The party arrived at the new picture palace to find a goodly crowd already assembled at the entrance.  On this opening night there was a good deal of local interest shown, and the first picture was being finished when Nan Sherwood and her friends crowded into their seats.

“That’s a good picture, I warrant,” Walter said.  “We want to stay and see that run over again.  Ah-ha! here comes a Keynote Comedy.  That will be a funny one, sure.”

“I like to laugh,” announced Inez, with her most serious air.  “But I ain’t never had much time for it.”

“You poor little mite,” said Bess.  “I should say you hadn’t.  But you’ll laugh all right when you get home with us to Tillbury.  Won’t she, Nan?”

“Of course she will,” agreed Nan, squeezing the little one close to her.

They did not, however, laugh much at the picture which followed.  The reels did not seem to run very evenly.  Either the operator was not an experienced one or there was something the matter with the machine.  The flash-card, “Wait a minute, please,” appeared so frequently on the screen that the audience began to murmur, and some got up and went out.

There were others ready to take their places, and this continual changing of positions in the half-darkness of the house made a confusion that was hard to bear.

Nan and her friends moved over against the wall and another party came rustling in to take the seats in that row nearest to the aisle.  Not until this crowd was seated did the party from the Mason house realize that it was anybody whom they knew.

Then Pearl Graves’ rather loud voice broke in upon Nan and Walter’s whispered conversation: 

“Why! see who’s here?” she cried.  “Hullo, Walter Mason.  Who’s that you’ve got with you?  Nan Sherwood, I’ll be bound.  And Grace, and Bess Harley.  Hullo, girls!  Is the show any good?”

“For goodness’ sake!” interposed the sharp voice of the girl on the other side of Pearl.  “Can’t we go anywhere without running up against that Nan Sherwood and her crowd?”

“Oh, you be still, Linda!” laughed good-natured Pearl.  “You ought to be pleased as Punch to see Nan and Walter.  Between them they just about saved your life when Granny Graves’ horses ran away with you the other day.”

Little Inez was on Nan’s other side and immediately Nan gave her attention to the child, leaving Walter free to talk with the new-comers if he chose.

“Did you like that picture, dear?” asked Nan of the little one.

“Hi!  I liked it where the fat man slipped up on the soap at the top of the stairs and slid to the bottom where the scrub-woman left her tub of water.  Do you ‘spect that was real water, Nan Sherwood?  He’d ha’ been drowned, wouldn’t he?”

“I guess it was real water,” laughed Nan.  “But they wouldn’t let him be drowned in a picture.”

“I forget it’s a picture,” sighed little Inez, exhibiting thereby true dramatic feeling for the art of acting.  To her small mind the pantomime seemed real.