ays."

"Thank you, Mr. Gashwiler."

No. 4 was made to stop at Simsbury for a young man who was presently
commanding a meal in the palatial diner, and who had, before this meal
was eaten, looked out with compassion upon two Simsbury-like hamlets
that the train rushed by, a blur of small-towners standing on their
depot platforms to envy the inmates of that splendid structure.

At last it was Western Stuff and no fooling.

CHAPTER IV. THE WATCHER AT THE GATE

The street leading to the Holden motion-picture studio, considered by
itself, lacks beauty. Flanking it for most of the way from the boulevard
to the studio gate are vacant lots labelled with their prices and
appeals to the passer to buy them. Still their prices are high enough
to mark the thoroughfare as one out of the common, and it is further
distinguished by two rows of lofty eucalyptus trees. These have a real
feathery beauty, and are perhaps a factor in the seemingly exorbitant
prices demanded for the choice bungalow and home sites they shade. Save
for a casual pioneer bungalow or two, there are no buildings to attract
the notice until one reaches a high fence that marks the beginning of
the Holden lot. Back of this fence is secreted a microcosmos, a world in
little, where one may encounter strange races of people in their native
dress and behold, by walking a block, cities actually apart by league
upon league of the earth's surface and separated by centuries of time.

To penetrate this city of many cities, and this actual present of the
remote past, one must be of a certain inner elect. Hardly may one enter
by assuming the disguise of a native, as daring explorers have sometimes
overcome the difficulty of entering other strange cities. Its gate,
reached after passing along an impressive expanse of the reticent fence,
is watched by a guardian. He is a stoatish man of middle age, not neatly
dressed, and of forbidding aspect. His face is ruthless, with a very
knowing cynicism. He is there, it would seem, chiefly to keep people out
of the delightful city, though from time to time he will bow an assent
or wave it with the hand clutching his evening newspaper to one of the
favoured lawful inmates, who will then carelessly saunter or drive an
expensive motor car through the difficult portal.

Standing across the street, one may peer through this portal into
an avenue of the forbidden city. There is an exciting glimpse of
greensward, flowering shrubbery,