CONCLUSION
It was a moment of great suspense for Ben Jolly and the ventriloquist
as, without a moment’s hesitation, the three motion picture chums dived
from their frail raft. The surface of the flood was so strewn with
pieces of floating wreckage--the bottom and sides of the newly formed
water way so treacherous--that it was a tremendous risk to get into
that swirling vortex.
Frank and his companions were no novices in the water. They saw that
Jack Beavers had been struck down from the window sill by the falling
bricks, and had probably been knocked senseless. Almost immediately
after diving the heads of the boys appeared on the surface.
“Got him!” puffed Randy.
“Lift him up,” directed Frank, swinging out one hand and catching
at a protruding window sill of the building. This purchase gained,
all exerted themselves to drag up the limp and sodden form of Peter
Carrington’s partner. Frank and Randy kept the upper part of the man’s
body out of the water. Pep swam after the floating platform they
had used as a raft. Jack Beavers, apparently more dead than alive,
was placed upon it. His rescuers pushed this over to where the water
was shallow and then carried the man into a drug store fronting the
boardwalk.
“I suppose I had better stay with him,” observed Vincent, as Beavers,
after some attention from a physician who happened to be in the drug
store, showed signs of recovery. “I know him the best, although I can’t
say truthfully that I like him the best.”
“Yes, he’s struck hard lines, and it’s a sort of duty to look after
him,” said Ben Jolly.
He and the boys put in nearly two hours helping this and that group
in distress among the storekeepers of the slump. They got back to the
Wonderland to find that its superior location had saved it from damage
of any consequence.
A wild morning was ushered in with a chill northeaster. Daylight showed
the beach covered with wrecked boats and habitations. The tents over
on the Midway were nearly all down. The National was still flooded and
the street in front of it impassable. Very few of the frame buildings,
however, had been undermined.
The worst of the storm was over by afternoon, but no entertainment
was given until the next evening. A big transparency announced a flood
benefit, and five thousand dodgers telling about it were circulated
over the town.
It was a gala night for the Wonderland. There were few of the minor
beach shows as yet in condition to resume operations, and after
twenty-four hours of storm everybody seemed out.
“At least seventy-five dollars for the benefit of the poor families
down on the beach,” observed Pep. “Say, let me run down and tell them.
It will warm their hearts, just as it does mine.”
“All right,” acceded Frank. “I guess you can promise them that much,
Pep.”
Frank and Jolly stood in front of the playhouse talking over affairs in
general as Pep darted away on his mission of charity. A well-dressed
man whom Jolly had noticed in the audience, and one of the last to
leave the place, had loitered around the entrance. Now he advanced
towards them.
“Is there a young man named Smith connected with your show?” he
inquired.
“Yes, sir,” replied Frank. “He has gone on a brief errand, but will
soon return.”
“I’ll wait for him,” said the stranger, and he sat down on the side
railing.
Frank went inside as Randy appeared with his cash box. Jolly remained
where he was. Finally Pep came into view briskly, happy faced and
excited.
“Someone to see you--that man over there,” advised Jolly.
“Is that so? Stranger to me. Want to see me?” he went on, approaching
the stranger.
“If you are Pepperill Smith.”
“That’s my name,” vouchsafed Pep.
“The same young man who was the guest of Mr. Tyson at Brenton?”
“Guest!” retorted Pep, in high scorn. “Oh, yes, I was a guest! Fired me
the first time he got mad.”
“Oh, well, we all have spells of temper we are sorry for afterwards,”
declared the man smoothly.
“Is Mr. Tyson sorry?” challenged Pep.
“He is, for a fact. You see--well, he gave you some papers, cheap
stocks or bonds; didn’t he, instead of cash for your services? He
thought maybe you’d rather have the money. I’ve got a one hundred
dollar bill for you. If those papers are lying around loose you might
hand them over to me.”
“I haven’t got them,” said Pep, and the man looked disappointed. “Maybe
my friend preserved them. Oh, Mr. Jolly,” and Pep called the pianist
over to them and explained the situation.
“H’m!” commented Jolly thoughtfully, when Pep had concluded his story,
and glancing keenly at the stranger, “you seem to have discovered some
value to the stock you refer to.”
“Oh, I suppose these stock brokers know how to juggle them along,”
responded the stranger, with assumed lightness.
“Well, as I understand it, they were given to my friend Smith.”
“Undoubtedly--why, yes, that is true.”
“As their custodian,” continued Jolly, “I want to look into this
matter.”
