Thereafter followed a discussion, which in the main consisted of joint
and several rejection of parts. Marguerite Whitland most resolutely
refused to play the part of the bad girl, even though Bones promised to
change the title to "The Good Girl," even though he wheedled his best,
even though he struck attitudes indicative of despair and utter ruin,
even though the gentle persuasiveness of Mr. Lew Becksteine was added
to his entreaties. And Hamilton as resolutely declined to have
anything to do with the bad man. Mr. Becksteine solved the difficulty
by undertaking to produce the necessary actors and actresses at the
minimum of cost.
"Of course you won't play, Bones?" said Hamilton.
"I don't know," said Bones. "I'm not so sure, dear old thing. I've
got a lot of acting talent in me, and I feel the part--that's a
technical term you won't understand."
"But surely, Mr. Tibbetts," said the girl reproachfully, "you won't
allow yourself to be photographed embracing a perfectly strange lady?"
Bones shrugged his shoulders.
"Art, my dear old typewriter," he said. "She'll be no more to me than
a bit of wood, dear old miss. I shall embrace her and forget all about
it the second after. You need have no cause for apprehension, really
and truly."
"I am not at all apprehensive," said the girl coldly, and Bones
followed her to her office, showering explanations of his meaning over
her shoulder.
On the third day Hamilton went back to Twickenham a very weary man.
"Bones is really indefatigable," he said irritably, but yet admiringly.
"He has had those unfortunate actors rehearsing in the open fields, on
the highways and byways. Really, old Bones has no sense of decency.
He's got one big scene which he insists upon taking in a private park.
I shudder to think what will happen if the owner comes along and
catches Bones and his wretched company."
Sanders laughed quietly.
"What do you think he'll do with the film?" he asked.
"Oh, he'll sell it," said Hamilton. "I tell you, Bones is amazing. He
has found a City man who is interested in the film industry, a
stockbroker or something, who has promised to see every bit of film as
it is produced and give him advice on the subject; and, incredible as
it may sound, the first half-dozen scenes that Bones has taken have
passed muster."
"Who turns the handle of the camera?" asked the girl.
"Bones," said Hamilton, trying not to laugh. "He practised the
revolutions on a knife-cleaning machine!"
The fourth day it rained, but the fifth day Bones took his company in a
hired motor into the country, and, blissfully ignoring such admonitions
as "Trespassers will be shot," he led the way over a wall to the sacred
soil of an Englishman's stately home. Bones wanted the wood, because
one of his scenes was laid on the edge of a wood. It was the scene
where the bad girl, despairing of convincing anybody as to her inherent
goodness, was taking a final farewell of the world before "leaving a
life which had held nothing but sadness and misunderstanding," to quote
the title which was to introduce this touching episode.