New Britain herald., 1927-02-02
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the flip sort of girl you would expect I to be movie struck" But she is l For years she has been dreaming of
 going to Hollywood to break : to
 pictures.
 The only drawback to her ambi-
 ton is lack of money, for every
 thing she earns slips through her eXtravagant fingers. Her widowed
 father and her Aunt Gertrude both
 on such a wild goose chase" Sc ] does Andrew Jerrold, who's in love
 with her and wants her to marry l him. So at last she borrows $500 from the rich Widow Parkins, who | is going to be her fathers second
 wife, and goes to Hollywood with
 a fat purse and high heart At the boarding house of the ec- centric Mrs. Mangan she meets Stel- i la Delroy, an extra girl in the movies. Through Stella she gets a
 job at the Magnifica studios for a few days. There she meets Monica Mont, another extra girl of the gold . digger type. Monica comes to live l at Mrs. Mangan's house, where she takes Robbie under her wing and tries to teach her thing or two about getting ahead in pictures. Gus MacCloud, an assistant di- rector, falls in love with Robbie, who is not at all flattered by his care | less attention. But she feels curi- ously attracted by him, neverthe- less. One day he asks her and Mon ica to go to the Mexican gambling town of Tia Juana with a crowd of lis friends. After much thought Bob bic decides that if he really cared for her he wouldn't ask her to go to such doubtful place.
 She refuses to go. That morning Roy Schultz. the famous director of the picture Robbie has been playing in, sends word for her to come to the Magnifica Studios for some photogra phic tests. Robbie goes. gets there too early, and lunches in the studio restaurant with an attractive woman whose face seems familiar to her. She tells the woman all about her invitation 10 Tia Juana and Is amazed when she asks her if it was Gus MacCloud who asked her to go. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY
 CHAPTER XVII
 "Why, yes. it was Gus Mac Clouds party" The words were out of Bobbie's mouth almost be- fore she knew 1t. In her surprise they seemed to say themselves. But how on earth did you guess it?''
 The woman's dark pretty face fairly twinkled with laughter under her white hat. She leaned across the table, resting her arms on t.
 "Well, I just put two and two to- Eether," she answered, and there was something in her voice that soothed and comforted Robbie You see, to begin with, I know who you are. I saw you the other night in some rushes of my husbands pie ture, and I asked him who you were"
 Robbie only half heard her as her charming voice ran on. Merciful heaven. This woman in the white hat must be Roy Schultz's wife! And here she had been telling her all her troubles. Suppose she should repeat the story to Gus MacCloud: But no. she wasn't the kind Of per son who carried tales. At least, she didn't seem like that kind of catty woman.
 He'd forgotten your name, but Gus MacCloud remembered 1t, and he told me all about you," she vas saying. He said you'd been a school teacher and that interested me, of course, because l taught school myself before I came out here to Hollywood"
 Now, there is a sort of tie be- tween two people who have done CT are doing the same thing. And perhaps that was the secret of the friendship that began that noon be- tween Lottie Schultz and Robbie the fact that both of them had been school teachers.
 Perhaps it was just that they liked each other from the start, for no good reason. Sometimes the warmest and truest friendships be- gin just like that. There is such @ thing as friendship at first sight, just as there is love at first sight.
 At any rate. Robbie felt as if she had known Lottie Schultz for long while by the time they had finished their lunch and started out of the studio restaurant.
 Other extra girls at other tables stared after them as they Strolled out in to the brilliant sunshine.
 Wives of famous directors are reckoned among Hollywood's "400." They are always people with plenty of money, foreign cars, hill- top houses and all that sort of thing. As a rule, they are not chummy with poor little melodies like extra girls.
 But Lottie Schultz was different. She wasn't the sort of woman who picked her friends for their wealth or power. They were her friends because she liked them, and be- cause they were what she called my own kind"
 In Robbie she had instantly rec cgnized her own kinda woman as decent and honest as herself. A lady. And Hollywood was so full of women who were not ladies. looking girls who screened well, but Wio were cheats and back-biters and wind bags.
 T like that girls face" she had told her husband and Gus Mac Cloud few nights before when Robbie had been thrown on the screen in the projection room at Magnifica. "Who is sheo"
 Roy Schultz had forgotten her name, but MacCloud had known it.