"Speak to me about that!" he whispered to Matt, with a choppy chuckle. "That's the trouble with these moving-picture honkatonks when you come in after the lights are out. Oh, bother that stingy moon! I wish the chap with the raw voice would cut it out, and let the rest of the show get to climbing over the screen."
"Don't be so impatient, old chap," returned Matt. "You've got to have something happening to you about once every fifteen minutes, or you get so nervous you can't sit still. In that respect, you're a lot like Dick Ferral, a sailor chum I cruised with a while ago. Now——"
"Sh-h-h!" interrupted the cowboy. "The piano has had enough of the moon, and now here comes the first moving picture."
White letters quivered on the screen. "Buddha's Eye" was the title of the series of pictures about to be shown. McGlory gulped excitedly, and Matt stared. The motor boys had just finished a wild entanglement with a great ruby called the "Eye of Buddha," and this, the first picture in the first theatre that claimed them, reminded them, with something like a shock, of recent experiences.
"Sufferin' sparks!" muttered McGlory. "What's the difference between 'Buddha's Eye' and the 'Eye of Buddha,' Matt?"
"No difference, Joe," answered Matt. "This is just a coincidence, that's all."
The interior of a Buddhist temple was thrown on the screen. The views were colored, and priests in gray and yellow robes could be seen moving back and forth and prostrating themselves before a huge gilt idol. The idol was of a "sitting Buddha" and must have measured full twenty feet from the temple floor to the top of the head.
With a flash, the interior of the temple gave way to an enlarged view of the idol's head. The head had but one eye, placed in the centre of the forehead—a huge ruby, which glowed like a splash of warm blood.
"The Honam joss house, in the suburbs of Canton!" whispered McGlory excitedly. "If it ain't, I'm a Piute!"
Motor Matt kept silence, wondering.