“The Florida Keys” was the next slide. This glided into a scene where the biggest fish known in those waters was sighted by a Miami sportsman. The chase began. The harpoons flew. It took half a reel to give the exciting incidents of the battle and capture.
One scene was thrilling. This was where the monster smashed a boat into pieces and crushed the rudder and propeller of a thirty-one ton yacht. Even after it had been landed and was supposed to be dead, the leviathan, with a sudden flip of its tail, demolished a dockhouse. There was a final scene where a fisherman was seen sitting in the fish’s mouth as it was being hoisted to a flat car to be shipped to the Smithsonian Institution.
Pep, circulating about unobtrusively, but with eyes and ears wide open as he directed the half dozen lads dressed in neat uniforms who acted as ushers, had a constant smile on his face. He gathered a score of compliments on the reel that he caught from august professors and scientists in the audience.
“Making A Pin” was the third film. Then the little ones in the audience were given a show. Many had been purposely invited. They had shown strict attention to the first three features. “Toy Making In Germany” brought out the ecstatic “Oh’s!” and “Ah’s!” So many Santa Claus specialities were exhibited that they fairly bewildered the little ones.
“A Hard Sum” catered to the juvenile portion of the audience old enough to attend school. There was an educational element in the school scene where the teacher wrote a sum upon the blackboard. Those who attempted its solution daubed themselves and the board with chalk as they wrestled with the problem. The film worked in the laggard, the dunce and other familiar characters of the schoolroom. When a bright little fellow wrote out the answer, the juvenile spectators cheered and then woke up as from a delightful dream, as a romping scene brought forth gales of laughter.
Professor Barrington’s face was one expansive smile as, after the audience dispersed, he joined his business friends, rubbing his hands gleefully.
“An emphatic success,” he declared. “Gentlemen, there was not a flaw in the entertainment from beginning to end. It was simply perfection.”
“That’s my way of thinking,” crowed Pep. “Oh, but we’ve got the machine in grand order. All we’ve got to do now is to keep it running.”
There was a scramble for the morning papers at their room the next morning. Pep was the first to discover what the leading journal said about them.
“A whole column,” he announced, waving the paper to and fro, wild with enthusiasm. “Read, Frank—the Standard has awakened—famous!”