Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Los ^Angeles — -from a Bungalow Qourt communicated sympathy that proved the barriers to be low indeed. Naturally, in numbers of individual cases with white Americans, this barrier is small also, yet try as much as we would to dismiss it from the intercourse of those we were most friendly with, something was sure to happen, sooner or later, that proved its persistence. A peculiarity of our court was its dog, the cat, and the blackbirds. The dog was not kept primarily as a pet, for we never saw a town with fewer pet animals. Not a house that we visited had a pet in it except that of Alice Beechman, whose children had a goat. During an eight-months stay, including many rambles within that four-hundred-squaremile limit of the town, I don't think we saw ten dogs. In fact, we can now recall only the dog that lived opposite us and its famous rival, the movie star dog of " Our Gang," whom we might occasionally meet riding home from work in its car with its master (or should we not rather say parasite) as chauffeur. The dog in our court was a movie star also, a minor star, it is true, and at the moment convalescent after a car accident. It had a high reputation as the dog that could walk most easily — that is, without slipping or jerking — upon its hind legs, and as such had earned a salary probably higher than anything that the present authors have ever gained by the practice of literature. However, it was more condescending than most of the other stars, and even used to beg us for a drink of water on the hot afternoons. For some time this daily request, quite plainly indicated, puzzled us. But at last its mistress opined that the sun on their kitchen in the afternoon heated the water in the pipes. Our water was cooler, and the dog star evidently something or an epicure in drinks. His master was a carpenter at a * quickie ' company. He was one of those who built moated [39]