thousand dollars to pay for a theater can git a benefit for himself and
maybe draw down a couple of hundred more. The benefit for the chorus,
girls has gone up in the air, for none of them would acknowledge that
they were chorus girls.
"They were either show girls or pony dancers, and that let them out.
Anyway, each girl wanted to bring her maid, and the dressing rooms would
have been so full of maids that there would have been no room for the
dolls. I had it all framed up, too. I had six wine agents and a whisky
salesman who guaranteed to appear, and that alone would have made the
thing a financial success. But what could I do?
"Our bunch has been rehearsing five weeks without salaries, and with the
excessive taxicab rates we got no money to spend on clothes to wear to
the ball, and the wardrobe mistress keeps an awful tab on the costume
hampers.
"A certain friend of mine, who, by the way, I wouldn't trust any further
than I can throw an elephant by the tail, had the nerve to take me up in
her apartment the other day and show me her new bathing suit she had
just imported from Paris. It was a swell thing all right, but sewed in
the waistband was a piece of cloth that said 'Burgomaster 2' on it, so
you can draw your own conclusions.
"Honest, the way some girls steal is something awful. Take it from me,
it's nothing less than stealing to swipe a wardrobe. Of course, if the
show is going to close it's all right, but from a successful production,
never. Lifting a scarfpin from a soused party is all right, for he is
supposed to do something to remunerate the lady for wasting her time by
taking her to supper.
"Spring has sure come and I do just glory in nature. I suppose that is
because I was brought up in the country. We never have anything but
nature in Emporia.
"Oh, I heard from the folks the other day, and they tell me that Emporia
is now growing to be some town. The bank is putting up a four-story
brick building, which is going to be looked on as the village
skyscraper.
"The town council has already passed resolutions restricting the height
of the buildings to six stories. They ain't going to take the chance
that New York does, and have some of these big tall ten-story affairs
topple over into their streets.
"All the yaps out in that neighborhood are lining out for the spring
plowing now while the yaps here are lining out for the spring millinery
openings. I already got the dressmaker on the job for seven or eight
modest little frocks that will make them sit up and take notice Sundays
down at Manhattan Beach.
"I have decided that I am going to be an athletic girl this summer, and
am already taking exercise every day. Why, I walk all the way from the
subway to the hotel, and that's nearly half a block.
"Say, what do you know about this? Posey Golden has married her first
husband.
"Honest! You know they were divorced shortly after she got a good job,
and have been living apart ever since.
"She married again to the nicest gambler you ever met. But he got stung
on a sleeper, and had to hock the family jewels, and Posey said that was
cruelty, for she could never have the face to go down to the dining room
for breakfast without all of her diamonds on; she had worn them every
day since they struck the St. Reckless, and she was afraid it might
cause talk among the waiters and guests because she always treated them
with a calm air of condescension, and they would lay for the chance to
get in a hammer. So she put in a bid for a divorce and got it.
"Then she met her first better half on the street and, after having a
little supper, they decided to sneak through the tunnel, take it on the
run for Newark and again become one.
"Imagine anybody going to Newark to get married! Imagine any one going
to Newark for anything!
"They got married and came back to town just as happy as if nothing had
ever happened. My, I hope Wilbur and I will be that way! I think he is
sincere even if he does write good notices about girls in his show.
"Well, I must toddle along and see if Wilbur has cashed his yet, so that
I can get the rest of that new hat. If it ain't too much trouble you can
send me a bunch of flowers for our opening night in Hartford. So long."
The show gives its opening performance and Sabrina scores a
great personal success. She speaks at some length of the kissing
craze and makes several comments on the time she had while out
of town.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Are you coming to the opening tonight?" began Sabrina, the Show Girl,
before she had given her order. "I don't know if you can get a seat or
not, because the management is tired of having the same old gang out in
front, and have donated about two-thirds of the house to the ladies at
the Martha Washington, for they know more about a real show than
anybody, because they read the dramatic page of all the fashion
magazines, and the other third of the house will be taken up by the
dramatic critics and their friends.
"We had a great opening in Hartford. The theatre was crowded four rows
back. The first act went great, but we couldn't tell how the last one
went, because nobody but the author and composer stayed for it, and they
are a little partial.
"I scored a great personal triumph, and the way I read my lines was not
only greeted with applause, but with laughter. In fact, I made such a
decided hit that the prima donna, who, by the way, is worse than the
first, because she drinks, had the manager take my lines away from me
and give them to somebody who could not read them as well. If I wasn't
afraid she would blackball me for the P.W.L. I would raise a kick. The
idea of an old frump like that letting professional jealousy interfere
with Art.
"After the performance that night the author got busy and rewrote the
whole second act, and had it all ready by the time we landed in
Washington.
"Do you think we get a chance to rush around and mingle with the
Congressmen and other such truck? Not on your life. It was to the show
shop for us and do the big rehearsal all day, and we only had time to
slip out and soak up a sandwich and get back in time for the evening's
performance.
"I changed my tights from blue to pink for the first night and scored
another personal triumph. So much so that the soubrette made it a point
to stand in front of me every time she did a number with the chorus. She
belonged over on the other side in front of the Glonesganes creature, in
order to dress the stage, and the manager jumped all over her for
moving.
"The show went big that night, and the next day some of the critics
spoke favorably of it. I don't care what they say, it's a good show, and
as the plot has been almost entirely eliminated it should go well here.
