CHAPTER VIII

BOBBY MEETS AN ENEMY ON THE BOULEVARD AND A FRIEND IN THE LANTRY STUDIO

It was a little after eight of the clock on the following morning that the comedian took his way along the boulevard towards the Lantry studio. Bobby’s eyes were dancing with mischief; the soul of the weather, gay and bland, had entered into him. As he went his way he dispensed lavish smiles to right and left, and poor indeed was he in human feeling who failed to return smile for smile. Many a passer-by craned his neck, having passed Bobby, to take an admiring look at the tiny dispenser of joy who, attired in black broadcloth knickerbockers, a vest of the same material cut away generously from the breast and decked with two shining buttons where it met at the waist, a white shirt foaming into frills, the sleeves of which were held up above the wrists by two bewitching white ribbons, was really rather like to a lily of the field than Solomon clothed in all his glory.

Of course Hollywood, like all known civilized places where men do congregate, had its array of camera fiends.

“I beg your pardon,” said one of these, a tall severe-looking man with dark glasses, “but would you mind my snap-shotting you?”

Bobby turned, folded his hands, and grinned.

“Shoot,” he said.

“Thank you,” said the man, his severe mien drowned in a wave of smiles almost as gay as Bobby’s.

We have all heard of St. Francis preaching a sermon simply by walking in silence through a thronged city. Does not many an innocent child as he goes his happy way, smiling and wondering, preach a sermon that has for its theme the charm of candid innocence, and the strange and alluring possibility of every one who is so minded to become, by taking himself in hand, a child again? And is it not true that such little children bring a man’s thoughts regretfully and humbly back to the days when he too was young, unsophisticated and unspoiled?

“You’re getting quite popular, Bobby,” observed Compton as they resumed their way. “Everybody seems to like you.”

“So do I,” returned Bobby.

“What’s that?”

“I like everybody, too.”

“Out of the mouths of children,” Mr. Compton murmured to himself.

“I didn’t quite hear you, uncle.”

“I was saying,” translated the elder, “that whether you knew it or not you have given the true secret of popularity.”

“Have we time to go in?” asked Bobby as they neared the Church of the Blessed Sacrament.

“Why, yes, and I’ll be glad to go in with you.”

Mr. Compton’s sign of the cross was beyond criticism, his genuflection not so bad; also, he knelt straight, and, in a word, showed the outward signs of intelligence so lacking on the occasion of his first visit.

“I say, uncle,” Bobby remarked as they came out, “you’ve improved a lot. You didn’t look around a bit.”

“Why should I?”

“People often do, you know, when they’re praying; but it’s not right. Did you notice me looking around at the walls when I said the prayer ‘Angel of God’ last night?”

“Now that you come to speak of it, I believe I did.”

“There was a reason.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Compton, in a tone at once exclamatory and interrogatory.

“Yes. At home when I came to that prayer I always looked at the picture of the guardian angel which hung just above mamma’s head.”

“And you looked around my walls among the pictures to see whether you could find a picture of the guardian angel, eh?”

“Yes, uncle; but I didn’t find a picture anything like one.”

“I should say not!” said Compton with energy. “But, Bobby, I was glad last night when you prayed for me. I hope you’ll keep it up.”

“Aha!” cried Bobby dramatically, jumping in front of his uncle and shaking a triumphant finger at him. “So you do believe in prayer.”

“In your prayers, Bobby. Put that finger down and stop your jigging; everybody is looking at us.”

As a matter of fact, Bobby had achieved a feat seldom achieved on the Hollywood Boulevard. He had, unintentionally of course, excited the attention of nearly every one he had encountered. Now on the gay and festive Hollywood Boulevard, be it known, all varieties of dress and action are to be seen, and nobody seems to bother about them. In the solemn watches of the night cavalcades of cowboys on horseback may come clattering along, shooting in the real sense of the word, and shouting. Possibly some light sleeper may rouse sufficiently to grasp the situation. Turning in his bed, he remarks: “There go them moving-picture fellers again,” and resumes his interrupted slumbers. There’s an old man, white-bearded, redfaced from exposure, bare-footed, clad in a modern substitute for the garments of St. John, and wearing a staff. He is frequently seen on the street, but nobody seems to be concerned so much as to take a second look.

I forgot to say that this imitation St. John the Baptist goes bareheaded. Practically all the men on the boulevard go bareheaded. I myself, I dare say, could patrol that famous thoroughfare in cassock and biretta without exciting any further comment than, “I wonder what picture that fellow’s made up for.” Painted ladies—painted so profusely that their own mothers would not know them—would there escape comment or criticism. It would be taken for granted that they were actresses. The camera would mitigate their extravagance, and their presentment on the screen would be entirely lacking the grossness of their real flesh-and-blood appearances. But Bobby, gay and smiling, taking off now the stride of his uncle, now the gait of a passing flapper, woke the street from its passive acquiescence in all things queer.

It remained for Bobby to create a sensation. He did so, and in the following way.

Mr. Compton, excusing himself and inviting the festive youth to survey the scenery and fill his soul with its beauty, had passed into a shop to renew his supply of cigars. He delayed a few moments, very excusably, to tell a friend what a wonderful find his nephew was.

Now, since their leaving the Hollywood Catholic church, there had been shadowing Bobby, Chucky Snuff, bellhop of yesterday’s play. It had never occurred to Chucky that Bobby’s attempt to help him had been made in the way of kindness. Quite otherwise. In justice to the younger set of moving-picture actors, it should be stated that Chucky Snuff was not up to form. He was, as the girls said, mean. Nobody liked him. A fond father and a foolish mother had accounted him, in his tender years, a swan; and they so petted and spoiled him as to develop him—allowing for difference of sex—into a goose. At the age of ten Chucky was stunted and blasé.

