"Chester, might I ask what you were doing with that--that young person?" Mrs. Pilkins' manner was ominous. "I was helping her--a little--with her hair." "With her--why, what--do you----" "She is tied. Her hands, you know. ... She----" "Tied, is she?" Mrs. Pilkins bestowed a chilled stare upon the retreating figure of the captive. "Well, she deserves to be. They should keep her tied. Chester, I want you to stay close to me and not go wandering off again." "Yes, my dear, I will--I mean, I won't." "Besides, you may be needed any minute now. Mr. Harcourt"--she indicated that gentleman, who had approached--"has been kind enough to invite us to take part in this beautiful production." "But, my dear--but----" "Chester, I wish for my sake you would refrain from keeping on saying 'but.' And please quit interrupting." "You see--it's like this," explained Mr. Harcourt: "It's the scene at the dock when the heroine gets home. You two are to be two of the passengers--the director says he'll be very glad to have you take part. I just spoke to him. There will be many others in the scene--extras, you know. Think you'd like it? It will be an experience." "As you say, Mr. Harcourt, it will be an experience," said Mrs. Pilkins. "I accept with pleasure. So does my husband." Promptly ensued then action, and plenty of it. With many others, recruited from the ranks of the populace, the Chester Pilkinses were herded into a corner of the open-faced stage at the back side of the bazaar--a corner which the two presiding genii of that domain, known technically and respectively as the boss carpenter and the head property man, had, by virtue of their magic and in accordance with an order from their overlord, the director, transformed, even as one waited, from something else into the pierhead of a New York dock. With these same others our two friends mounted a steep flight of steps behind the scenes, and then, shoving sheeplike through a painted gangway, in a painted bulkhead of a painted ship, they flocked down across a canvas-sided gangplank to the ostensible deck of the presumable pier, defiling off from left to right out of lens range, the while they smiled and waved fond greetings to supposititious friends. When they had been made to do this twice and thrice, when divers stumbling individuals among them had been corrected of a desire to gaze, with the rapt, fascinated stare of sleep-walkers, straight into the eye of the machine, when the director was satisfied with his rehearsal, he suddenly yelled "Camera!" and started them at it all over again.