!"

Evidently utterly unused to a moving picture studio, the old man kept on
his way. He was headed directly toward a camera that was "filming" an
elaborate ball room scene.

If any figure came between the scene and the camera with the pictures it
was imprinting on the sensitive celluloid film (at the rate of sixteen
per second) part of the elaborate work would have to be done over
again. And as one of the characters in the little play was a celebrated
dancer, whose time was paid for at an almost unbelieveable sum per hour,
it would mean a heavy expense.

"Stop him!" cried Mr. Pertell. "Come back here!"

"Halt! Vamoose! Turn about!" Paul Ardite called to the worked-up
traveler of the deep blue sea.

This had no effect.

"Avast there! Belay!" cried Russ Dalwood, who was not at that moment
engaged at the crank of some camera. He used the same sea terms the old
man himself had uttered, but this salt-water "lingo," or translation of
the command to halt, had no effect either.

Then came an interruption at a most opportune time. Just ahead of the
sailor a scene from a Wild West drama was being enacted. A group of
cowboys were engaged in a quarrel in the bunk house, which had been set
up in the studio. The outdoor scenes of the little play were to be made
later, for it is the custom in this business to make all the scenes,
taking place in one locality, at the same time, regardless of their
sequence in the finished play. Later the film is cut up into strips,
pasted together with the proper headings, or captions, and the finished
play results.

And just as the old sailor, who called himself Jack Jepson, was about to
step in front of the ball room scene camera, to the frantic horror of
the operator, one of the cowboys, following out his lines, drew his
revolver, and fired a blank cartridge at the "villain."

In the studio the noise was like that of a small cannon.

"Mutiny!" yelled Jack Jepson, jumping in the air a foot or more.
"Mutiny!"

But he stopped, and just in time. Two steps more would have brought him
in front of the clicking camera.

"Mutiny!" he fairly roared. "What is this! Who's firin' a shot across my
bows? All hands on deck t' repel boarders! Avast there!" and he stood
looking around in bewilderment, while the smoke from the revolver
floated upward.

"Come here!" called Mr. Pertell running forward, and grasping the arm of
the sailor before he could get away to step in front of any of the other
mov