"My! We're becoming quite adept in theatrical talk. Ahem!" laughed Alice with pretended sarcasm.

Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, who were already rehearsing for another play, looked over at the two enthusiastic sisters, and shrugged their shoulders.

"Wait until they have been in it as long as we have, my dear, then they won't be so jolly," remarked Miss Pennington.

"Oh, I don't know as you can include me," was Miss Dixon's rather tart comment. "_I_ haven't been at it so many years."

"Oh, haven't you?" asked Miss Pennington, with a raising of her penciled eyebrows. "Excuse me, my dear!"

"Don't mention it!"

"Get on to that, would you!" exclaimed Pop Snooks to Mr. Sneed. "The two old-timers are sc.r.a.ppin'."

"I knew they would," was the grouchy rejoinder. "They'll have a real quarrel, and both quit, and that'll mean some new members in the company. And just as we are about through rehearsing that piece, and about to film it, too. That means I'll have to do it all over again.

I knew something would happen!"

"Oh, cheer up! The worst is yet to come!" laughed Paul Ardite.

"Here's Switzer looking as red as a lobster. What is it now, Carl?"

he asked.

"Ach! Vot isn't der matter?" cried the moon-faced one. "I haf a part vot incessitates me to be bound und gagged by a band of robbers, und stood in a corner vhile dey loot der blace."

"Well, that's a nice, romantic part," observed Paul.

"Yah, but how would you like to haf a rag stuffed in your mout so vot you couldn't breath yet for five minutes? How vould you like dot; hey? Dell me dot!"

"Oh, well, tell 'em to leave you a breathing hole," laughed Paul.

"Where is Mr. Pertell? Where is he? I demand to see him at once!"

broke in the voice of Wellington Bunn. "I must see him instantly!"

"He was here a moment ago, giving the Misses DeVere their parts,"

replied Paul. "Why, is the place on fire?"

"No, but I refuse to take the part he has a.s.signed to me. I utterly and positively refuse to so demean myself."

"What part have you?" asked the young fellow, looking over at Alice and nodding.

"Why, he has cast me--I, who have played all the princ.i.p.al Shakespearean characters--he has cast me--Wellington Bunn--as a waiter in a hotel scene! Where is Mr. Pertell? I refuse to take that character!"

"Oh, what's the trouble now?" asked the manager, coming from his office. The Shakespearean actor explained.

"Now see here!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell, with more anger than he usually displayed. "You'll take that part, Mr. Bunn, or leave the company! It is an important part, and has to do with the development of the plot. Why, as that waiter you intercept the taking of ten thousand dollars, and prevent the heroine from being abducted.

Afterward you become rich, and blossom out as a theatrical manager."

"And do I produce Shakespeare?" asked the old actor, eagerly.

"There's nothing to stop you--in the play," returned Mr. Pertell, rather drily.

"Oh, then it's all right," said Mr. Bunn, with a sigh of relief.

"I'll take the part."

Rehearsals were going on in various parts of the studio, and some plays were being filmed. Russ Dalwood was busy at one of the cameras.

"Have you got a part you like, Ruth?" asked Alice, when she had finished looking over her lines.

"Indeed I have, I'm supposed to be Lady Montgomery, and there are two counts in love with me. At least, one is a count and the other pretends to be one. It's quite romantic. What is yours?"

"Mine's jolly. I'm a school girl, always up to some trick or other, and--yes, see here--why in one of my tricks I disclose that the pretended count who's in love with you is only an organ grinder! Oh, that will be fun," and she laughed gleefully.

"Do you like your parts?" asked the manager, coming up.

"Indeed we do!" chorused Ruth and Alice.

"Then talk to your father about them," he advised. "See what he says, and if he is willing you may begin rehearsals with him, and the others of the cast."

Mr. DeVere was fully satisfied with the parts a.s.signed to his daughters, and agreed to allow them to enter formally into the work of the moving pictures at a very fair salary for beginners. The others of the company were called together, including Paul Ardite, and the best method of getting the finest results out of the drama was discussed.

In the days that followed, Ruth and Alice, as well as the others, did hard work. It is not as easy to go through a moving picture play as it appears merely from seeing the film on the white curtain. Some scenes have to be rehea.r.s.ed over and over again, and often, after being filmed, some defect results and the work has to be all done once more.

Mr. DeVere rehea.r.s.ed his daughters at home in the intervals of their appearance at the studio, and this redounded to their benefit. They were thus able to do effective work, and Mr. Pertell complimented them on it.

The play was soon ready for filming, and Russ was chosen to work the camera. Some of the scenes were out of doors, in a big flower garden, and for this the company was taken to Brooklyn, where a private owner was induced to allow his place to be used for a few minutes. Ruth and Alice enjoyed their part in the flower garden very much.

Finally the last rehearsal was had, and the day was set for making the films of the first real, big play in which the two girls had ever taken part. As they were leaving the studio together, on the afternoon of the day before the first "performance," they saw a group of children standing down near the main entrance.

"There go some of the moving picture girls now," one boy exclaimed.

"Don't I wish I was them!" sighed a tall, lanky girl next him. "Ain't they nice, Jimmie?"

"They sure is!" was the enthusiastic rejoinder.

"We're achieving fame, Ruth," laughed Alice.

"Such as it is--yes," replied her sister. "'Moving picture girls'; eh? Well, I suppose we are."

CHAPTER XVII

A PROMISE

"Now then, are we all ready?" asked Mr. Pertell. He looked about the studio, at the groups of actors and actresses, at the camera men--particularly at Russ. "Everybody here?" he went on.

"All here," replied Pop Snooks, checking off a list he held.

"How about your props?"