have the very thing for you and your daughters, too," the
manager said. "That is, if they have no objection to going out of
doors?" and he looked questioningly at them.

"We'd love it!" cried Alice.

"Then I'll make my plans," went on Mr. Pertell, after a confirmatory
nod from Mr. DeVere. "I think you'll like your parts. One of the acts
takes place on a yacht. I've hired one for a little trip down the
bay, and you can play at being millionaires for a day."

"How lovely!" cried Ruth, and clapped her hands gleefully.

"It is fine on the water these days!" exclaimed Alice.

"I'll have your parts ready soon," went on the manager. "I must start
some of the other dramas going now," and he glanced about the studio.
Off in one corner, talking together, were Miss Pennington and Miss
Dixon, and, as the two actresses conversed they cast envious glances,
from time to time, at Alice and Ruth. They were plainly jealous of
the rapid rise of our two friends, but the moving picture girls bore
in mind what motherly Mrs. Maguire had told them, and did not worry.

Mr. Pertell and his assistants gave out the parts in another play,
and the rehearsals began. Almost at the start there was trouble.

"I'm not going to play that part!" objected Wellington Bunn, stalking
with a tragic air toward the manager.

"Why, what's the matter with your part?"

"Why, you have been promising that you would put on one of
Shakespeare's plays, and give me a chance in Hamlet, and here you go
and cast me for one of a gang of counterfeiters. I have to wear a
black mask. The public will not know that it is Wellington Bunn
playing."

"Well, maybe it's a good thing they won't," murmured the manager, but
what he said, aloud, was:

"You will have to take that part, Mr. Bunn, or look for another
engagement."

"Then I'll leave!" the old actor declared gloomily.

But a little later he was observed to be putting on his mask, and
taking his place in the "den of the counterfeiters," as the screen
announced the place to be. It was one of the masterpieces of scenery
evolved by Pop Snooks. And a little later he transformed the same
scene, with a little manipulation, into the cave of a thirteenth
century monk. Such was Pop Snooks.

"Ha! Ha! I haf a funny part!" laughed Carl Switzer, a little later.

"What is it?" asked Russ, who was getting a camera in readiness for
action.

"Ha! It iss dot I go in a restaurant, und order a meal. Der vaiter he
brings me some