Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

106 THE MOTION PIC TUBE STORY MAGAZINE "■Why, Ethel!" he at last exclaimed, "by all that's marvelous, what brings you here ? ' ' She did not know whether to be very indignant, or very perfunctory, and finally took the latter pose. "I have decided to study in the city," she said; "Dosebury offers such limited opportunities. ' ' "I meant to write to you," he explained, "when I had settled — everything is so strange and big here. ' ' "Yes, it is very noisy," she concurred. "Wont you look in at my place?" John stepped into her dainty, boxlike room, thinking that if the divine muse had separated them, she had at least brought them abruptly together again. Maybe it was foreordained that Ethel should thus get the uninspired strains out of her system, even at the expense of his feelings. Her table was littered with fragments of compositions, neat bits of mechanical craft, at best, and John knew that she had stolen a march on him, when it came to getting down to work. He had better, he thought, turn off a painting, hang it on some dealer's walls, and then, with the weight of its authority, lead her back to safe and sane pastures. Thus the little weed-grown path was figuratively trod again ; this time, if less ardently, at least, magnanimously. One day, as John, bent over his palette, was mixing sienna, indigo, and brown pink for an impossible foliage, she sat on a box, in the friendliest manner, and watched the grewsome outcome. She was convinced that he would never make an artist; but pity, the poor relation of love, had come to her, mixed with policy, too ; for she knew that if she ever married him, their home would be a gallery of jaundiced or bilious landscapes too invalided to be accepted by healthy eyes. Thus her golden topknot, while nodding pleasantly to his sallies, was planning deeply on ways and means. The next morning found her, very subdued, in the gallery of a famous dealer, where, under the soft light thrown on the high walls, she told him of her plan. "Mr. Whittler's 'Sun-bath of the Woods' will be finished in a few days," she said, in parting; "as we have agreed, you will please hang it, and if purchasers dont flock around, of course, I will buy it — for your trouble." The connoisseur ushered her to his door, with the most indulgent of smiles. In the meantime, the "Sun-bath" progressed famously in the making; the heavenly light filtering thru the trees with the exactness of a showerbath. Not so fast, tho, that John could not mature his little scheme to poultice Ethel's "failing," as he thought it. ' ' Hang it ! " he said, with a hungry brush hovering over the tree-tops; "I've got to get her out of this — decently, you know. If we ever marry — and I'll subpoena every critic to testify that she's the sweetest little thing that ever warmed high-heeled slippers — I cant be turning out to musical fire-alarms every minute of the day. Something has got to be done to curb the origin of those formidable sound-waves." Just as the painted sunlight broke thru the forest gloom, so a brilliant idea came to him. ' ' Sell something for her — that 's it ; then persuade her to go home and wait for the royalties to come hopping in." He became quite elated. "Sir Bath," he said, bowing grandly to the canvas, "kindly lave in the modesty of your leafy bower until I return triumphant. ' ' So saying, he clapped on his hat jauntily, and, tucking one of her scores under his overcoat, sallied forth in quest of a market. P. Sauerbien, the well-known publisher himself, told him frankly that his house was not looking for anything new. How much would it cost to set it in type and print a few copies? Ja wohl! that depended — did it need editing, or critique, or re