Paramount and Artcraft Press Books (1918)

Cast and Story of *^Boots” For Use of Exhibitors in Their House Organs or for General Publicity in the Exploitation of Dorothy Gish’s New Photoplay A Paramount Picture Dorothy Gish, Charming Paramount Star is a Slavey in Her Latest Photoplay ^^Boots^^ Theme of Dramatic and Appealing Picture Deals with Bolshivist Plotters Who are Foiled by a Girl of the London Tenements. UPON the open pages of the paper-backed edition of “Her Sainted Love” fell two large and shiny tears. The erstwhile owner of the tears beheld them with dismayed surprise. The eyes widened, the chin quivered for a moment and then she threw “Her Sainted Love” against the opposite wall with a sudden whack. “Boots,” the owner of the tearstained eyes, was done with the crying. Also, with paper-backed books that told of sainted lovers. To her trusting mind the thing had worked out differently. Her sainted lover had apparently turned out to be a devilish liar instead. She remembered how she came by her name — through shining the shoes of the boarders in the London tenement. She reflected on the landlady whose flsh-wife tongue had curled around nothing but abusive adjectives in the four years of her service. She had stood it because, orphaned, she had no place to go. She recalled the moments stolen with some book or other in learning to read and write. And her war garden. She looked wonderingly at it now. It was growing, and the only reason it was, was because of HIM. She had come to the boarding house late at night, in fact, just after that woman boarder whom Boots hated with all the fire of her soul. She had blacked his boots and this woman’s, and there had been so many that she took all she could in her arms, then stepped into a pair of his and clattered through the hall to the rooms, in her blithe spirit of youth, reaching his door after a standing jump in his broad footgear. And he had opened the door in front of her. She smiled sadly as she remembered how she had run down the hallway. “BOOTS” The Cast “Boots” Dorothy Gish Everett White Richard Barthelmess Mme. de Valdee. .Fontine LaRue Nicholas Jerome. . .Edward Peil Lydia Hampstead Kate V. Toncray The Chauffeur. Raymond Cannon Then this woman: Mariana, she called herself, and had her room full of those horrible statues. She was always pounding on something, and she made Boots feed her pet mice, an operation that sent the cold chills up the little slavey’s back. Boots knew there was something wrong with this woman, for ever since the little romance between Boots and Everett White had begun to develop, Mariana had been stepping in the way. What she did not know was that Mariana was one of a Bolshevist council, that her business in this house was to locate an underground passage, and on a certain day when the world peace delegates would be in the building next door, place a bomb beneath the place and blow the peacemakers to atoms. White had taken no interest in this Mariana woman at first, but with Boots had nourished the war garden and told her ever so many things that she had needed to know. And that day they had gone punting ; he had saved her from drowning, and she had called him her hero. But today had brought her little castle crashing down around her ears. She had found him — kissing Mariana. She did not know that White was really a Secret Service man, and that he was there primar ily to block Mariana in her murderous attempt. And White could not tell Boots, whom he loved dearly, why he had been doing the things that were breaking her heart. It was the end for Boots, her faith was broken. Boots gazed at the war garden. It presented itself in an array of boxes filled with dirt and many growing plants. More dirt was needed. So, trudging down the stairs, pail and shovel in hand, she reached the back yard and began to dig. In her need for the physical expanse of her emotions, she sank the shovel deep and fast into the soft dirt. Suddenly the earth gave way, and in the mass of falling dirt, she landed ten feet or more below in an underground tunnel. Dazed for the moment, she sat up and stared, then listened. There were sounds of a struggle near her, a moan and then a ticking sound. Boots crept along the floor until she saw a faint light. There stood Mariana, bending over a black box which she was adjusting. On the ground near her lay White, bound and gagged. Boots crept stealthily behind the woman and leaped upon her, bringing her to the floor, and in the struggle succeeded in dazing the adventuress and tying her. She then tore the gag from White’s mouth, in time to hear him cry out to her to throw the bomb outside. Seizing the engine of death. Boots ran wildly through the tunnel until she saw light. An entrance had been cut through the room occupied by Mariana. Through this ran the little slavey and out to the rear of the house where she cast the bomb from her into the river below. A moment later came the crashing roar of the explosion. Boots fainted, and when she awoke, it was in the arms of the man she had thought was traitor to her. 5