Bones found the right location, fitted up his camera, placed the
yellow-faced girl--the cinema artiste has a somewhat bilious appearance
when facing the lens--and began his instructions.
"Now, you walk on here, dear old Miss What's-Your-Name. You come from
that tree with halting footsteps--like this, dear old thing. Watch and
learn."
Bones staggered across the greensward, clasping his brow, sank on his
knees, folded his arms across his chest, and looked sorrowfully at the
heavens, shaking his head.
Hamilton screamed with laughter.
"Behave yourself, naughty old sceptic," said Bones severely.
After half an hour's preliminary rehearsal, the picture was taken, and
Bones now prepared to depart; but Mr. Lew Becksteine, from whose hands
Bones had taken, not only the direction of the play, but the very
excuse for existence, let fall a few uncomfortable words.
"Excuse me, Mr. Tibbetts," he said, in the sad, bored voice of an
artiste who is forced to witness the inferior work of another, "it is
in this scene that the two lawyers must be taken, walking through the
wood, quite unconscious of the unhappy fate which has overtaken the
heiress for whom they are searching."
"True," said Bones, and scratched his nose.
He looked round for likely lawyers. Hamilton stole gently away.
"Now, why the dickens didn't you remind me, you careless old producer,
to bring two lawyers with me?" asked Bones. "Dash it all, there's
nothing here that looks like a lawyer. Couldn't it be taken somewhere
else?"
Mr. Becksteine had reached the stage where he was not prepared to make
things easy for his employer.
"Utterly impossible," he said; "you must have exactly the same scenery.
The camera cannot lie."
Bones surveyed his little company, but without receiving any
encouragement.
"Perhaps I might find a couple of fellows on the road," he suggested.
"It is hardly likely," said Mr. Lew Becksteine, "that you will discover
in this remote country village two gentlemen arrayed in faultlessly
fitting morning-coats and top-hats!"
"I don't know so much about that," said the optimistic Bones, and took
a short cut through the wood, knowing that the grounds made an abrupt
turn where they skirted the main road.
He was half-way through the copse when he stopped. Now, Bones was a
great believer in miracles, but they had to be very spectacular
miracles. The fact that standing in the middle of the woodland path
were two middle-aged gentlemen in top-hats and morning-coats, seemed to
Bones to be a mere slice of luck. It was, in fact, a miracle of the
first class. He crept silently back, raced down the steps to where the
little party stood.
"Camera!" he hissed. "Bring it along, dear old thing. Don't make a
noise! Ham, old boy, will you help? You other persons, stay where you
are."
Hamilton shouldered the camera, and on the way up the slope Bones
revealed his fell intention.