Taking advantage of Compton’s disappearance, Chucky picked up a piece of wood and hastened to overtake Bobby.

“Why, halloa!” said Bobby as Chucky, running in front of him, blocked the way.

By way of return the other put on a face which, had he assumed it in the rehearsal, might have saved him his position.

“There!” he said, placing the wood on his right shoulder, “you knock that chip off my shoulder!”

Bobby’s smile left him, and all the elves of merriment. Perplexity wrinkled his brow. The aggressor was much encouraged. Bobby, he judged, was a coward.

“Go on,” he urged. “I’m going to knock your block off, you big stiff. Do you hear me? Go on and knock it off!”

Bobby perceived that he was in for it. His mind, as usual, worked quickly. It came back to him then how his father had once said, “My son, never indulge in vulgar fist-fighting if you can possibly help yourself; but if you must, it’s a capital thing to get in the first blow.” Accordingly, no sooner had his opponent ceased his adjuration than Bobby’s left hand lightly swept the chip away, while at the same moment his right shot out with what force he could put into it, and landed squarely on the tip of the other’s chin.

Pain, astonishment, vast astonishment, swept over the face of Chucky Snuff. He turned, and with a howl which really attracted attention dashed away for parts unknown.

“Fine work! Excellent!” exclaimed a haughty young man with a close-trimmed mustache and severely aristocratic features as he caught Bobby’s hand, while an admiring audience gathered round to listen avidly to one of the matinee idols of filmdom. “That was splendidly done. That other fellow played the tough to a nicety. The way he had his chin stuck out and the way you landed on it was perfect. Say, it was perfectly rehearsed! You can shoot it right away. Where’s the camera man?”

“Why, that wasn’t acting,” Bobby explained. “That was a real scrap.”

“Oh!” said the actor, deeply chagrined and departing forthwith; and the disappointed spectators, realizing that there was to be no encore, melted away. Thus in Hollywood are real life and reel life confounded.

When John Compton, airily smoking, returned, Bobby was rubbing a skinned knuckle, the cause of which, on inquiry, he explained.

“My fault!” acknowledged the comedian. “You’re in my care and I should not leave you alone. However, perhaps it’s just as well. I know young Chucky Snuff pretty well, and I’m sure he’ll not bother you again.”

Presently Bobby, on his way in the mazes of the Lantry Studio to put himself into the bellhop’s clothes, came upon a little miss seated dolefully in a chair, her head buried in her hands, her shoulders bowed, and dejection in her entire pose. She was dressed like a princess. The elegance of her attire, however, did not impress Bobby; it was her hair, raven-black in a wealth of curls. Where had he seen that hair before? He looked at the hands. They were dark. A light came to him.

“Halloa, Peggy!”

At the words the girl raised her head, and her large wondrously beautiful eyes rested upon Bobby. With a gasp, she sprang from her chair, while her eyes grew larger and larger. Fear and wonder shone from them.

“Don’t you know me, Peggy?” asked the boy, smiling radiantly.

Wonder and fear in those eyes changed to a joy that was nothing less than bliss.

“Oh, Bobby! You’re alive!”

“I’ll say so!”

“Bobby!” she screamed, and threw her arms about his neck.

“Oh, I say!” protested the highly embarrassed youth, “cut out the rough stuff.”

“But, Bobby,” continued Peggy, whose face was irradiated with joy, “I saw you drown myself!”

“You did not. A nice, big man came and fished me out.”

“Oh, thank God! Last night I couldn’t sleep a wink thinking of you and your poor mother. Where is she, Bobby?”

“I wish I knew, Peggy. Didn’t you see her last?”

Then Peggy told Bobby her side of the story.

“And so my mother thinks I’m drowned! I never thought of that, Peggy. But I’ll tell Uncle Compton, and he’ll find where she is and let her know that I’m alive.”

“Uncle Compton! Why, is he your uncle?”

“I don’t know; it all depends. First I was his aunt, and then his uncle, and then his grandfather. He said so himself. Anyhow, I call him uncle. He’s a dandy.”

“Isn’t he, though!” exclaimed Peggy. “I just love him. He’s so kind to children. You know, Bobby, I work with him.”

“What!” cried Bobby, picking up the chair which Peggy in rising had upset, and seating himself. “Why, yesterday you never said a word to me about your being in the movies.”

“I didn’t think it would interest you. I’m in his new play, and there’s an awfully tough bellhop in it who takes a fancy to me, and I reform him.”

Bobby took in a deep breath, and expelled it in a sort of whistle.

“I’m the bellhop,” he said, lowering his eyes, turning down a corner of his mouth, drawing in and upward his shoulders.

“Bobby!” panted Peggy, “let me have that chair.”

Bobby, changing back to himself, arose and helped Peggy to seat herself. Peggy was faint with joy.

“Say,” cried the boy, “we’ll have dead loads of fun.”

“Oh!” said Peggy.

“And we’ll make it go.”

“I know it,” said Peggy. “Just then you looked like the kind of bellhop I’d like to reform. But tell me how you got here.”

“Between the ax, Peggy,” said Bobby, magnificently, after the manner of Compton explaining to the janitor. “I’ll tell you between the ax. I’ll tell you then. I’m now going to dress or I’ll be late.”