CHAPTER VIII 



LIMELIGHT AND MUSIC 



My Wall Advertiser — The Boy Bultitude — An Explosion— Engaging 

 an Orchestra— That Terrible Night— Smashed by a Gale 



A COMFORTABLE office and a thirst to make more money 

 and I remembered the advice given before leaving 

 London : that showing limehght advertisements on a 

 wall might be a good stunt. Mentioning it to another 

 man he agreed to put up the money to give it a chance. 

 I went over to Melbourne and bought the latest thing 

 in dissolving view apparatus, with everything to make 

 oxygen gas, and a big assortment of good pictures which 

 should be shown at intervals between the advertise- 

 ments. A proper site was selected, a little wooden 

 house was erected on the roof of some lower buildings, 

 and the high side wall of an adjacent warehouse was 

 " faced " and painted for the screen. The advertise- 

 ments came in readily, but the difficulty was to get the 

 slides properly painted. At last I secured quite an 

 artistic sign-writer who used to do a dozen real well, 

 and then go off on a jag for a week, and new matter 

 which came into me had to be done by myself as well 

 as I could. I nearly shared the same fate in the early 

 stages as befell General Bethune, who told me, years 

 ago, how, in endeavouring to make oxygen gas, he blew 

 his arm off. I had received explicit instructions how to 

 generate the gas in a retort, and all went well for the 

 first week or two, then through some bad manganese 

 I couldn't get the gas to start bubbling through the 

 water filter. I had a wonderf id office boy, with a head 



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