"Oh, Daddy! Now don't tell a depressing dream before tea!" begged Alice, slipping her arms about his neck, and imprinting a kiss on a spot, which, if it were not already bald, was fast becoming so. "Wait until after supper—the rarebit will spoil if we don't eat it at once. Wait, Daddy dear!"
"All right, I will," he assented with a sigh. "Perhaps I may have a less gloomy view of it after a cup of tea."
And while the little family party is gathered about the table, I shall take just a moment to tell my new readers something about the previous books of this series.
Ruth and Alice DeVere were moving picture girls, which you have probably guessed already. That is, they were actresses for the silent film dramas that make so much for enjoyment nowadays. Mr. DeVere was also an actor in the same company. He had been a semi-tragedian of the "old school," but his voice had failed, because of a throat ailment, and he could no longer declaim his lines over the footlights. He was in distress until it was suggested to him that he take up moving picture work.
This suggestion came from young Russ Dalwood, who, with his widowed mother and little brother, lived across the hall from the DeVere family, in the Fenmore Apartment on one of the West Sixty streets of New York. Russ had invented a new attachment for a moving picture camera, and he himself was a camera operator of ability.
At first Mr. DeVere had refused to consider moving picture work, but he finally consented, and even allowed his daughters to take their parts in the silent drama. In the initial book of the series, "The Moving Picture Girls," I related their first experiences.
All was not smooth sailing. Though Mr. Frank Pertell, manager of the Comet Film Company, was a most agreeable man, the other members of the theatrical company were like those of any other organization—some were liked, and some were not. Among the former, at least from the standpoint of Ruth and Alice, was Russ; Paul Ardite, who played juvenile leads; Pop Snooks, the property man and one who did all the odd tasks; and Carl Switzer, a round-faced German, who was funny without knowing it.
But neither Ruth nor Alice cared much for Laura Dixon and Pearl Pennington, two former vaudeville actresses who thought they were conferring a favor on the cameras to pose for moving pictures. Mr. Bunn, an actor of the kind styled "Hams", was in like case.
Mr. Bunn was always bemoaning the fact that he had left the "legitimate" drama with a chance of playing "Hamlet", to take up moving picture work. But he might have been glad—especially on paydays—for he had made more out of camera work than he could have done on the regular stage.
Pepper Sneed was never satisfied. He was of a gloomy nature, and always looking for trouble. Sometimes he found it, and for a time he was happy in saying "I told you so." But more often he proved a dismal failure as a predicter of calamities.