In an earlier chapter we have urged photoplaywrights to keep in touch with the market so as to avoid writing on trite themes.  But that practise will not help the conscious plagiarist.  Why should he invent a new twist when he can steal one?  This would seem to be his short-sighted logic.  Fortunately, there are not many unscrupulous writers who deliberately attempt to sell to editors stories which are simply adaptations of more or less well-known stories or plays.  A great deal has been said about editors and their assistants being familiar with standard literature and current books, plays, and magazine stories.  But no editor is infallible, and once in a while a stolen story “gets by.”  We know of two companies, each of which within the space of six months produced stories that were plainly recognizable as adaptations of “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,” the second story in “The Return of Sherlock Holmes.”  Another company released a picture that was simply Maupassant’s “The Necklace” so carelessly re-dressed that we wonder the editor did not recognize it after reading the first paragraph of the synopsis.

The final test of whether a story really resembles another closely enough to suggest intentional plagiarism is when the similarity between the two is recognized immediately by people in many different parts of the country—­yet that is too late to help any one involved!  The short-stories of “O.  Henry” have been so widely read that when a new story appears that closely resembles one of his it is not long before comparisons are made.  Three or four years ago a certain company made a two-part picture that so closely resembled O. Henry’s “The Reformation of Calliope” that after its release one of the present writers received letters of inquiry from photoplaywrights in five different cities commenting upon it, three of the letters being from young writers who, recognizing the resemblance, asked if it were “permissible to take the principal plot-idea of a copyrighted story and, by changing it about slightly, make it into a salable photoplay.”  As might be supposed, they were earnestly advised to refrain from doing so.

A dozen years ago there appeared in the English edition of The Strand Magazine a story in which a retired Indian officer, at a dinner given to a party of his friends, displays a remarkably fine diamond.  The jewel is unset, having been taken—­as most jewels in stories of this kind are—­from the head of an Indian idol.  The stone is passed around for inspection.  The Hindoo servant is clearing some of the things from the table, and the diamond has just been admired by an old gentleman in a rather frayed dress-suit, when the attention of everyone present is drawn away from the table for a moment or two.  When they turn around, the diamond has disappeared.  Naturally, the guests are embarrassed, but they all offer to allow themselves to be searched, with the exception of the shabby-genteel old gentleman.