.
Knowing this was right, he counted again for the luxury of it. Two
hundred and forty-five obvious dollars!

How had he lost count? He tried to recall. He could remember taking
out the money he had paid Lowell Hardy for the last batch of Clifford
Armytage stills--for Lowell, although making professional rates to
Merton, still believed the artist to be worth his hire--and he could
remember taking some more out to send to the mail-order house in Chicago
for the cowboy things; but it was plain that he had twice, at least,
crowded a week's salary into the pouch and forgotten it.

It was a pleasurable experience; it was like finding thirty-three
dollars. And he was by that much nearer to his goal; that much sooner
would he be released from bondage; thirty-three dollars sooner could
he look Gashwiler in the eye and say what he thought of him and his
emporium. In his nightly prayer he did not neglect to render thanks for
this.

He dressed the next morning with a new elation. He must be more careful
about keeping tab on his money, but also it was wonderful to find more
than you expected. He left the storeroom that reeked of kerosene and
passed into the emporium to replace his treasure in its hiding place.
The big room was dusky behind the drawn front curtains, but all the
smells were there--the smell of ground coffee and spices at the grocery
counter, farther on, the smothering smell of prints and woolens and new
leather.

The dummies, waiting down by the door to be put outside, regarded each
other in blank solemnity. A few big flies droned lazily about their
still forms. Merton eyed the dusty floor, the gleaming counters, the
curtains that shielded the shelves, with a new disdain. Sooner than he
had thought he would bid them a last farewell. And to-day, at least, he
was free of them--free to be on the lot at two, to shoot Western stuff.
Let to-morrow, with its old round of degrading tasks, take care of
itself.

At 10:30 he was in church. He was not as attentive to the sermon as he
should have been, for it now occurred to him that he had no stills of
himself in the garb of a clergyman. This was worth considering, because
he was not going to be one of those one-part actors. He would have a
wide range of roles. He would be able to play anything. He wondered how
the Rev. Otto Carmichael would take the request for a brief loan of one
of his pulpit suits. Perhaps he was not so old as he looked; perhaps
he might remember that