Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1911-Jan 1912)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

56 TEE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE ippo smoked many black cigars and footed up the wine bills industriously. He had even ordered the fly-specks washed off San Filippo's picture, but the evil would not avert from his door. When the place was all by the ears, and Filippo had wept on the cook's shoulder many times over his losses, Agostino, the young brother of Tomasino, appeared as the successor to his job. He was swift, obliging, and did not break crockery, or fish the raisins from steaming polenta. Offish patrons came back again to the seats by the mock-orange trees, and the padrone again offered his cigars for sale. Dottore Macchi and the venerable Curatone sometimes dropped in, and Agostino catered to their palates with delight. To Filippo's inquiries about Tomasino, the Dottore shook his head sadly. ' ' He is very bad ; he will not live much longer," he said. Agostino continued to improve in his art. When the ristorante was crowded, he was not able, like Tomasino, to serve the risotto as if he could scarce refrain from pouncing upon it, or, again, if some customer grumbled, could he put forth, herald-like, with smoking dishes from King Cook to some visiting potentate. But his fingers were skillful, and his bright smile opened many stubborn pocketbooks. Tips were his specialty; he rose to them like a pickerel to bait. Rosa, who danced the tarantella at the "Thalia," and her husband, the Sicilian seller of images, came as patrons to Filippo 's. She was a Neapolitan, gorgeous and dramatic. Filippo hugged himself over this new attraction. He put on clean collars with some regularity, and bought a "Brazilian diamond" scarf-pin. -. His remarkable improvement from the front did not impress her unduly, however, but there was something in the ristorante that did. One evening, in a dress of crimson satin, she came alone. Filippo bowed low; Agostino smiled a welcome respectfully. With such smiles vows are plighted and hearts set to beating, but Agostino 's was a mark of the trade — nothing more. Rosa, eating, watched his graceful movements, with the eyes of a stag. Filippo polished his jewel till it put forth some of its guaranteed luster. Agostino 's teeth did not sparkle more genuinely; but Tomasino 's brother had polished them to keep clean his mouth — nothing more. Having finished her coffee, she gave Agostino careful drilling in icing her Maraschino ; Filippo lit her cigarette with a spill of his own making. Theater time coming, she paid her bill with a dollar and slid another one into the soft hand of Agostino. Filippo, holding her cloak, heard its swift crackle, and bowed with great dignity at her exit. As he folded the safe door on his pin, he said: "She is fond of him — yes, she is stuck on him. ' ' To the cook, Agostino carried the untasted Maraschino, as a pledge of their friendship. "El me Carlascia," the seller of images, gave his close ear as a funnel to the acid of Filippo's voice. At closing time he had come to check against her movements of the evening. Agostino had been whirled home by the sails of Tomasino 's big overcoat, and Filippo, by candle light, whispered some true things Carlascia believed. He did not lie, but he left out words to fill in with shrugs or a sleepy smile. Carlascia, as was meant, too, filled in, and went home, nursing the swollen tale. For a long time he had felt Rosa's drawing away from him, and now, jealousy, the child of vice and virtue, clutched him, seeking for a breast. The following night was the closing of San Antonio's Day, and colored lamps were hung in front of the Ristorante di Filippo. Within doors, many guests sat at the Saint's table, and ate greedily what he had left. The festa spirit had spread to the kitchen, too, where the oil keg had been dripping into everything, and a pack of cards had fallen into the kettle of spaghetti.