“You certainly shall. When the first film is put on, I will send you a pass book with enough tickets in it to take your family and intimate friends. Now I must be going, or I shall be unable to reach Chicago by nightfall. And if you have no objection, I will take Billy right along with me in the car. There isn’t much room in this roadster, but I know he has ridden in roadsters before and enjoys it and so I will have no difficulty keeping him in the car. You may be interested to know we make all our films at the Essenay Studios in Chicago.”
Billy had been listening to all the two men had said, but when he heard he was to be taken away from his family then and there, he jumped to his feet and went bounding to the stable yard to tell them. For how awful it would be for him to be carried off and not have a chance to tell them where he was going! He was glad he was not going to be sold, though to be loaned was almost as bad as there was no knowing how long the man would keep him.
“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Mr. Watson. “One would think he understood what we were saying, for he lay there as quiet as a mouse until we spoke of taking him away and then he fled.”
“I expect he is tired of being away from home as you say he has just returned after nearly a three-year absence. He surely is smart and I really believe he understands almost everything he hears. I know we all thought so at the studio when he was with us.”
“I am afraid we will have a time to catch him,” said Mr. Watson. “There he is in the barnyard in the midst of a crowd. I believe he is telling them he is going to be taken away, for see how downhearted Nannie looks, and the way she hangs her head shows she is unhappy. The minute he sees us start for the barnyard he will run away and we will be unable to capture him.”
“I have a plan. I will drive away, go to town and have my luncheon, and he will think I have departed for good and all. Then while I am away, you try to shut him in the barn and have him ready for me on my return, which will be right after luncheon.”
“I am sorry you have to go, for I was thinking of having the pleasure of your company at my own table and having you tell us what Billy did in the movies.”
“I am very sorry I cannot accept your kind invitation, but I have a little business in the town before I go back to Chicago.”
After Mr. Swan, the movie man, had gone, Mr. Watson went in the house to tell his wife about Billy and how he had loaned him to Mr. Swan to act in the movies for a little while. “But how to capture the foxy old fellow is more than I know,” he concluded.