Mr. Griffith was not going to be outdone; so, with much bravado, for he was quite convinced of its truth, he said: “Well, we are not doing it now, but the time will come when the day’s news events will be regularly pictured on the screen with the same speed the ambitious young reporter gets his scoop on the front page of his newspaper. We’ll have all the daily news told in moving pictures the same as it is told in words on the printed page. Now, I’m willing to bet you.” But John Sleicher was skeptical. Had he not been, he would then and there have invested some of his pennies in the movies. He regretted the opportunity many times afterward, for while the prediction has not been fulfilled exactly, the News Reel of to-day gives promise that it will be. However, Mr. Sleicher lived to enjoy the News Reel quite as much as he did his newspaper, and that meant a great deal for him. These little happenings were encouraging. Intelligent persons on the outside were taking interest. So again we’d buck up and go at the movie job with renewed vigor. For a time we lived in the clouds--our habitat a mountain peak. But that couldn’t last. No kind of mountain peak existence could. We should have known. Even after all the encouragement, down off our peak we’d slip into the deep dark valley again. We tried to keep an unswerving faith, but who could have visioned the great things that were to come? Doubts still persisted. Yes, even after the Browning triumph, longings came over us to return to former ambitions. They had not been buried so deeply after all. We’d see a fine play and get the blue devils. In this mood my husband would do the rounds of the movie houses and chancing upon a lot of bad pictures, come back utterly discouraged. “They can’t last. I give them a few years. Where’s my play? Since I went into these movies I haven’t had a minute to look at a thing I ever wrote. And I went into them because I thought surely I’d get time to write or do something with what I had.” (Monetary needs so soon forgotten!) “Well, anyhow, nobody’s going to know I ever did this sort of thing when I’m a famous playwright. Nobody’s ever going to know that David W. Griffith, the playwright, was once the Lawrence Griffith of the movies.” So “Lawrence” continued on the next Biograph contract. The two names would get all balled up sometimes and I’d get peeved and say: “Why don’t you use your right name? I think you’re so silly.” But David remained obdurate until he signed his third Biograph contract. CHAPTER XVIII GETTING ON