"Oh, you be still, Linda!" laughed good-natured Pearl. "You ought to be pleased as Punch to see Nan and Walter. Between them they just about saved your life when Granny Graves' horses ran away with you the other day."
Little Inez was on Nan's other side and immediately Nan gave her attention to the child, leaving Walter free to talk with the new-comers if he chose.
"Did you like that picture, dear?" asked Nan of the little one.
"Hi! I liked it where the fat man slipped up on the soap at the top of the stairs and slid to the bottom where the scrub-woman left her tub of water. Do you 'spect that was real water, Nan Sherwood? He'd ha' been drowned, wouldn't he?"
"I guess it was real water," laughed Nan. "But they wouldn't let him be drowned in a picture."
"I forget it's a picture," sighed little Inez, exhibiting thereby true dramatic feeling for the art of acting. To her small mind the pantomime seemed real.
Another reel was started. The projection of it flickered on the screen until it dazzled one's eyes to try to watch it.
"Goodness!" gasped Pearl Graves. "I hope that won't keep up."
The excited little Hebrew who owned the theatre ran, sputtering, up the aisle, and climbed into the gallery to expostulate with the operator. There was an explosion of angry voices from the operator's box when the proprietor reached it.
The reel was halted again—this time without the projection of the usual "Wait a minute, please," card. The next instant there was another explosion; but not of voices.