The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound | Page 9

studio, for he was to take part in several dramas that day.
"I know I'll be late," he said, "for the travel will be slow this morning, on account of the snow. And I have to go part way by surface car, as I have an errand on the way down town."
"We're coming down, also," Ruth informed him.
"Why, you're not in anything to-day," he remarked, pausing in the act of putting on his overcoat. "You're not cast for anything until 'The Price of Honor,' to-morrow."
"But we're going down, just the same," Alice laughed. "We want to see some of the funny films."
"Come ahead then," invited Mr. DeVere. "Better use the subway all you can. Even the elevated will have trouble with all this sleet. Good-bye," and he kissed them as he hurried out.
The girls made short shrift of the housework, and then left for the place where the moving pictures were made.
As I have described in the first book of this series how moving pictures are taken, I will not repeat it here, except to say that in a special camera, made for the purpose, there is a long narrow strip of celluloid film, of the same nature as in the ordinary camera. The pictures are taken on this strip, at the rate of sixteen a second. Later this film is developed, and from that "negative" a "positive" is made. This "positive" is then run through a specially made projecting lantern which magnifies the pictures for the screen.
As Alice and Ruth got out at the floor where most of the scenes were made they heard laughter.
"Something's going on," remarked the younger girl.
"And it doesn't sound like Mr. Sneed, our cheerful 'grouch,' either," answered Ruth.
As they went in they saw Carl Switzer, the German comedian, climbing a high step-ladder with a pail of paste in one hand, and a roll of wall paper in the other. He was in a scene representing a room, which he was to decorate.
"Is diss der right vay to do it?" Mr. Switzer asked, as he paused half way up the ladder, and looked at Mr. Pertell.
"That's it. Now you've got the idea," replied the manager. "Begin over again, and Russ, I guess you can begin to run the film now," for the young moving picture operator was in readiness with his camera.
"You must tremble, and shake the ladder," advised the manager, who was also, in this case, the stage director. "You want to register fear, you see, because you are an amateur paper hanger."
"Yah. Dot's right. I know so leedle about der papering business alretty yet dot I could write a big book on vot I don't know," confessed Mr. Switzer.
"All ready now--tremble and shake!" ordered the manager.
The comic film that was being made was a reproduction of a scene often played in vaudeville theaters, where an amateur paper hanger gets into all sorts of ludicrous mishaps with a bucket of paste, rolls of paper and the step ladder. It was not very new, but had not been done for moving pictures before.
"Here I goes!" called Mr. Switzer. "I am shaking!"
"Good!" encouraged Mr. Pertell. "Now, Mr. Bunn, you come in, as the owner of the house, to see if the paper hanger is doing his work properly. You find he is not, for he is going to put the wrong sort of paper on the ceiling. Then you try to show him yourself."
"Do I wear my tall hat?"
"Oh, yes, of course, and I think Mr. Switzer, you had better let----"
But the directions were never completed, for at that moment, in the excess of his zeal, Mr. Switzer shook the step ladder to such good effect that it toppled over and with him on it.
Down he came on top of Wellington Bunn, in all his dignity and the glory of the tall hat, and paste flew all over, liberally spattering both actors.
CHAPTER V
A QUEER ACCIDENT
"Get that Russ! Every motion of it!" cried the manager. "That will make it better than when we rehearsed it. Spatter that paste all over Mr. Bunn while you're at it, Mr. Switzer."
"Stop! Stop, I say! I protest. I will not have it!"
"Vell, you goin' to git it, all right!" cried the German, and with the brush he liberally daubed the Shakespearean actor with the white and sticky stuff. All the other players were laughing at the ridiculous scene.
"More paste!" ordered Mr. Pertell. "More paste there, Mr. Switzer. Don't be afraid of it, Mr. Bunn! It's clean!"
"Oh, this is awful--this is terrible!" groaned the tragic actor. "My hat is ruined."
And such did seem to be the case, for the shining silk tile was filled with paste, the outside also being well covered.
Mr. Bunn tried to get away from the slapping brush of Mr. Switzer, but the German was not to be outwitted. The