“You are seen falling, falling, falling, still in your car, with the descending cataract.  Over and over you are turned in the seething waters, dashed against rocks, hurled through ravines, and finally you are given a sheer drop down a perpendicular waterfall of three hundred feet.  Out of the white foam formed in the bed of the waters you emerge swimming strongly hand over hand, until at last you reach the broad waters of the placid river, and finally the shore.  Here you notice a train passing some little distance away, and in it, gazing out of one of the windows, you observe—­Bill, the murderer!  You at once start in pursuit; by a superb effort you catch up the train, and just succeed in swinging yourself safely on board.  You can do a little sprinting, I suppose?”

“I could give an ordinary train a bit of a start, no doubt,” said Percy with confidence.

“Just so,” pursued the producer.  “And now you find yourself confronting the miscreant, Bill.  The train is passing through a city.  It is on the elevated railway.  Bill makes a dash for the door, springs out, and lands on the roof of a house.  You follow him—­your leap being considerably greater, because between his jump and yours the train has proceeded a certain distance.”

“Precisely,” said Percy.

“Now there is a scramble over the roof-tops.  You climb up pipes, slide down slates, leap across spaces between separate houses, cling to coping stones, and all that sort of thing.”

“I grasp the idea,” said Percy.

[Illustration:  “He cuts the wires on which you are crossing.”]

“At last Bill is seized with a notion.  He throws himself on to the telephone wires, and, hanging by his hands, manages to convey himself across to the houses on the opposite side of the road.  You imitate him.  As Bill arrives on the other side, he turns and cuts the wires on which you are crossing.  Before the ends of the wires fall, however, you turn a quick somersault and land beside Bill.  Once more there is a race over the roofs until Bill reaches a factory chimney.  Down the shaft he dives.  So do you.  Into the furnace below, then out of it, the chase continues—­it doesn’t pause for a moment.”

“Not a moment,” echoed Percy as in a trance.

[Illustration:  “The last scene of all will be your wedding.”]

“Yes, it does, for you and Bill have dragged out of the furnace some of the burning coal; this has caught some inflammable material, and soon the whole factory is alight.  Now you rush round to alarm the workers.  And what do you find?  Mignon!  She had gone out into the world to earn her own bread, and had found employment in this factory.  The manager of the factory, an arch villain, had noted Mignon’s beauty, and just as you arrive he is dragging her away.  You snatch Mignon from his