The day was dark from the outset, and a California fog crept everywhere. It had followed Pat in his headlong, hatless flight across the city. His destination, his refuge, was the studio, where he was not employed but which had been home to him for twenty years.

Was it his imagination or did the policeman at the gate give him and his pass an especially long look? It might be the lack of a hat — Hollywood was full of hatless men but Pat felt marked, especially as there had been no opportunity to part his thin grey hair.

In the Writers’ Building he went into the lavatory¹. Then he remembered: by some inspired ukase from above, all mirrors had been removed from the Writers’ Building a year ago.

Across the hall he saw Bee McIlvaine’s door ajar, and discerned her plump person.

‘Bee, can you loan me your compact box?’ he asked.

Bee looked at him suspiciously, then frowned and dug it from her purse.

‘You on the lot?’ she inquired.

‘Will be next week,’ he prophesied². He put the compact on her desk and bent³ over it with his comb. ‘Why won’t they put mirrors back in the johnnies? Do they think writers would look at themselves all day?’

‘Remember when they took out the couches?’ said Bee. ‘In nineteen thirty-two. And they put them back in thirty-four.’

‘I worked at home,’ said Pat feelingly.

Finished with her mirror he wondered if she were good for a loan — enough to buy a hat and something to eat. Bee must have seen the look in his eyes for she forestalled⁴ him.

‘The Finns got all my money,’ she said, ‘and I’m worried about my job. Either my picture starts tomorrow or it’s going to be shelved. We haven’t even got a title.’

She handed him a mimeographed bulletin from the scenario⁵ department and Pat glanced at the headline.

TO ALL DEPARTMENTS

TITLE WANTED— FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD

SUMMARY FOLLOWS

‘I could use fifty,’ Pat said. ‘What’s it about?’

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