"All ready now!" called Mr. Pertell, the manager of the company, and also the chief stage director, a little later. "Take your places, if you please! Mr. DeVere, you are not in this until the second scene. Mr. Bunn, you'll not need your high hat in this act." "But I thought you said----" began an elderly actor, of the type known as "Hams," from their insatiable desire to portray the character of Hamlet. "I know I did," said Mr. Pertell, sharply. "But I have had to change my mind. You are to take the part of a plumber, and you come to fix a burst water pipe. So get your overalls and your kit. You have a plumber's kit; haven't you, Pop?" the manager called to Pop Snooks, the property man, who was obliged, on short notice, to provide anything from a diamond ring to a rustic bridge. "All right for the plumber!" called Pop. "Have it for you in a minute." "And, Mr. Sneed," called the manager to another actor. "You are supposed to be the householder whose water pipe has burst. You try to putty it up and you get soaked. Go over there in the far corner, where the tank is; we don't want water running into this Quaker scene." "Oh, I get all wet; do I?" asked Mr. Sneed, in no very pleasant tones. "That's what you do!" "Well, all I've got to say is that I wish you'd give some of these tank dramas to someone else. I'm getting tired of being soaked." "You haven't been really wet since the trip to Florida," declared Mr. Pertell. "Lively now, we have no time to lose. Come on, Russ!" he called to the young operator. "You're to film the Quaker scenario. I'll have Johnson make the water pipe scene. All ready, ladies and gentlemen!" Various plays were going on at once in different parts of the studio. Ruth and Alice DeVere took their places in one where a Quaker story was being portrayed. Later they posed in a church scene, in which a number of extra people, or "supers," were engaged to represent the congregation. Mr. Pertell, once he had the various scenes going, took a moment in which to rest, for he was a very busy man. He sat down near Alice, who, for the time being, was out of the scene. But hardly had the manager stretched out in a chair, resting one shirt-sleeved arm over the back, when he started up, and looked intently toward one corner of the studio. "I wonder why he is going in there?" observed the manager, half aloud. "Who?" asked Alice, for the moving picture company was like one big family, in a way. "That new man," went on Mr. Pertell. "Harry Wilson, he said his name was. Now he's going into the proof room, where he has no business. I must look into this. I wonder, after all, if there could be any truth in that warning I received the other day." "What warning?" asked Alice. "About a rival film company trying to discover some of the secrets of our success. I must look into this."