Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Star-dust in Hollywood away to-night, so we have a room free. Go back to that camp-ground, pack up, and come over to us for the night. To-morrow you can make other arrangements.* ' As we came out of the club the rain was falling steeply. However, these good Samaritans drove us back to the camp and waited while we repacked the car and while I put another dose of soap into the crack. Then they guided us through the night, a mere six miles or so to their house in one of the more quiet, palm-lined avenues among the number three thousands east. On the day following the children came back and we had to turn out, but the doctor, suspecting that I was not fit to be moved far, transferred me next door to his father-in-law's house, in which, by luck, a large bed had been left. In this way I came to be lying in an empty house overlooking from a slight slope the crude but sunlit newness of Los Angeles. We could not bring ourselves to treat the goo doctor's father-in-law, whom we did not know, with such easy nonchalance as our Samaritan the doctor suggested. When I was fit to move with due precautions Mrs Beechman, the doctor's wife, conducted Jo on a hunt for a suitable lodging. I could not have picked a better spot in which to fall ill. The spring climate seemed perfect ; the pale blue, almost cloudless, skies succeeded one another day after day infallibly ; there was little difficulty in finding suitable lodgings which were quite cheap. Los Angeles was still recuperating from the aftermath of a land boom. Speculation had been so wild, such a tremendous rush of speculators, tourists, and new inhabitants had been expected, that the town was much overbuilt, and a thousand lodgings of all sorts stood invitingly empty. We could have lived in tall buildings with elevators, [18]