tlay of not less
than six thousand dollars a week, which is doubtless more money than your
five-cent theatre could take in."

This argument staggered the girls for a moment. Then Beth asked: "How do
the ordinary theatres manage?"

"The ordinary theatre simply rents its pictures, paying about three
hundred dollars a week for the service. There is a 'middleman,' called
the 'Exchange,' whose business is to buy the films from the makers and
rent them to the theatres. He pays a big price for a film, but is able
to rent it to dozens of theatres, by turns, and by this method he not
only gets back the money he has expended but makes a liberal profit."

"Well," said Patsy, not to be baffled, "we could sell several copies of
our films to these middlemen, and so reduce the expense of making them
for our use."

"The middleman won't buy them," asserted Jones. "He is the thrall of one
or the other of the trusts, and buys only trust pictures."

"I see," said Uncle John, catching the idea; "it's a scheme to destroy
competition."

"Exactly," replied young Jones.

"What does the Continental do, Maud?" asked Patsy.

"I don't know," answered the girl; "but perhaps Aunt Jane can tell you."

"I believe the Continental is a sort of trust within itself," explained
Mrs. Montrose. "Since we have been connected with the company I have
learned more or less of its methods. It employs a dozen or so producing
companies and makes three or four pictures every week. The concern has
its own Exchange, or middleman, who rents only Continental films to the
theatres that patronize him."

"Well, we might do the same thing," proposed Patsy, who was loath to
abandon her plan.

"You might, if you have the capital," assented Mrs. Montrose. "The
Continental is an immense corporation, and I am told it has more than a
million dollars invested."

"Two millions," said A. Jones.

The girls were silent a while, seriously considering this startling
assertion. They had, between them, considerable money, but they realized
they could not enter a field that required such an enormous investment as
film making.

"I suppose," said Beth regretfully, "we shall have to give up
making films."

"Then where are we to get the proper pictures for our theatre?"
demanded Patsy.

"It is quite evident we _can't_ get them," said Louise. "Therefore we may
be obliged to abandon the theatre proposition."

Another silence, still more grave. Uncle John was discreet enough