nst Consuello's character.

Consuello called him one morning by telephone.

"Have you an hour or so to spare, today?" she asked.

"It all depends----" he began.

"I know you are a busy man," she said, "but I thought you would like to
see something interesting. It's a surprise I have been saving for you."

He had a premonition that she was about to give him the answer to his
mother's question.

"What is it?" he asked. She laughed before she replied:

"Oh, it would spoil it all to tell you now. Didn't you hear me say it
was a surprise? I want you to come out to an address I will give you if
you say you are able to get away from your office."

"When?"

"This afternoon, as close to two o'clock as you can make it."

"May I call you in a few minutes and give you my answer?" he asked. "You
see, I must have the permission of my city editor if I leave the office
except on newspaper business."

"I'll wait for your answer," she said.

P. Q. gruffly gave him permission to go off duty at one o'clock. He
hurried back to the telephone and told her that he would be able to see
her. She gave him an address in Hollywood.

"You will be stopped at the door," she told him, "but tell whoever stops
you that you are the gentleman I am expecting and there won't be any
further difficulty. I'll look for you at two, then."

When he reached the address she gave him, shortly before two o'clock,
John's first feeling was that he had misunderstood the directions she
had given him. Before him, inclosed by a high fence over the horizon of
which he could see the tops of queer structures, stood the rambling
studio of the Peerless Pictures, Inc., one of the largest motion picture
producing concerns in the capital of filmdom. At one side of a large
open gateway, near an oddly shaped sentry box, was a fat, red-faced man
tilted back in a kitchen chair.

The man was eyeing him as he approached the gateway.

"Hey, just a minute, son, where do you think you're going?" the man
shouted, turning his head to glare at the intruder.

"Inside," John said.

"Well, you don't say--Hey, there, just a minute!" this last as John, who
had a secret delight in baiting officiousness, continued toward the
gateway.

"Who do you think you want to see in there?" demanded the guard.

"I don't THINK I want to see anyone; Miss Carrillo sent for me," said
John, wondering if this would be the password and feeling a thrill go up
his backbone at the thought he might