When the movies were young (1925)

To the West Coast 149 fifteen dollars. The company paid his fare, of course, for we had extra tickets and plenty of room for one small boy in the coaches at our disposal. It was a pleasant trip, especially for those who had not been to California before. Some found card games so engrossing that they never took a peek at the scenery. Some, especially Mary and Dorothy West, oh'd and ah'd so that Arthur Johnson, thinking the enthusiasm a bit overdone, began kidding the scenery lovers. "Oh, lookit, lookit," Arthur would exclaim when the gushing was at its height. The "Biograph Special" we were. We had rare service on the train. We had every attention from the dining-car steward. Had we not been allowed three dollars per day for meals on the train? And didn't we spend it? For the invigorating air breathed from the observation platform gave us healthy appetites. At San Bernardino (perhaps the custom still survives, I don't know, for now when I go to Los Angeles, I go via the Overland Limited to San Francisco instead) we each received a dainty bouquet of pretty, fragrant carnations. Flowers for nothing ! We could hardly believe our eyes. At last we were there! Mr. Hammer gallantly suggested, although it was afternoon, that the women of the company go to a hotel at the Biograph's expense, until they located permanent quarters. So the ladies were registered at the Alexandria, then but lately opened, and shining and grand it was. Although they made but a short stay there, they attracted considerable attention. One day Mary Pickford stepped out of the Alexandria's elevator just as William Randolph Hearst was entering. Seeing Mary, he said, "I wonder who that pretty girl is." And one night at