re."

"T-ten."

"Did you ever go to school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now tell that little girl with the pink hair ribbon who's sitting in
the third row, what you learned yesterday."

"Ya-ya-ya," interrupted the younger member of the Peck family.
"Ya-ya-ya!"

"Why, George," admonished the ventriloquist. "Aren't you ashamed of
yourself, behaving in this way?"

"No, I ain't," protested George incorrigibly. "Ya-ya-ya, blackface!"

So it went for the space of a good half-hour. Pretty poor stuff, it may
seem now, oh, you grown-ups who have lost the magic eyes of childhood,
but snickers and shouts and giggles filled the hall while the dialogue
lasted. Finally the lay figures waxed so disputatious that Professor
O'Reilley consigned them to the darkness of the trunk from which they
came.

"Stay there until you behave yourselves," he scolded, as the groans grew
more and more subdued in protest against the captivity.

"Wish I could do that," said John. "Couldn't I get teacher mad, talking
at her from the blackboard?"

"Sh-sh," whispered Louise. "He's going to speak."

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We have with us today for the
first exhibition in this part of the city, the most wonderful invention
of the glorious age in which you are living. After the hall is darkened,
I shall go down to the table where that lantern stands and throw upon
the screen actual moving pictures taken from real life. You will see the
landing of our brave troops upon the rock-bound shores of Cuba. You will
witness a thrilling battle with Spanish insurrectos [the professor was
getting his history a little mixed, but that mattered not a whit to his
audience], and brave men will fall before your eyes in the charge up San
Joon hill. I need not state that these pictures have been secured at an
almost fabulous cost, for Professor T. J. O'Reilley always makes it a
point to give his patrons the best of everything, regardless of expense.
The best of order must be kept while the hall is in darkness. Anyone
creating a disturbance at that time will be instantly expelled."

Thus did the professor conclude his introduction of the feature which,
later, was to drive him and his kind out of business.

A click, a sudden buzzing as if a giant swarm of bees were flying about
in the center of the hall where the long, cylindrical gas tanks stood,
and a six foot square of light flashed on the white curtain which had
been lowered to the stage.

The pictures fl