“I wouldn’t. Waste of time. All a tangle,” insisted the stranger. “Look
here, let me give the boy two hundred dollars.”
“You can give Pep all you want to,” observed Jolly, “but I shall advise
him to see how the market stands on that stock before he delivers those
securities.”
“Hum! ha! quite so,” mumbled the stranger in a crestfallen way.
“And we will let Mr. Tyson know our decision in a day or two.”
“I see--well, I will report the result of my negotiation to my client.”
“Negotiation? Aha! Client? A lawyer, then,” observed Jolly, as the
man reluctantly moved away. “Pep Smith, I’ll investigate that stock of
yours with the first break of dawn. There’s something more to this than
appears on the surface.”
* * * * *
“Wasn’t that Jack Beavers I just saw you talking to?” inquired Hal
Vincent of Frank, as the latter approached him on the boardwalk.
“Yes, poor fellow,” replied Frank. “I have been having quite a
conversation with him.”
“Making a poor mouth about his misfortunes, I suppose?” intimated the
ventriloquist.
“Not at all, Mr. Vincent,” explained Frank soberly. “He is all broken
up, but more with gratitude towards us for saving his life the night of
the storm than anything else. He acts and talks like a new man. Peter
Carrington and Greg Grayson left him in the lurch with a lot of debts,
and he is trying to get on his feet again.”
“In what way?”
“Some friend has happened along and is willing to fix things up at the
National. He came to me to say that he felt he had no right to come
into competition with us, after owing his very existence to our efforts
the other night.”
“What did you tell him, Durham?”
“I told him to go ahead and make a man of himself and a success of the
show, and that he need expect nothing but honest business rivalry from
us.”
“Durham,” spoke the ventriloquist with considerable feeling, “you’re
pure gold!”
The bustling pianist appeared on the scene all smiles and serenity at
that moment.
“Where’s Pep Smith?” he inquired.
“Up at the playhouse.”
“That so? All right. Come along, and see me give him the surprise of
his life. You know I went down to Brenton to see Mr. Tyson about that
stock? Well, I’m back--minus the stock. I’ve got something better. Look
there.”
Ben Jolly held a certified check before the dazzled eyes of his
friends. It read: “Pay to the order of Peperill Smith Two Thousand
Dollars.”
“This good fortune will about turn Pep’s head,” declared Frank Durham.
“Why, those shrewd fellows will get double that out of it,” said Jolly.
“It seems that the company is on the rocks, but a reorganization is
being attempted and it can’t be put through without a majority of the
stock. Pep’s holdings fit in snugly, so they had to pay me my price.”
Pep Smith gasped as Jolly recounted all this over again to him in the
living room back of the photo playhouse.
“What are you going to do with all that money, Pep?” inquired Randy.
Pep waved the precious bit of paper gaily and jumped to his feet with
glowing eyes.
“What am I going to do with it?” he cried. “And what could I do but put
it into the Wonderland business fund! Why, just think of it! When the
season is over at Seaside Park we have got to look for a new location;
haven’t we?”
“That’s sure,” agreed Ben Jolly. “You boys have made a success of the
motion picture business so far and I want to see you keep it up.”
And so, with both playhouses in the full tide of prosperity, we bid
good-by to our ambitious young friends, to meet again in another story
to be called: “The Movie Boys on Broadway”; or “The Mystery of the
Missing Cash Box.”
“My, but we have been lucky!” declared Randy.
“That’s what,” added Pep.
“Well, we’ve had to work for our success,” came from Frank.
THE END
The Dave Fearless Series
_By_ ROY ROCKWOOD
DAVE FEARLESS AFTER A SUNKEN TREASURE,
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_By_ VICTOR APPLETON
THE MOVIE BOYS ON CALL,
or Filming the Perils of A Great City.
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THE MOVIE BOYS’ FIRST SHOWHOUSE,
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THE MOVIE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK,
or The Rival Photo Houses of the Boardwalk.
THE MOVIE BOYS ON BROADWAY,
or The Mystery of the Missing Cash Box.
THE MOVIE BOYS’ OUTDOOR EXHIBITION,
or the Film that Solved the Mystery.
THE MOVIE BOYS’ NEW IDEA,
or Getting the Best of Their Enemies.
THE MOVIE BOYS AT THE BIG FAIR,
or The Greatest Film Ever Exhibited.
THE MOVIE BOYS’ WAR SPECTACLE,
or The Film that Won the Prize.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.