American Dreams by John Jakes

actuality showed President Roosevelt inspecting canal construction.
    'Exotic sights of Morocco. Fierce Berber tribesmen.' Men in sheetlike garments and burnouses stalked past the camera, glowering and waving scimitars. This was followed by a camel race in the desert.
    'The bazaar at Marrakech.' Though dimly lit because of heavy shadows, Paul's scenes of awning-covered stalls and veiled women examining merchandise caught the essence of the place. The bored urchins stomped and whistled.
    The clicking projector filled the screen with an image of a hotel veranda, the same on which Paul had been photographed. British naval officers in white paraded in and out, many quite fat and most looking self-important.
    An occasional gowned lady relieved the tedium.
    With an unexplained jerk -- perhaps a repaired break in the film? - the scene changed. The audience had a glimpse of an immense battleship Paul's Pictures33
    steaming past far below the camera, which was evidently positioned high up on the Rock. HMS Dreadnought? The image stayed only a few seconds; a hand swooped over the lens and the screen went black. One of the urchins booed. A new scene appeared: the Union Jack snapping on a Page 42

    flagstaff.
    Another repetitive chase picture ended the fifteen-minute show. 'That was thrilling, wasn't it?' lisa said as they left their seats. Fritzi agreed that Paul's pictures were special, and worthwhile, in contrast to the cheap little dramas and comedies.
    Outside, she turned up her coat collar. The weather had worsened.
    Heavy gray skies pressed down on the city. A bitter wind blew off the lake. The air smelled of snow and was full of soot, the stink of horse dung, the rattle and roar of El trains trying their iron loop around the downtown.
    'Pauli
    has seen so much of the world. What an exciting life he leads,' Dsa said.
    'He should write a book about it,' Fritzi said. The thought had just occurred to her. Paul wasn't a writer, like his friend the journalist and novelist Richard Harding Davis, but he was smart, and she was certain he could do it.
    lisa and Fritzi bent into the wind, heading for the trolley stop. lisa had relieved Nicky of the duty of picking them up. On the corner she bought two roasted sweet potatoes from a vendor, to warm them up while they waited.
    'Fritzi, those people in the little stories -- are they actors?'
    'They may think so. What they're doing isn't real acting, it's old-fashioned scenery chewing. The style of fifty years ago. Modern acting is well, smaller. Intense but.restrained. Edwin Booth pioneered it in this country.'
    'I suppose picture people have to play broadly to convey an idea. Would there be acting opportunities for you?'
    Fritzi reacted emphatically. 'Not me, Mama. I'll never have anything to do with that kind of entertainment. I'd rather not act at all.'
    'I thought acting was acting,' lisa said with a little shrug of puzzlement.
    'Life was so much simpler in the old days.'
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    Dreamers
    7 The General and His Children
    His Cadillac started on the second spin of the crank. It was a dependable Page 43

    four-cylinder 1906 model that developed 40 hp. Black with matching leather seats, it had its winter hardtop latched in place. The machine had cost a little more than $3,700 new, which put it in the luxury class. It wasn't the General's most expensive auto, though. That was the glittering $5,700 Welch touring car he kept garaged in bad weather.
    He slid under the wheel on the right side. He put on his expensive driving goggles, resembling a domino mask made of leather inset with two front lenses and a side lens at each temple. He drove out the east gate into Larrabee Street, passing a line of delivery wagons piled high with kegs of the dark and hearty beer they brewed especially for Christmas.
    Creeping along congested streets of the Near North Side, Joe honked at a Simplex that almost ran into him at an intersection. He cursed when horse dung splattered his fenders. He shook his fist at a Reo that