‘Cassie,’ he called, ‘I’ll race you round the garden.’
That evening after supper, Mechanus took them to a little theater in the tower, and showed them moving pictures. Raphael and Cassandra were very much excited when the lights were shut off and the title, A Miss Is As Good As A Mile; A Mechanical Comedy, by the Mechanico Motion Picture Studio, flickered on the screen. Aunt Mary seldom took them to the movies. She said they were vulgar.
First there appeared a tall office building into which a mechanico hurried, dressed in a silk hat and carrying an oil tankard in one hand. He was shown falling into the elevator which took him up many flights. On the way up he stepped in the tankard. When the elevator stopped, he tripped out and fell through an office door, knocking off his silk hat. The subtitle read, Oil Can.
In the office a second mechanico actor rose from the desk at which he was working and calmly kicked his visitor through the window, tankard and all. The first mechanico lit on his head in the street amidst a splatter of glass with the battered tankard in one hand. He rose and ran to an automobile standing near and got in. The whole machine fell apart, the wheels careening off in various directions. The subtitle to this was, Only a Motor Car. There was much more of this kind of fun.
‘Children, don’t you think that is funny?’ asked the Sorcerer when the reel had come to an end.
‘Not very,’ said Raphael doubtfully. ‘What was it all about?’
‘That was modeled from the very best moving picture comedies,’ answered the Sorcerer, ‘keeping the funniest features in each.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Raphael politely.
‘Would you like to see a melodrama?’ went on the Sorcerer.
‘No—no, thank you.’