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The Tarantula Synopsis

"Beauty Smythe is at his old tricks again. Look at the raving beauty he's got on the string now." This was Manning's contribution to the discussion, which was taking place in one of New York's most exclusive clubs. All seemed to take a jolly view of the matter, except Van Allen, who, the others noticed, looked with disapproval on the flirtation. They could not understand his mood, and prodded him for his prudishness. When Smythe joined them, Van Allen called him over and asked him to listen to the story he was about to tell, the story of one man who paid for his loose habits. First, he drew from his pocket, a picture of a young man, about Smythe's age. "My sister's only boy," he said. "Two years ago he was leading the kind of life you are now, Smythe. He came down to Mexico to visit me and met Chonita, a pretty Mexican girl. He immediately became infatuated with her, to the consternation of Pedro, another of her lovers, who soon saw that Teddy held a higher place in her heart than he. When her father heard of the affair, he sent her away to their summer hacienda, hoping that she would forget Teddy. Then Ted received an invitation from a friend to spend the summer with him, and accepted. Out hunting one day, he met Chonita and both were happy at the reunion. He told her of his love for her, and she believed him. Of course he promised to marry her. One day, while walking through the forest. Ted just missed stepping on a tarantula, and shrinking from the hideous thing, told Chonita that he feared those terrible spiders worse than anything on earth. Sometime later, Ted received a note from her telling him to meet her at the usual place, and from the tone of the note he knew what had happened. She came, and brought a minister with her, but Teddy was married, and had two children, so even if he had wanted to, he could not have married her. Before word got back to the hacienda, Ted had hopped on a horse and started at a mad gallop for the railroad station, to avoid the wrath of her father and Pedro. Back in New York once more, he felt secure. Chonita meanwhile was thrown out of her father's house, and her child was born in an abandoned cabin. It lived but a few hours. Then Chonita got a position as dancer in a cheap music hall and became popular immediately. The proprietor of a New York café, seeing her perform, asked her to come to the city and dance for him. When she remembered that her betrayer was also in the city, she accepted. Hearing of her proposed trip, her father sent her a dagger, so that she might first kill Teddy and then herself, but she returned it, telling him that she would choose her own method of death for both of them. In the city she met Teddy once more. She responded to all his advances and finally induced him to invite her to his apartment. Here she presented him with an elaborate jewel case, which, she said, contained a gift. When his anxious hands opened the case, a giant tarantula crawled out. Need I tell you that he died a terrible death?" In a meditative mood, Beauty Smythe sat in his room and reflected on what he had heard. Then the moral hit home, and the letter he had intended sending to his latest "sweetheart" never went further than the trash basket.

His Father's Son Synopsis

College youth J. Dabney Barron regularly fails in his examinations; in disgust, his father deprives him of money and tells him to go to work, betting him $6,000 that he cannot hold a $60-a-month position for that time period. J. Dabney agrees, and with his valet Perkins he goes to look for a job. In a park he meets heiress Betty Arden, whose car has broken down. Her guest, Lord Lawrence, is incapable of helping her, and Dabney hastens to her assistance. She hurries away as soon as her car is repaired. Installing himself and his valet in a room in a lodging house, Dabney reads the want ads. Answering an advertisement for a bookkeeper, he stands in a long line of applicants until he grows tired; his valet, who has taken his place, gets the job. Finally Dabney obtains work through his friend Jim Foley of a detective agency. John Arden, millionaire gem collector, has a priceless emerald called "The Lady of the Sea." He fears it may be stolen and as a matter of fact his guest Lord Lawrence, better known to the English police as "London Larry," is planning to steal the emerald. Foley tells Dabney that to guard the emerald he must pose as butler in the Arden home. No sooner does Dabney enter upon his new work than he discovers Betty Arden, his employer's daughter, to be the girl he helped in the park. In an attempt to retain his dignity in her eyes he tells her he and his sister inherited an enormous fortune from an uncle; that the uncle had a secretary a villainous chap named Slime who forced him to make a will disinheriting Dabney and his sister; that Slime and his accomplices made the old man drink nitroglycerin but unfortunately for them permitted him to fall down when he exploded burning up the will; that the villainous secretary had then overpowered Dabney and run away with the girl, whom Dabney had ever since been seeking, hence his presence in the Arden household as butler. Betty pretends to believe the story, although she has been aware of Dabney's identity all along. Dabney continues to attend to his duties as butler and to guard the jewel from "London Larry." Finally the month is up, and Dabney, in great glee at having won the bet from his father, dares to make known his love to Betty. She returns his affection, and they are discovered in a fond embrace by John Arden, who instantly discharges Dabney. That night he is about to take his departure when he surprises "London Larry" opening the safe in Arden's library. He overpowers the would-be jewel thief, and throws him into the safe. Arden, coming downstairs, liberates Lord Lawrence, who tells him Dabney is the real culprit, and together they overpower him and tie him to a chair. Dabney urges them to send for Foley, to identify him, and the detective, arriving, makes haste to free Dabney and arrest "London Larry." Dabney, cheered by Betty's promise to marry him, goes home to collect his $6,000, having proved himself his father's son.