CHAPTER XVHIGH HOPES
“Nowthen, Mr. Jolly,” called out Frank Durham.
His voice echoed across a deal of hollow space, for there were only six people in the auditorium of the Standard photo playhouse. With the exception of Jolly, seated at the organ, and Pep, posted at the electric light switchboard, all the others were standing in the middle aisle—Professor Barrington, Mr. Strapp, Frank and Randy.
The Standard was in complete readiness for the opening two evenings later. Some of the furnishings of the reception hall had not yet arrived, but the auditorium was equipped even to the electric fans, and the organ and piano over which Jolly was to preside.
The musical programme was to be a particular feature of the Standard. Ben Jolly had been for days ransacking the music stores of the city in search of select compositions.
“We’re going to have a crowd ’way up on organ recitals and the like,” he had said, “and I’m going to make that instrument just hum. On the lighter parts I’ll vary with the piano, and its bell and string attachments will go well in the livelier scenes.”
Jolly was making the organ “hum” now. This was the first time that the lights had been turned on in the finished auditorium. The introductory notes of a swelling march echoed as Pep swung the switches. Then he, too, joined the group of his friends and fellow workers.
For fully a minute not a word was spoken. Five pairs of eyes swept the splendid apartment from end to end. It was a rare feast of light and beauty. There was more than comfort—there was luxury and richness; not loud or tawdry, but artistic and harmonious.
“I didn’t think it could be done,” was the utterance of Pep Smith.
“You said it would be the finest playhouse in America, Durham,” observed Mr. Strapp, his eyes expressing the liveliest satisfaction, “and here it’s a proven fact.”
“My dream has come true!” murmured the exultant professor. “Gentlemen, I congratulate you on having set motor photography ahead ten years.”
“It’s nice to have you say so,” remarked Frank, with a radiant smile.
“It’s just perfection!” declared Randy, his eyes dancing with excitement and pleasure.
Frank’s heart beat fast with pride. It seemed a pretty long step from the little Wonderland picture show he had started in his home village, to this acme of an active business career. All the plots of rivals, all the hard struggles, all the difficult problems met and conquered, were obscured by the present moment.
“If Randall had only arrived a little sooner!” spoke the professor, with something of a sigh.
“You mean the delay in featuring that great film of yours?” asked Mr. Strapp. “Don’t let it worry you. That will keep. It will probably be all the better to hold it off. Then we’ll spring it in a blaze of glory—see?”
“We have certainly got some fine specials to present,” declared Frank.
“It’s the toy pictures that will catch the youngsters,” said Pep.
“And the butterflies,” supplemented Randy.
“I count greatly on the century plant,” observed Professor Barrington. “Once before it has been exploited, at the famous Gaumont Palace at Paris; but that was still life. My agenttraveled one thousand miles up the Amazon to catch our film. It is perfect.”
“Wish you’d got something with hosses acting,” observed Mr. Strapp, “for they can act.”
“A little local touch—something right on the spot wouldn’t have been amiss,” suggested Jolly.
“Say, do you think that?” broke in Pep, eagerly. “I’ve thought of that, too. It was part of the scheme I once tried to tell you about, but Randy shut me up. Frank, I’d like to tell you about that.”
“All right,” answered the young movies leader, indulgently.
“Right after we came to Boston,” said Pep, “knocking around and poking into everything that had to do with playhouses, I ran across a queer fellow named Bohm, who runs a dramatic school. He can’t speak English plainly, but he’s the most patriotic fellow I ever saw. It seems his father was a soldier in the Civil War, and he was so brave they made him a major.
“Bohm flounders around in a muddy ditch of broken Dutch when he speaks, but he’s all there on patriotism, and he’s got some great ideas. He wears a red, white and blue necktie; his watch charm is a miniature American flag, and most of the time he is whistling or humming ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’”
“Get down to the facts, Pep,” ordered Randy.
“He’s bow-legged and so cross-eyed that if he cried the tears would run behind his ears,” declared Pep, going on with his story in his own way, in lofty disdain of his tormentor. “For all that, he’s a rare genius. It seems that he got a big idea. It was for a play and pageant on Forefathers’ Day. He wrote a sort of dramatic screed all around a lot of subjects and scenes—historical—see?”
“Historical,” repeated Professor Barrington. “That sounds promising. In what way, may I ask, my young friend?”
“Why, he got up a lot of scenery. Then his amateurs played the pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock. He worked in one or two well-known battles the colonists had with the Indians. Then he has that tea-throwing act in Boston Harbor. Oh, yes, and the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Paul Revere’s Ride, and—oh, a heap of things!”
“What good is a play for us?” asked Randy. “The Standard isn’t a theatre.”
“Wait till I get to the point; won’t you?” pleaded Pep. “Well, Frank, Bohm intends to interest patriotic citizens in a big blowout with his play and pageant Forefathers’ Day. Then the idea came to him that it would make a good film, so he had all the scenes photographed inorder. They are full of action and they make a good one thousand-foot reel.
“I asked Bohm if he didn’t want to release it. He said perhaps, after his own exhibition. Then I got him interested in what we were going to do here at the Standard. He said that if he was paid a fair price and got the announcement before the public that the film was to be pictured on Forefathers’ Day, he might consider it.”
“Why, see here,” remarked Ben Jolly, “that would make a fine special. It’s local and it would take, I am sure. A ‘Tabloid of History.’ Don’t you think that sounds right, Durham?”
“I do, indeed,” responded Frank. “Pep, I would like to see this Mr. Bohm.”
“Come along; I’ll take you to him,” urged Pep.
“If there’s anything to it, Durham,” spoke up Mr. Strapp, “you want to get that film for opening night.”
“It would give variety to the entertainment,” observed the professor.
“I believe I’ll see what there is to it right away,” declared Frank. “Come on Pep.”
The two chums left their friends in the auditorium and passed through the reception hall. A canvas sheet had been spread across the street entrance to protect the new paint and gilding, and a guard had been stationed there.
“Oh, Mr. Durham,” the latter spoke, as Frank approached him, “there’s a boy outside who has been trying to break in to you for the last five minutes. Says he knows you; but my orders were to admit no one.”
“A boy—wonder who he is?” said Pep speculatively.
“Why, it’s Vic!” replied Frank, as the guard pulled the edge of the canvas aside, and the lad in question became visible, seated astride a nail keg and dolefully surveying the ground.
Three days before, furnished with money by Frank, the farm boy had gone by rail to Wardham to look up his friend, Bill Purvis, and the camels.
“Why, hello, Vic,” spoke Frank in a friendly tone as he came outside.
Vic looked up rather falteringly. He grasped Frank’s extended hand. His face lengthened and his lips puckered.
“What’s the matter, Vic?” asked Pep, puzzled at the downcast appearance of their young friend, who had left them so full of hope.
“Nothing,” answered Vic, dismally, “only someone has stolen my camels.”