scene—the great one, in fact—was to be a shipwreck. He has engaged an old vessel for this purpose, and he is going to sink it with all on board."

"All on board!" cried Ruth. "You don't mean——"

"Well, that's how it will appear in the camera, anyhow. You girls are to be well in front, and your swimming abilities will be very necessary, for you will have to go into the water."

"I hope it is warm," murmured Alice.

"Oh, it will be Summer before we get to the shipwreck part," went on Mr. DeVere. "But what worries me is my dream in connection with the drama. I almost told Mr. Pertell we would have nothing to do with it."

"Oh, Father! You can't do that!" exclaimed Ruth. She, as housekeeper, knew how much money was required in these days of the high cost of living. Though Mr. DeVere and his daughters received fair salaries, there were many expenses to be met, and if they refused present engagements they might not find it so easy to get others.

"Oh, of course I didn't actually turn it down," said the old actor, "but it gave me quite a turn, I must say. I haven't gotten over it yet, seeing you girls disappear under the waves."

"Don't think of it, Daddy!" urged Alice. "Have some of this apple slump. Mrs. Dalwood sent it in."

"Your idea is that a man's mind is in his stomach, isn't it, daughter," laughed her father. "Well, I will have some of the dessert. Oh, but I almost forgot, you will have to go down an hour earlier in the morning to the studio."

"Why?" Ruth wanted to know.

"A heavy day's work on, and Mr. Pertell wants to sketch out the preliminary scenes of the marine drama. We are actually going to sea, I believe, and he has engaged some old sailors, or at least one so far, to give it a proper nautical flavor. It's only for tomorrow that we have to go earlier than usual."

Mr. DeVere seemed more like himself after he had told his daughters of his vision. It did not so depress him now, and the rest of the meal passed off in a much more jolly manner.

In the evening Russ Dalwood came in from across the hall, and they played bridge whist, of which Mr. DeVere was fond.

"Fancy daddy, Russ," laughed Alice, "wanting us to give up a chance to go to sea just because he dreamed of a shipwreck!"

"Oh, I didn't actually want you to give it up," her father remonstrated. "Perhaps I was foolish even to mention it. But I can't forget it—I can't!" and he seemed to look through the walls of the room on some distant and fateful scene.

"Well, I must be getting back," Russ said. "You've won the rubber, as usual, Mr. DeVere. Lots to do tomorrow, and I have a new assistant to break in, so I'll say good-night."

There were busy times for all next day, in the studio of the moving picture concern. In the big room brilliant with electric lights as well as from the illumination that came through a sky-glass, there were several scenes from different dramas being filmed at the same time.

When Ruth and Alice DeVere entered with their father, Mr. Pertell, the manager of the Comet company, was engaged off to one side, evidently instructing a man in what he must do before the camera. The man was a sailor, and it needed but a glance to show that he was a real one, and not "made up" for the occasion.

"You see," said Mr. Pertell, "you come into the shipping office, and pretend to hand over the papers. But you slip the clerk the wrong ones, and while he is examining them you reach over behind him and take the documents you want."

"Avast there! Belay!" came the hoarse voice of the sailor. "I do that there, do I?"

"Yes."

"Steal the papers?"

"Well, it isn't stealing, exactly. It's only——"

"Stealin' is what I call it, and it can't be called by another name to my way of thinkin'. It won't do, sir, it won't do! Jack Jepson got into trouble once, but he isn't goin' to do it again. No sir! That stealin' won't do for Jack Jepson. You've got to get someone else to sign them articles for you. No stealin' for Jack Jepson!" and the figure of the old sailor turned and, with a rolling gait, he started across the big studio room.

CHAPTER III

SOMETHING OF A MYSTERY

"Look out there!"

"Where you going?"

"Hold him back, somebody! Look out, you'll spoil that scene! Don't cross in front of the camera!"

Half a dozen frantic voices were calling to the sailor who, with dogged persistence, kept on, shaking his grizzled and gray head, and muttering over and over again:

"It won't do for Jack Jepson! No sir! It won't do. I had one experience with trouble and I don't want any more. No sir!"

Evidently utterly unused to a moving picture studio, the old man kept on his way. He was headed directly toward a camera that was "filming" an elaborate ball room scene.

If any figure came between the scene and the camera with the pictures it was imprinting on the sensitive celluloid film (at the rate of sixteen per second) part of the elaborate work would have to be done over again. And as one of the characters in the little play was a celebrated dancer, whose time was paid for at an almost unbelieveable sum per hour, it would mean a heavy expense.

"Stop him!" cried Mr. Pertell. "Come back here!"

"Halt! Vamoose! Turn about!" Paul Ardite called to the worked-up traveler of the deep blue sea.

This had no effect.

"Avast there! Belay!" cried Russ Dalwood, who was not at that moment engaged at the crank of some camera. He used the same sea terms the old man himself had uttered, but this salt-water "lingo," or translation of the command to halt, had no effect either.

Then came an interruption at a most opportune time. Just ahead of the sailor a scene from a Wild West drama was being enacted. A group of cowboys were engaged in a quarrel in the bunk house, which had been set up in the studio. The outdoor scenes of the little play were to be made later, for it is the custom in this business to make all the scenes, taking place in one locality, at the same time, regardless of their sequence in the finished play. Later the film is cut up into strips, pasted together with the proper headings, or captions, and the finished play results.

And just as the old sailor, who called himself Jack Jepson, was about to step in front of the ball room scene camera, to the frantic horror of the operator, one of the cowboys, following out his lines, drew his revolver, and fired a blank cartridge at the "villain."

In the studio the noise was like that of a small cannon.

"Mutiny!" yelled Jack Jepson, jumping in the air a foot or more. "Mutiny!"

But he stopped, and just in time. Two steps more would have brought him in front of the clicking camera.

"Mutiny!" he fairly roared. "What is this! Who's firin' a shot across my bows? All hands on deck t' repel boarders! Avast there!" and he stood looking around in bewilderment, while the smoke from the revolver floated upward.

"Come here!" called Mr. Pertell running forward, and grasping the arm of the sailor before he could get away to step in front of any of the other moving picture machines. "You don't understand, Mr. Jepson. I merely want you to——"

"Yes, I reckon I heard you say what you wanted me to do. Now look here! I don't know much about you, but you come over t' our Sailors' Snug Harbor, an' you took some pictures. That was all right, I'm not captain there an' I haven't anything t' say. You said you wanted an old able-bodied man for certain work, an' I volunteered. I didn't know where the voyage was, but I signed on, an' come here; didn't I?"

"You did," said Mr. Pertell. "But let me explain."

"No, you listen to me, first!" exclaimed the old salt, shaking a thickened and roughened finger at the manager. "I come here, willin' to do anything from slushin' th' mast, or holystonin' th' decks t'