Adam and Nina and the Rector and his wife sat in the dark patiently. After a time the Colonel unrolled a silvered screen.
“Just help me take all these things off the chimneypiece someone,” he said.
The Rector’s wife scuttered to the preservation of her ornaments.
“Will it bear, do you think?” asked the Colonel, mounting precariously on the top of the piano, and exhibiting in his excitement an astonishing fund of latent vitality. “Now hand up the screen to me, will you? That’s splendid. You don’t mind a couple of screws in your wall, do you, Rector? Quite small ones.”
Presently the screen was fixed and the lens directed so that it threw on to it a small square of light.
The audience sat down expectantly.
“Now,” said the Colonel, and set the machine in motion.
There was a whirring sound, and suddenly there appeared on the screen the spectacle of four uniformed horsemen galloping backwards down the drive.
“Hullo,” said the Colonel. “Something wrong there … that’s funny. I must have forgotten to rewind it.”
The horsemen disappeared, and there was a fresh whirring as the film was transferred to another spool.
“Now,” said the Colonel, and sure enough there appeared in small and clear letters the notice, “The Wonderfilm Company of Great Britain Presents.” This legend, vibrating a good deal, but without other variation, filled the screen for some time—(“Of course, I shall cut the captions a bit before it’s shown commercially,” explained the Colonel)—until its place was taken by “Effie la Touche in.” This announcement was displayed for practically no time at all; indeed, they had scarcely had time to read it before it was whisked away obliquely. (“Damn,” said the Colonel. “Skidded.”) There followed another long pause, and then:
“A Brand from the Burning, a Film Based on the Life of John Wesley.”
(“There,” said the Colonel.)
“Eighteenth Century England.”
There came in breathless succession four bewigged men in fancy costume, sitting round a card table. There were glasses, heaps of money and candles on the table. They were clearly gambling feverishly and drinking a lot. (“There’s a song there really,” said the Colonel, “only I’m afraid I haven’t got a talkie apparatus yet.”) Then a highwayman holding up the coach which Adam had seen; then some beggars starving outside Doubting Church; then some ladies in fancy costume dancing a minuet. Sometimes the heads of the dancers would disappear above the top of the pictures; sometimes they would sink waist deep as though in a quicksand; once Mr. Isaacs appeared at the side in shirt sleeves, waving them on. (“I’ll have him out,” said the Colonel.)
“Epworth Rectory, Lincolnshire (Eng.)”
(“That’s in case it’s taken up in the States,” said the Colonel. “I don’t believe there is a Lincolnshire over there, but it’s always courteous to put that in case.”)
A corner of Doubting Hall appeared with clouds of smoke billowing from the windows. A clergyman was seen handing out a succession of children with feverish rapidity of action. (“It’s on fire, you see,” said the Colonel. “We did that quite simply, by burning some stuff Isaacs had. It did make a smell.”)
So the film went on eventfully for about half an hour. One of its peculiarities was that whenever the story reached a point of dramatic and significant action, the film seemed to get faster and faster. Villagers trotted to church as though galvanized; lovers shot in and out of windows; horses flashed past like motor cars; riots happened so quickly that they were hardly noticed. On the other hand, any scene of repose or inaction, a conversation in a garden between two clergymen, Mrs. Wesley at her prayers, Lady Huntingdon asleep, etc., seemed prolonged almost unendurably. Even Colonel Blount suspected this imperfection.
“I think I might cut a bit there,” he said, after Wesley had sat uninterruptedly composing a pamphlet for four and a half minutes.
When the reel came to an end everyone stirred luxuriously.
“Well, that was very nice,” said the Rector’s wife, “very nice and instructive.”
“I really must congratulate you, Colonel. A production of absorbing interest. I had no idea Wesley’s life was so full of adventure. I see I must read up my Lecky.”
“Too divine, Papa.”
“Thank you so much, sir, I enjoyed that immensely.”
“But, bless you, that isn’t the end,” said the Colonel. “There are four more reels yet.”
“Oh, that’s good.” “But how delightful.” “Splendid.” “Oh.”
But the full story was never shown. Just at the beginning of the second part—when Wesley in America was being rescued from Red Indians by Lady Huntingdon disguised as a cowboy—there occurred one of the mishaps from which the largest super-cinemas are not absolutely immune. There was a sudden crackling sound, a long blue spark, and the light was extinguished.
“Oh, dear,” said the Colonel, “I wonder what’s happened now. We were just getting to such an exciting place.” He bent all his energies on the apparatus, recklessly burning his fingers, while his audience sat in darkness. Presently the door opened and a housemaid appeared carrying a candle.
“If you please, mum,” she said, “the light’s gone out all over the house.”
The Rector hurried across to the door and tried the switch in the passage. He clicked it up and down several times; he tapped it like a barometer and shook it slightly.
“It looks as though the wires were fused,” he said.
“Really, Rector, how very inconvenient,” said the Colonel crossly. “I can’t possibly show the film without electric current. Surely there must be something you can do?”
“I am afraid it will be a job for an electrician; it will be scarcely possible to get one before Monday,” said the Rector with scarcely Christian calm. “In fact it is clear to me that my wife and myself and my whole household will have to spend the entire Christmas weekend in darkness.”
“Well,” said the Colonel. “I never expected this to happen. Of course, I know it’s just as disappointing for you as it is for me. All the same …”
The housemaid brought
