s laughed at. The watcher's sympathy
went out to Baird, who must be seeing his serious effort taken too
lightly.

There came the scene where he looked at the photograph album. But
now his turning of the pages was interspersed with close-ups of the
portraits he regarded so admiringly. And these astonishingly proved
to be enlarged stills of Clifford Armytage, the art studies of Lowell
Hardy. It was puzzling. On the screen he capably beamed the fondest
admiration, almost reverent in its intensity--and there would appear
the still of Merton bidding an emotional farewell to his horse. The very
novelty of it held him for a moment--Gashwiler's Dexter actually on the
screen! He was aroused by the hearty laughter of an immense audience.

"It's Parmalee," announced a hoarse neighbour on his right. "He's
imitatin' Harold! Say, the kid's clever!"

The laughter continued during the album scene. He thought of Baird,
somewhere in that audience, suffering because his play was made fun of.
He wished he could remind him that scenes were to follow which would
surely not be taken lightly. For himself, he was feeling that at least
his strong likeness to Parmalee had been instantly admitted. They were
laughing, as the Montague girl had laughed that first morning, because
the resemblance was so striking. But now on the screen, after the
actor's long fond look at himself, came the words, "The Only Man He Ever
Loved."

Laughter again. The watcher felt himself grow hot. Had Baird been
betrayed by one of his staff?

The scene with the letters followed. Clothes baskets of letters. His
own work, as he opened a few from the top, was all that he could have
wished. He was finely Harold Parmalee, and again the hoarse neighbour
whispered, "Ain't he got Parmalee dead, though?"

"Poor, silly little girls!" the screen exclaimed, and the audience
became noisy. Undoubtedly it was a tribute to his perfection in the
Parmalee manner. But he was glad that now there would come acting at
which no one could laugh. There was the delicatessen shop, the earnest
young cashier and his poor old mother who mopped. He saw himself embrace
her and murmur words of encouragement, but incredibly there were giggles
from the audience, doubtless from base souls who were impervious to
pathos. The giggles coalesced to a general laugh when the poor old
mother, again mopping on the floor, was seen to say, "I hate these
mopping mothers. You get took with house-maid's knee in the