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Mr. Lobel’s Apoplexy
by
Of those who had a hand in the last mortal role she would ever play only Lobel’s private secretary, young Appel, who came to pay the bills and take over the private effects of this Sarah Glassman and after some fashion to play the roles of next friend and chief mourner, kenned the truth. The clergyman having done his duty by a deceased coreligionist, to him unknown, went back to the city where he belonged. The physician hurried away from the cemetery to minister to more patients than he properly could care for. The townspeople scattered, intent upon their own affairs. Appel returned to headquarters, reporting all well.
At headquarters all likewise went well–so briskly well in fact that under the urge for haste things essential were accomplished in less time by fewer craftsmen than had been the case since those primitive beginnings when Lobel’s, then a struggling short-handed concern, frequently had doubled up its studio staffs for operative service in the makeshift laboratory. Reporting progress to the president, Mr. Quinlan expanded with self-satisfaction.
“I’m fixing to show you something in the way of a speed record,” he proudly proclaimed. “The way I looked at it, the fewer people I had rushing this thing through the factory the less chance there was for loose talk round the plant and the less loose talk there was going on round the plant the less chance there was for maybe more loose talk outside. Yes, I know we’d figured we’d got everything caulked up air-tight, but I says to myself, ‘What’s the use in taking a chance on a leak if you don’t have to?’
“So I practically turned the big part of the job–developing and all the rest of it–over to Josephson, same as we used to do back yonder when we was starting out in this game and didn’t have a regular film cutter and the camera man had to jump in and develop and cut and assemble and print and everything. Josephson shot all the scenes for The She-Demon–he knows the run of it better even than the director does. Besides, Josephson is naturally close-mouthed. He minds his own business and never butts in anywhere. To look at him you can’t never tell what he’s thinking about. But even if he suspected anything–and, of course, he don’t–he’s the kind that’d know enough to keep his trap shut. So I’ve had him working like a nailer and he’s pretty near done.
“Soon as he had the negative ready, which was late yesterday afternoon after you’d went home, I had it run off with nobody there but me and Josephson, and I took a flash at it–and, Lobel, it’s a bear! No need for you to worry about the negative–it was a heap too long, of course, in the shape it was yesterday, but it had everything in it we hoped would be in it–and more besides.
“So then without losing a minute I stuck Josephson on the printing machine himself. I’d already gave the girl on the machine a couple of days off to get her out of the way. Josephson stayed on the job alone pretty near all last night, I guess. He had things to himself without anybody to bother him and I tell you he shoved it along.
“Connors ain’t lost no time neither. He’s got the subtitles pretty near done, and believe it or not, as you’re a mind to, but, Lobel, I’m telling you that this time to-morrow morning and not a minute later I’ll have the first sample print all cut and assembled and ready for you to give it a look! Then it’ll just be a job of matching up the negative and sticking in the subtitles and starting to turn out the positives faster than the shipping-room gang can handle ’em. I guess that ain’t moving, heh?”
“Quinlan,” said Mr. Lobel, “I give you right.”
By making his word good to the minute the gratified Mr. Quinlan derived additional gratification. At the time appointed they sat in darkness in the body of the projection room–Lobel, Quinlan, Geltfin and Appel, these four and none other–behind a door locked and barred. Promptly on Quinlan’s order the operator in the box behind them started his machine and the accomplished rough draft of the great masterpiece leaped into being and actuality upon the lit square toward which they faced.