“Miss Pickford, you’re on.” It was a page from the Loan Committee, voice cracking and eyes blinking with excitement. Mary doffed her sable, carefully handing it to her assistant (she did have an assistant, but didn’t like to discuss it), and took off her mink hat, and shook down her jaw-dropping array of golden curls. The sight was so rich, it shut even Chaplin up. She straightened her simple plaid dress, and walked toward the stage. All the while, no matter which direction her body pointed, she was glaring at Chaplin.

The moment her tiny form hit the stage, there was a roar, and if the ignition of motorcycle engines had been enough to startle the city, this was, finally, the city making its own overwhelming noise. San Francisco, when aroused, provided the best mirth and enthusiasm in the world, and upon their first sight of Mary Pickford, all of Market Street issued a warm, wordless welcome, and a demand to be well received in turn.

It hardly mattered that Hart and Fairbanks were still on the stage, standing to the side, their captive Kaiser lying on his stomach. Small Mary walked before the water tank, to the front of the stage, her hands clasped before her, not yet smiling, but seeming instead, head cocked, just to listen, as if she wasn’t quite sure yet whether the reception was heartfelt. In turn, the audience roared harder, with lusty abandon, full assent: Yes, really, truly, genuinely, we’re here, we love you.

“Hello,” she said.

A tidal wave in response, then a wriggle through the crowd, as person after person, attempting to applaud, realized that, with the crush of humanity from side to side, the only way to do it was to raise one’s hands over one’s head, and so the air was filled with palms.

“I’m Mary Pickford,” she said, perhaps the least necessary introduction in fifty-five centuries of recorded civilization.

Smashed to the stage, glancing behind himself at the seeming millions hammering on his back, Münsterberg was unimpressed. Mary Pickford was a small woman, plain if expressive—and how many small women with expressive faces were there in the world? Why care for her opinion over the police, or the teachers, or the physicians, or the men who dug oil wells? He began to loathe himself for having devoted his energies to Miss Annette Kellerman, another siren whose song was not objectively that interesting. He doubted that the Argo sailors, dashed upon the rocks, thought it had been worthwhile. He imagined a small community of them, bruised, shaking their heads, looking from face to confused face, and asking, “You, too?” Mary Pickford was nothing.