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THE FAITH HEALER 81
some smaller studios out near Silver Lake that I only got to once in a blue moon. Those were strictly sleeper jumps.
Arbuckle was wonderful to me. Some days he would let me use his big Pierce Arrow to make the rounds. I would drive up to the studios looking very grand and putting on the dog as though I were used to that sort of thing. But nobody was fooled because everybody recognized Arbuckle's car. It was a special-body job only slightly smaller than a light cruiser.
One day I got a call from Sol Wurtzel at Fox. I rushed over there in a taxicab. He offered me a contract at $150 a week. I would have snapped at the offer but I thought maybe I ought to discuss it with Arbuckle, so I asked for one day to consider the proposition.
As soon as I got out of the Fox Studio, I hurried over to see Arbuckle at Paramount. When he heard about the offer, he hit the ceiling.
"It's an insult!" he shouted. "I won't permit you to become a wage slave! These producers are trying to grind the actors under their heels. The least I will allow you to work for is five hundred dollars a week!"
That was easy for him to say because he was getting about $4,000. But I took his advice and stayed away from Wurtzel, waiting for him to call me and raise the offer.
He never called. May, June, July went by and my money was running out. There was always a job just around the corner, but somehow it never materialized. Finally my pocketbook was so limp that I didn't even have train fare back to New York. I was panic stricken. I took stock and figured that in about four days I would have to pawn my watch or my diamond ring, or maybe both.
Then came my first Hollywood break. Mabel Normand, whom I had met at Arbuckle's house, was preparing to shoot a picture at Metro, and the part of a fast-talking newspaper reporter hadn't been cast yet. She wanted to cast this part "out of the groove" instead of using the usual type. Somehow she recalled me and