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THE LOW SPOT
193
stood inside of the police lines, watching the fire bum to its maximum and decline. That safe, steel-lashed to the wall, held the negatives of seventeen films; many of the most important still unprinted. If the wall fell in and dropped it into the superhot furnace below, fireproof safe or no fireproof safe, they were gone. And so, probably, was Famous Players — ^just as it was getting onto its feet. Those little rolls of celluloid represented all their product for six months; and they had not a cent of insurance. But the wall held; and toward morning they could see through the smoke the safe hanging aloft like a dovecote. Even then, they could not be sure.
The experts on fireproof safes, arriving next morning, seemed even less sure. Ordinary papers, they said, would resist the heat. But films, being mere celluloid, blazed and exploded at a comparatively low temperature. Had Frank Meyer, when he closed and locked the door, also thrown in the combination.? That would make a great difference. Meyer cudgelled his brain, but he could not remember. Choking with smoke, in peril of his life, he had acted on instinct. They could not know until the safe cooled. That would take two or three days.
His associates remark yet on Zukor’s calm during this crisis. That very morning he set to work as steadily, as systematically, as though this were a minor incident. He called the company together and assured them that their salaries would be paid on Saturday night as usual. He leased for a studio Durland’s abandoned riding