The scene with the letters followed. Clothes baskets of letters. His own work, as he opened a few from the top, was all that he could have wished. He was finely Harold Parmalee, and again the hoarse neighbour whispered, "Ain't he got Parmalee dead, though?""Poor, silly little girls!" the screen exclaimed, and the audience became noisy. Undoubtedly it was a tribute to his perfection in the Parmalee manner. But he was glad that now there would come acting at which no one could laugh. There was the delicatessen shop, the earnest young cashier and his poor old mother who mopped. He saw himself embrace her and murmur words of encouragement, but incredibly there were giggles from the audience, doubtless from base souls who were impervious to pathos. The giggles coalesced to a general laugh when the poor old mother, again mopping on the floor, was seen to say, "I hate these mopping mothers. You get took with house-maid's knee in the first reel."Again he was seized with a fear that one of Baird's staff had been clumsy with subtitles. His eyes flew to his own serious face when the silly words had gone.
The drama moved. Indeed the action of the shadows was swifter than he supposed it would be. The dissolute son of the proprietor came on to dust the wares and to elicit a laugh when he performed a bit of business that had escaped Merton at the time. Against the wire screen that covered the largest cheese on the counter he placed a placard, "Dangerous. Do not Annoy."Probably Baird had not known of this clowning. And there came another subtitle that would dismay Baird when the serious young bookkeeper enacted his scene with the proprietor's lovely daughter, for she was made to say: "You love above your station. Ours is 125th Street; you get off at 59th."He was beginning to feel confused. A sense of loss, of panic, smote him. His own part was the intensely serious thing he had played, but in some subtle way even that was being made funny. He could not rush to embrace his old mother without exciting laughter.
The robbery of the safe was effected by the dissolute son, the father broke in upon the love scene, discovered the loss of his money, and accused an innocent man. Merton felt that he here acted superbly. His long look at the girl for whom he was making the supreme sacrifice brought tears to his own eyes, but still the witless audience snickered. Unobserved by the others, the old mother now told her son the whereabouts of the stolen money, and he saw himself secure the paper sack of bills from the ice-box. He detected the half-guilty look of which he had spoken to Baird. Then he read his own incredible speech--"I better take this cool million. It might get that poor lad into trouble!" Again the piece had been hurt by a wrong subtitle. But perhaps the audience laughed because it was accustomed to laugh at Baird's productions. Perhaps it had not realized that he was now attempting one of the worth-while things.
This reasoning was refuted as he watched what occurred after he had made his escape.
His flight was discovered, policemen entered, a rapid search behind counters ensued. In the course of this the wire screen over the biggest cheese was knocked off the counter. The cheese leaped to the floor, and the searchers, including the policemen, fled in panic through the front door. The Montague girl, the last to escape, was seen to announce, "The big cheese is loose--it's eating all the little ones!"A band of intrepid firemen, protected by masks and armed with axes, rushed in. A terrific struggle ensued. The delicatessen shop was wrecked. And through it all the old mother continued to mop the floor. Merton Gill, who had first grown hot, was now cold. Icy drops were on his chilled brow. How had Hearts on Fire gone wrong?
Then they were in the great open spaces of the Come All Ye dance hall. There was the young actor in his Buck Benson costume, protecting his mother from the brutality of a Mexican, getting his man later by firing directly into a mirror--Baird had said it would come right in the exposure, but it hadn't. And the witless cackled.
He saw his struggle with the detective. With a real thrill he saw himself bear his opponent to the ground, then hurl him high and far into the air, to be impaled upon the antlers of an elk's head suspended back of the bar. He saw himself lightly dust his sleeves after this feat, and turn aside with the words, "That's one Lodge he can join."Then followed a scene he had not been allowed to witness. There swung Marcel, the detective, played too emphatically by the cross-eyed man. An antler point suspended him by the seat of his trousers.
He hung limply a moment, then took from his pocket a saw with which he reached up to contrive his release. He sawed through the antler and fell. He tried to stand erect, but appeared to find this impossible. A subtitle announced: "He had put a permanent wave in Marcel."This base fooling was continuously blown upon by gales of stupid laughter. But not yet did Merton Gill know the worst. The merriment persisted through his most affecting bit, the farewell to his old pal outside--how could they have laughed at a simple bit of pathos like that? But the watching detective was seen to weep bitterly.
"Look a' him doin' Buck Benson," urged the hoarse neighbour gleefully. "You got to hand it to that kid--say, who is he, anyway?"Followed the thrilling leap from a second-story window to the back of the waiting pal. The leap began thrillingly, but not only was it shown that the escaping man had donned a coat and a false mustache in the course of his fall, but at its end he was revealed slowly, very slowly, clambering into the saddle!
They had used here, he saw, one of those slow cameras that seem to suspend all action interminably, a cruel device in this instance.
And for his actual escape, when he had ridden the horse beyond camera range at a safe walk, they had used another camera that gave the effect of intense speed. The old horse had walked, but with an air of swiftness that caused the audience intense delight.
