[Having had the good fortune to pick up for a mere song (or, to be more accurate, for a few notes) several thousand miles of discarded cinema films from a bankrupt company, Mr. Punch is gumming the best bits together and presenting them during the holiday season on the piers of many of our fashionable watering-places, such as Bayswater, Hackney Marshes and Ponder's End. The films comprise the well-known "Baresark Basil, the Pride of the Ranch" (two miles long), "The Foiler Foiled" (one mile, three furlongs, two rods, poles or perches), "The Blood-stained Vest" (fragment—eighteen inches), "A Maniac's Revenge" (5,000 feet), "The Life of the Common Mosquito" (six legs), and so forth. An accomplished writer has been chosen to weave a connected story round the selected parts of the films, and his scenario of Mr. Punch's great picture play, when finally gummed together, is given below. The illustrations depict a few representative incidents in the story—taken from the sketch-book of an artist who was present when the films were first being prepared.]
The Theft.
Twenty-five years before our film opens, Andrew Bellingham, a young man just about to enter his father's business, was spending a holiday in a little fishing village in Cornwall. The daughter of the sheep-farmer with whom he lodged was a girl of singular beauty, and Andrew's youthful blood was quickly stirred to admiration. Carried away by his passion for her, he—
[Manager of Punch Film Company. Just a reminder that Mr. Redford has to pass this before it can be produced.]
—he married her—
[Manager. Oh, I beg pardon.]
—and for some weeks they lived happily together. One day he informed Jessie that he would have to go back to his work in London, and that it might be a year or more before he could acknowledge her openly as his wife to his rich and proud parents. Jessie was prostrated with grief; and late that afternoon her hat and fringe-net were discovered by the edge of the waters. Realising at once that she must have drowned herself in her distress, Andrew took an affecting farewell of her father and the sheep, and returned to London. A year later he married a distant cousin, and soon rose to a condition of prosperity. At the time our film begins to unwind, he was respected by everybody in the City, a widower, and the father of a beautiful girl of eighteen, called Hyacinth.
[Manager. Now we're off. What do we start with?]
The Escape.
I.
On the sunny side of Fenchurch Street—
[Manager. Ah, then I suppose we'd better keep back the Rescue from the Alligator and the Plunge down Niagara in a Barrel.]
—Andrew Bellingham was dozing in his office. Suddenly he awoke to find a strange man standing over him.
"Who are you?" asked Mr. Bellingham. "What do you want?"
"My name is Jasper," was the answer, "and I have some information to give you." He bent down and hissed. "Your first wife is still alive!"
Andrew started up in obvious horror. "My daughter," he gasped, "my little Hyacinth! She must never know."
"Listen. Your wife is in Spain—
[Manager. Don't waste her. Make it somewhere where there are sharks.
Author. It's all right, she's dead really.]
—and she will not trouble you. Give me a thousand pounds, and you shall have these;" and he held out a packet containing the marriage certificate, a photograph of Jessie's father dipping a sheep, a receipted bill for a pair of white gloves, size 9½, two letters signed "Your own loving little Andy Pandy," and a peppermint with "Jess" on it in pink. "Once these are locked up in your safe, no one need never know that you were married in Cornwall twenty-five years ago."
The Abduction.
Without a moment's hesitation Mr. Bellingham took a handful of bank-notes from his pocket-book, and the exchange was made. At all costs he must preserve his little Hyacinth from shame. Now she need never know. With a foced smile he bowed Jasper out, placed the packet in his safe and returned to his desk.
But his mysterious visitor was not done with yet. As soon as the door had closed behind him Jasper re-entered softly, drugged Andrew hastily, and took possession again of the compromising documents. By the time Mr. Bellingham had regained his senses the thief was away. A hue-and-cry was raised, police whistles were blown, and Richard Harrington, Mr. Bellingham's private secretary, was smartly arrested.
At the trial things looked black against
