BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.

[Illustration:  THE FILM ACTRESS HAS A LIFE OF CONSTANT CHANGE.  AS SOON AS SHE HAS FINISHED BEING “DARE-DEVIL DAISY”—­]

[Illustration:  SHE IS EXHORTED TO PLAY THE NAME PART IN “VIOLET, THE MASCOT OF BUTTERCUP FARM,” FEATURING A PENSIVE SMILE.]

* * * * *

FIXES THE HARE.

I found Andy Devenish, of Castle Devenish, Co.  Cork, in Piccadilly.  He was wearing an old frieze overcoat, the bottom of which had suffered from a puppy’s teeth, and a bowler hat with a guard-ring dangling from its flat brim.  His freckled nose was squashed against Fore’s window as he gazed wistfully at the sporting prints within.  I led him gently westwards, pushed him into the club’s best arm-chair, placed the wine of our mutual country at his elbow and spoke to him severely.

“Tell me,” said I, “how is it I find you thus, got up in the height of fashion, loitering with intent to lady-kill in this colossal rabbit-warren which knows no hound but the sleuth, no horse but the towel?  How is it, man, when there’s a Peace on and the month is February and there’s no frost south of the Liffey?  Why aren’t you dressed in a coat that is pink in spots and a cap that is velvet in places, flipping over your stone-faced banks on a rampageous four-year-old that you bought for ten pounds down, ten pounds some time, a sack of seed oats and an old saddle, and will eventually palm off on an Englishman at Ballsbridge for two hundred cash?  What about the hounds?  The Ballinknock Versatiles?  What are they doing without their master?  Going for improving country walks with Patsey Mike, two and two like young ladies from a seminary, or sitting up on their benches, a tear in every eye, wailing, ‘Oh, where is our wandering boy tonight?’

“And what about the Ballinknock foxes, eh?  Aren’t they entitled to some consideration?  Didn’t they carry on patiently for four dull years while you were in France, learning to walk in the cavalry, on the understanding that you’d make up for it when you got back by hunting them every day of the week?  Have you no love or sympathy for dumb animals?  Why are you here?  What are you flying from?  Tell me your dread secret.  Is it debt, arson, murder—­or is some woman threatening to marry you?”

Andy growled into his whiskey-and-soda, then suddenly pointed out of the window.  “See the advertisement on that bus?”

“’MIND THE WIDOW’,” I read, “‘shrieking comedy by Cosmo—­’”

“No, not that one,” Andy grumbled; “t’other.”

It was a picture of a smiling gentleman with a head that gleamed like patent leather.  The gentleman attributed his happiness to the fact that he mixed “Florazora” cream with his scalp.  “Florazora Cream,” I read, “fixes the hair.  Subtly perfumed with honey and flowers.  Imparts a lustre and—­” The bus resumed its journey.

I studied Andy’s head.  Normally it looks as though he had been mopping out a rusty drain with it.  It was quite normal, every hair on end and pointing in a different direction.