"You see," said Mr. Pertell, "you come into the shipping office, and pretend to hand over the papers. But you slip the clerk the wrong ones, and while he is examining them you reach over behind him and take the documents you want."
"Avast there! Belay!" came the hoarse voice of the sailor. "I do that there, do I?"
"Well, it isn't _stealing_, exactly. It's only----"
"Stealin' is what I call it, and it can't be called by another name to my way of thinkin'. It won't do, sir, it won't do! Jack Jepson got into trouble once, but he isn't goin' to do it again. No sir! That stealin' won't do for Jack Jepson. You've got to get someone else to sign them articles for you. No stealin' for Jack Jepson!" and the figure of the old sailor turned and, with a rolling gait, he started across the big studio room.
"Hold him back, somebody! Look out, you'll spoil that scene! Don't cross in front of the camera!"
Half a dozen frantic voices were calling to the sailor who, with dogged persistence, kept on, shaking his grizzled and gray head, and muttering over and over again:
"It won't do for Jack Jepson! No sir! It won't do. I had one experience with trouble and I don't want any more. No sir!"
Evidently utterly unused to a moving picture studio, the old man kept on his way. He was headed directly toward a camera that was "filming" an elaborate ball room scene.
If any figure came between the scene and the camera with the pictures it was imprinting on the sensitive celluloid film (at the rate of sixteen per second) part of the elaborate work would have to be done over again. And as one of the characters in the little play was a celebrated dancer, whose time was paid for at an almost unbelieveable sum per hour, it would mean a heavy expense.
"Stop him!" cried Mr. Pertell. "Come back here!"
"Halt! Vamoose! Turn about!" Paul Ardite called to the worked-up traveler of the deep blue sea.
"Avast there! Belay!" cried Russ Dalwood, who was not at that moment engaged at the crank of some camera. He used the same sea terms the old man himself had uttered, but this salt-water "lingo," or translation of the command to halt, had no effect either.
Then came an interruption at a most opportune time. Just ahead of the sailor a scene from a Wild West drama was being enacted. A group of cowboys were engaged in a quarrel in the bunk house, which had been set up in the studio. The outdoor scenes of the little play were to be made later, for it is the custom in this business to make all the scenes, taking place in one locality, at the same time, regardless of their sequence in the finished play. Later the film is cut up into strips, pasted together with the proper headings, or captions, and the finished play results.