and around this old guy who's pretty good
company in spite of his faults. But just now she got a shock at
remembering the horrible sights she has seen; she can't get it out
of her mind. And pretty soon she'll see this other gentleman that she
nearly fell in love with, the one who hangs around these tenements doing
good--he'll be over at one of them tables and she'll leave her party and
go over to his table and say, 'Take me from this heartless Broadway to
your tenements where I can relieve their suffering,' so she goes out and
gets in a taxi with him, leaving the old guy with not a thing to do
but pay the check. Of course he's mad, and he follows her down to
the tenements where she's relieving the poor--just in a plain black
dress--and she finds out he's the real father of this little friend of
mine's child, and tells him to go back to Broadway while she has chosen
the better part and must live her life with these real people. But
he sends her a note that's supposed to be from a poor woman dying of
something, to come and bring her some medicine, and she goes off alone
to this dive in another street, and it's the old guy himself who has
sent the note, and he has her there in this cellar in his power. But the
other gentleman has found the note and has follered her, and breaks in
the door and puts up a swell fight with the old guy and some toughs he
has hired, and gets her off safe and sound, and so they're married and
live the real life far away from the blight of Broadway. It's a swell
story, all right, but Mercer can't act it. This little friend of mine
can act all around her. She'd be a star if only she was better lookin'.
You bet Mercer don't allow any lookers on the same set with her. Do you
make that one at the table with her now? Just got looks enough to
show Mercer off. Mercer's swell-lookin', I'll give her that, but for
actin'--say, all they need in a piece for her is just some stuff to go
in between her close-ups. Don't make much difference what it is. Oh,
look! There comes the dancers. It's Luzon and Mario."

Merton Gill looked. These would be hired dancers to entertain the
pleasure-mad throng, a young girl with vine leaves in her hair and a
dark young man of barbaric appearance. The girl was clad in a mere whisp
of a girdle and shining breast plates, while the man was arrayed chiefly
in a coating of dark stain. They swirled over the dance floor to the
broken rhythm of the orchestra, now clinging, now apart, wor