"But to ride a mule! Great Scott! I can't do that, my dear sir!" "You told me you could ride." "Yes, a horse, perhaps; but not a mule. Why, a mule kicks!" "Oh, I don't believe this one will kick," replied the manager. "Anyhow, I want you to ride him. There is to be a comic part to this play, and I look to you to provide it. You will blacken your face and----" "Black up and take the part of a colored man--me, Wellington Bunn--who has played the classic Shakespeare--do blackface? Never!" "You forget that Shakespeare's Othello was a colored man, I guess," laughed Mr. Pertell, "and you told me you had played that character." "So I have, but Othello was a Moor--not a common black-faced comedian. He was brown, rather than black." "Well, we'll go a few shades darker, and be real black, in your case," suggested Mr. Pertell. "And you'll have to ride the mule. It is necessary to make the scene a success." Wellington Bunn sighed, as he answered: "Very well. But when this engagement is over no more moving pictures for me! I am through with them!" "We'll see," replied the manager, as he went on with his preparations for the new play. Nearly the whole company were to take part in this, and Tommy and Nellie had parts that pleased them very much. "I'm to drive a little goat cart!" exclaimed the small lad, "and you're to ride with me, Nellie." "Oh, that will be fun!" she cried, clapping her hands. "But your goat won't bite; will he?" "I won't let him bite you, anyhow," promised Tommy, kindly. Although Mr. Bunn had tacitly agreed to ride the mule, he had many misgivings on the subject, and several times he might have been seen standing near the animal, carefully studying it, as though it were a piece of complicated machinery that had to be mastered in detail. "Is it a--er--a gentle beast?" the actor asked of Sandy. "Allers has been," replied the young farmer. "'Hee-haw,' as we call him, ain't never done no harm to speak of." "He may begin on you," predicted Pepper Sneed, gloomily. "I wish you wouldn't say such things!" exclaimed the other actor, testily. "You are always looking for trouble." "Well, you'll get some without looking for it, if you ride that mule," declared the "grouch," as he walked off. "Yes, and if anything happens, I suppose you'll say 'I told you so!'" remarked Mr. Bunn, with a gloomy countenance. Preparations for the play went on, and rehearsals were in order. Without blacking his face, which could be done when the play was actually filmed, Mr. Bunn gingerly rode the mule. He made as much of a success of it as was possible. And certainly Hee-haw showed no signs of obstreperousness.