The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms | Page 2

the palms!" announced the manager. "You know I spoke of tentative plans for a drama down there when we were in the backwoods. Now I have everything arranged, and we will leave on a steamer for St. Augustine one week from to-day."
"Hurrah for Florida!" exclaimed a young actor, with a strikingly good-looking face. "There's where I've always wanted to go."
"So have I!" exclaimed a young girl who stood near him,--a girl with merry, brown eyes. "Will you take me out after oranges, Paul?" she asked, mischievously.
"Certainly, Alice," he answered.
"Why don't you say orange blossoms while you're about it?" inquired another actress, with a pert manner.
Alice blushed, and her sister Ruth looked sharply at Miss Laura Dixon, who had made the rather pointed remark.
"I'm willing to make it orange blossoms!" laughed the young fellow. "That is, if they're in season."
"Ah, stop all this nonsense!" exclaimed Alice. "I want to ask Mr. Pertell a lot of questions about where we're going, and all that. Oh, to think we are really going to Florida!"
"Yes, we are all going," went on Mr. Pertell. "I think--"
"One moment, if you please!" interrupted a middle-aged actor whose face seemed to indicate that he lived more on vinegar than on the milk of human kindness. "We are not all going, if you please, Mr. Pertell."
"Who is not going, Mr. Sneed, pray?" the manager wanted to know.
"I, for one. I have gone through many hardships and dangers acting in moving pictures for you, but I draw the line at Florida."
"Why, I think it's perfectly lovely there!" exclaimed Miss Pearl Pennington, a chum of Miss Dixon.
"Do you call alligators lovely?" asked Mr. Pepper Sneed, who was known as "the actor with the grouch." He was always finding fault. "Lovely alligators!" he sneered. "If you want to go to Florida, and be eaten by an alligator--go. I'll not!"
Some of the younger members of the company looked rather serious at this. They had not counted on alligators.
"Now look here!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell. "That's all nonsense. We are going where there are no alligators; but I'll pay anyone who is injured in the slightest by one of the saurians a thousand dollars!"
"Then I'll go!" cried Mr. Sneed, who was rather "close," and fond of money. "But I'm not going to stand a very big bite for that sum!" he stipulated, while the others laughed.
"I'll grade the payments according to the bites, at the rate of a thousand dollars a big bite," declared the manager, also laughing.
"Now then, you may make your plans accordingly. As I said, we leave by steamer for St. Augustine by way of Jacksonville this day week."
"And will all the scenes be taken in St. Augustine?" asked one of the company.
"No, we shall go into the interior. I expect we may go to a place near Lake Kissimmee, and there--"
"Lake Kissimmee!" exclaimed Alice DeVere, in surprise.
"What about it?" asked Mr. Pertell. "Are you afraid to go there?"
"No, but two girls whom we met on the train going to Deerfield, when we were preparing to make the ice and snow dramas, were going to a place near there. We may meet them."
"That's so!" agreed Ruth.
"I hope you will," went on Mr. Pertell. "Lake Kissimmee, however, is only one of the interior places we shall touch. I will tell you more detailed plans later."
"I--ah--er--presume we shall have a little time to--er--see the sights of St. Augustine; will we not?" asked one of the actors, in affected, drawling tones.
"Oh, yes, plenty of time, Mr. Towne," answered Mr. Pertell. Claude Towne was a new member of the company, rather a "dudish" sort of chap, and not, as yet, very well liked. He dressed in what he considered the "height of fashion."
The week that followed was a busy one for every member of the Comet Film Company. Not that they were required to do much acting in front of the camera; for, after the outdoor scenes in connection with the current play were made, Russ Dalwood, the operator, packed up his belongings ready for the Florida trip.
The others were doing the same thing, and Mr. Pertell was kept busy arranging for transportation, and hotel accommodations, and for the taking care of such films as he would send back from the interior of Florida, since none would be developed there. This work would have to be done, and positives printed for the projecting machines, in New York. This custom was generally followed when the company went out of town.
"Well, are we all here?" asked Mr. Pertell one morning as he reached the steamer, which lay at her dock in New York, ready for the trip to the land of the palms.
"I think so," answered Russ, who had with him a small moving picture camera. He had an idea he might see something that would make a