John Lambert.
"A great horseman they tell me he was," he said, "but faith, it's more than riding horses we'll be doing before the year is out."
"For what reason?" I asked.
"Another bid for freedom," he said. "I'm going back.... Want to come along with me?...Come on," he urged. "We're going to run all the English into the sea, and even if we don't, we'll have a fine time, for we have Grafton Street mined, an' it's not the only one."
"I don't know," I said, intrigued, but determined not to weaken. "My father's in Ireland and if I get mixed up in any revolutions the English would be liable to plug him."
"Well," he said, "that's something to be considered."
"Another thing," I said. "The English have no call to be in Ireland, but I'd sooner have them there than the Germans."
"Well, now," he said, "would you like to donate something to the cause?"
"Sure," I said. "If it's to make Ireland a free country which she should be, by rights."
"Faith, that's all it is for," he said.
I gave him $50., and a few days later he left. From Dublin I got a letter from him in which he said stupendous days were ahead, but the cause needed funds. I sent him another $50. A few weeks later I heard from his sister. She said her brother had become a martyr, and my $50. had gone to give him a decent burial. All of which made me feel glad I had not weakened and gone with him.
Humpty Bill, whose natural deformity was more than made up for by the alertness of his mind, had become my closest friend. His instinct in regard to people was uncanny. He was the first to put me on my guard against some of those I had counted most upon at the studio, —including my assistant, and my cameraman. He had a habit of nudging me when people he was suspicious of passed, and touching his nose. Outside of looking after the Stutz and playing in my pictures his chief interest was aviation. He knew the names of all the allied and German aces, their records, the types of machines they flew and their motors. He had the temperament and the guts to have made a first-rate scout pilot, which is surely what he would have become had God given him a straight body. A friend of his had an aeroplane. Bill had been up with him many times and knew how to handle the controls. He brought me over to the flying field one day, but the wings of his friend's machine wobbled so much when they started revving up the motor that I decided to stay where I was. Bill, however, was not to be deterred by a little thing like that.
For some reason or other my wife had taken a violent dislike to Bill. I kept him away from her as much as I could. I often thought it was simply his deformity that repulsed her, for he could not have put himself out more than he did to anticipate her every wish. One evening she went to Los Angeles with some friends and I asked Bill over to the house for dinner. He was still there when she came back. She went straight into her bedroom and shut the door. When Bill had gone she came out.
"The next time that hunchback sets foot in this house I'll leave," she said, and burst into tears.
There was nothing for me to do but drop a hint to Bill who was quick on the uptake. I could see he was deeply hurt, but he just laughed and said nobody could ever tell what a woman had back of her mind.
Between the production department and myself things had practically come to an open break. My last picture, in spite of figure juggling on their part, had not run over the estimate. Nothing was said to me about another production, although I had eight months more to run on my contract, and was drawing $300. a week. I knew they were searching for a loophole in the contract. But they had been in such a hurry to sign me up they had not had time to put any trick clauses in it. Presently I understood the reason for this $300. a week lull: P.A. Powers was on his way to California. In answer to a rather emotional night letter he had wired me: 'Do nothing and say nothing till I get there. Leaving Sunday night'.