The Motion Picture Chums at Seaside Park Part 30

"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 grat.i.tude 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 compet.i.tion 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 Pepperill 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-bye to our ambitious young friends, to meet again in another story to be called: "The Motion Picture Chums 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