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I tried very hard to run the business on decent and human lines and never has any man been more loyally and faithfully served than I was. Everybody in the place was expected to be ready and willing to do any mortal thing and there was never a thought of overtime and never a trace of disinclination to take on a job which, in these days, similar workers would think 'beneath them.' Only in the studio would there sometimes be a feeling that a lady who had played 'lead' in one film ought not to have to 'walk on' as a servant-maid with a single line in the next. But the motto in the studio was 'Walk on — or Walk off,' and it came to be understood that people who were too good to play small parts as well as bigger ones were altogether too good for us. Before Geoffrey Faithfull became chief camera-man he was asked to 'stand in' for Dolly Lupone who was frightened to throw herself down in front of a swiftly approaching horse and trap. He did it with such abandon that he cut himself pretty badly on the stone road.
Sometimes when we were not busy and the weather was fine and warm there would be a sudden unexpected half-holiday so that we could all go swimming together or do what else seemed preferable. In the winter on the few days when the ice was bearing, a half-holiday, not expected or asked for, was doubly welcome. Holidays, planned beforehand, wet or fine, and doled out almost as part of one's wages hold nothing like the same happiness and welcome.
Of course boys being — as by tradition they are supposed to be — boys, got up to a good many larks which only came to my knowledge in much later years, though sometimes I knew more than I was supposed to know, but kept my own counsel. A recurring feature was a trick played upon every new boy when he first arrived. He was told to hold out the front of his trousers as far as he could. Then with his head bent backwards a penny was balanced on his nose and if he could tip it into the trouser-front he could keep it. But in the meantime another boy tipped a jugful of cold water into that receptacle — which must have been very uncomfortable.
Stanley and Geoffrey Faithfull, already mentioned, were too wise for these amusements, or perhaps too wary to be caught. If I have mentioned them a little before their proper time it is probably because they have always been such staunch friends to me that they are constantly in my thoughts.
Stanley joined in the early spring of 1906 and Geoffrey just a
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