ma is--what it should mean--"

"Trim it, Hector. You can break all the banks in town uplifting the
drama and never put it over. About once a winter you have a good piece;
the rest of the time the folks who want to see real actors go to
Indianapolis or sneak up to Chicago for a week and beat you to it. That
fil-lum show down by the court-house is rotten. Coarse and stupid. Why
not spend a few dollars changing the front of this joint and put on good
pictures? The people who keep the pictures moving in Indianapolis sit
around the fire Sunday evenings and burn money--it comes in so fast the
banks haven't room for it. Call this 'The Home Fireside'--no nickelodeon
business--and get the Center Church quartette to sing. It will sound
just like prayer-meeting to people who think a real theater a sinful
place. If you don't tackle it, I'll throw Bernstein out and take it up
myself. There's a new man in town right now trying to locate a screen;
beat him to the wire, Lawr_i_nce."

"By Jove, Phil--!"

She started off briskly and a little farther on met Jack Whittlesey the
sheriff, who grinned and touched his coonskin cap.

"Got an engagement, Phil? Hope not. Uncle Alec is goin' to holler in a
few minutes."

"I'm out calling, Sheriff, but if you're sure the judge is going to act
up, I'll take a look in."

She crossed the street to the court-house. To Phil nothing was funnier
than Alec Waterman in the throes of oratory. Waterman was big and burly,
with a thunderous voice; and when he addressed a jury he roared and
shook his iron-gray mane in a manner truly terrifying. In warm weather
when the windows were open, he could be plainly heard in any part of the
court-house square. When Phil reached the circuit court-room Judge
Walters, with his feet on the judicial desk, was gazing at the ceiling,
as was his habit when trials grew tedious. As Phil entered, he jerked
down his feet, sat erect, snapped his fingers at the bailiff, and
directed the placing of a chair within the space set apart for the bar.
Phil smiled her thanks, and made herself comfortable with her back to
the clerk's desk. The case in progress was a suit for personal injuries
against the Sycamore Traction Company, brought by Waterman for a farmer,
who, on the preceding Fourth of July, had been tossed a considerable
distance toward Chicago by a violent contact with one of the defendant's
cars. The motorman and the conductor had both testified that the car was
running emp