called
anything but the absurd and undignified "Flips." She caught the question
he had looked.

"Well, my honest-to-God name is Sarah Nevada Montague; Sarah for Ma
and Nevada for Reno where Ma had to stop off for me--she was out of the
company two weeks--and if you ever tell a soul I'll have the law on you.
That was a fine way to abuse a helpless baby, wasn't it?"

"But Sarah is all right. I like Sarah."

"Do you, Kid?" She patted his hand. "All right, then, but it's only for
your personal use."

"Of course the Nevada--" he hesitated. "It does sound kind of like a
geography lesson or something. But I think I'll call you Sarah, I mean
when we're alone." "Well, that's more than Ma ever does, and you bet
it'll never get into my press notices. But go ahead if you want to."

"I will, Sarah. It sounds more like a true woman than 'Flips.'"

"Bless the child's heart," she murmured, and reached across the lunch
box to pat his hand again.

"You're a great little patter, Sarah," he observed with one of his
infrequent attempts at humour.

On still another day, while they idled between scenes, she talked to him
about salaries and contracts, again with her important air of mothering
him.

"After this picture," she told him, "Jeff was going to sew you up with
a long-time contract, probably at a hundred and fifty per. But I've
told him plain I won't stand for it. No five-year contract, and not any
contract at that figure. Maybe three years at two hundred and fifty, I
haven't decided yet. I'll wait and see--" she broke off to regard him
with that old puzzling light far back in her eyes--"wait and see how you
get over in these two pieces."

"But I know you'll go big, and so does Jeff. We've caught you in the
rushes enough to know that. And Jeff's a good fellow, but naturally
he'll get you for as little as he can. He knows all about money even
if he don't keep Yom Kippur. So I'm watching over you, son--I'm your
manager, see? And I've told him so, plain. He knows he'll have to give
you just what you're worth. Of course he's entitled to consideration for
digging you up and developing you, but a three-year contract will pay
him out for that. Trust mother."

"I do," he told her. "I'd be helpless without you. It kind of scares me
to think of getting all that money. I won't know what to do with it."

"I will; you always listen to me, and you won't be camping on the lot
any more. And don't shoot dice with these rough-necks on the