JOHN BENNETT emerged from the wood-shed, which he had converted into a dark room, bearing a flat square box in either hand.
“Don’t talk to me for a minute, Ella,” he said as she rose from her knees—she was weeding her own pet garden—“or I shall get these blamed things mixed. This one”—he shook his right hand—“is a picture of trout, and it is a great picture,” he said enthusiastically. “The man who runs the trout farm, let me take it through the glass side of the trench, and it was a beautifully sunny day.”
“What is the other one, daddy?” she asked, and John Bennett pulled a face.
“That is the dud,” he said regretfully. “Five hundred feet of good film gone west! I may have got a picture by accident, but I can’t afford to have it developed on the off-chance. I’ll keep it by, and one day, when I’m rolling in money, I’ll go to the expense of satisfying my curiosity.”
He took the boxes into the house, and turned round to his stationery rack to find two adhesive labels, and had finished writing them, when Dick Gordon’s cheery voice came through the open window. He rose eagerly and went out to him.
“Well, Captain Gordon, did you get it?” he asked.
“I got it,” said Dick solemnly, waving an envelope. “You’re the first cinematographer that has been allowed in the Zoological Gardens, and I had to crawl to the powers that be to secure the permission!”
The pale face of John Bennett flushed with pleasure.
“It is a tremendous thing,” he said. “The Zoo has never been put on the pictures, and Selinski has promised me a fabulous sum for the film if I can take it.”
“The fabulous sum is in your pocket, Mr. Bennett,” said Dick, “and I am glad that you mentioned it.”