"After rehearsing all day Tuesday we were allowed to walk up and down
Pennsylvania avenue and get acquainted. I met a gentleman who said he
had been introduced to me in New York, and he certainly treated me
grand. We went over to the Willard for supper, and he just tossed the
menu toward me, careless like, and said, 'Got to it, kid.' Talk about
your Southern gallantry! A bunch of these near-sports will rush a girl
into a feedshop, and they have no more than got seated at the table
before he will commence talking about the big dinner he has just had, so
that the poor thing feels like a burglar if she eats anything more than
a couple of lobsters. But not this Percival, he frankly admitted that he
hadn't had anything to eat for a week and scratched no entries.
"I wish these New Yorkers were that way--nothing personal dear--but they
have become so callous to feeding the merry-merry that they have the big
eat dodging stunt down to a science. The only way to get more than a
two-dollar, including wine, feed out of most of these moss-covered
pocketbooks is by blasting.
"Why, I have known certain parties to adopt the subterfuge of going out
to telephone and then beating it to avoid paying the check. Thus leaving
the poor feedee to pay the bill or wait longingly for a friend to show
up on the horizon.
"A gentleman who will pull off a deal like that is not worthy of the
confidence of one of our sex. But, understand, I am not by any means
damning the whole male sex, for I have met gentlemen who threw the lid
of their grouch bag in the gutter and didn't care if they ever found it
again. Those is the kind of parties that has my trust. Me grub, and I
got money in the bank? Sure I do. I got to keep in training somehow, so
if I did lose my inheritance I wouldn't be out of practice.
"Wilbur don't blame me for it. He says that the object in life of an
agent and a chorus girl is to plant everything they can get their fins
into whenever they can, for it don't last long, and the good people
ain't healthy. And goodness knows I sure do need my health. For though I
appear to be a strong, robust creature I am a frail woman.
"Wilbur can moan and groan around with a hangover for a couple of days,
but I have to be right on the job all the time with this smiling face
and laughing eye thing, or he would seek some other place for sympathy.
Why, many a morning I have spoke light and happy words of cheer to him
over the 'phone with a tongue as thick as a board-walk and the inside of
my nob yearning to burst loose and flop around in the cool morning air.
"Do I caper up to the transmitter and sob, 'Oh, darling, I fear me that
I am not long for this earth!' Never! I take a long drink of ice water,
and when his 'Is this you, kid?' comes over the wire I chirrup back,
real bright and gay, 'Right O, Kiddo!' and when he says he don't believe
he can live through the day, do I suggest that we die together? Not I! I
tell him to forget it and go downstairs and have George mix him up a mug
full of the hair of the dog that bit him. That shows the love of a good
woman.
"Was you at the Chorus Girls' Ball last Saturday night? My, I would
hate to cast any reflections on the judges, but their choice certainly
was bum. Still I suppose they are old men and not up on the modern 1908
rules on osculation.
"In their day when a young man imprinted a chaste salute on a dame's
alabaster forehead he was supposed to go into a fit of delight, but not
according to this year's book. Now they clinch with a strangle hold and
stick till one or the other drops from exhaustion. I did not enter the
contest, for I am not a chorus girl; I am a show girl, if you please.
What's the difference? Five a week.
"This kissing craze is getting to be something scandalous. Not that I
object to it. But I blush to think that the time-honored customs that
were once performed in the front parlor, with the gas turned low, is now
used in contests and numbered as a feat of strength.
"Wilbur and I went to the ball together, and as soon as he struck the
hut he wanted to rush right over and run a few trial heats with the
contestants, but the easy way with which I made him change his mind was
a joy to the eye. He said to me as we went in the door, I think I will
toddle over to the paddock and see if the fillies are in form. He was
making a wild rush to check his shawl when I mentioned casual like, as
if I wasn't noticing myself saying it, 'You know that I am an added
starter.' Bing! Skyrockets! Wilbur goes up in the air and comes down all
spraddled out.
"'What!' he pipes, as soon as he got his breath, 'my financed bride
billed to appear in a hugging handicap? Not yet! Sabrina you certainly
do jag my jib to think that you would enter into such a deal. From now
on our trail parts.' 'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'What's sauce for the
goose is sauce for the gander, and if you pull off any stunts you can
figure that I will be in the running. And that goes as it lays.'
"That was no nice language for a lady, but it put the brakes on Wilbur's
osculatory aspirations so quick that he stopped with a jolt. He canceled
the date and we went up into the box and stood in the receiving line for
wine agents.
"Wilbur knew that he had to stand hitched or I wouldn't let him go to
the Twenty-three Club dinner tonight. He has been training for the event
for the last two weeks, and he says that he will be able to outdistance
the bunch before 4 a.m., and you know that's going some.
"It's a pity they wouldn't let us women in on their feed deals. They go
out and fill up on beefsteak while we have to stick around and drown our
sorrows in a cheese sandwich. And goodness knows that while they are
nourishing they don't give you any new ideas.
"I only hope our show is a success, for if Wilbur and I get married
every penny will help, and I don't want to lance my personal fresh air
fund for anything more than a bridal veil. Wilbur and I are just like
two doves, but I am taking no chances, for press agents are fickle
people.
"With all due regard to Wilbur's feelings I must say that the agent of
our company is a dog. He had the nerve to come up to us girls and want
us to beat it up and down Broadway with signs boosting the show on our
backs. A doll would stand a swell chance in Jack's with a big sign
reading, 'Go see 'The Abused Cruller' at the Folly' on her vertebrae,
now wouldn't she?
"Can you see me as the walking three-sheet? I make exhibition enough of
myself on the stage without prancing up and down with one of those
things tied to my Fluffy Ruffles.
"I just had an awful time in Washington. One of the girls that dresses
in the same room with me came in with one of those crying buns on and
shed so many weeps in my makeup box that I had to put it on with an
atomizer.
"I did all a human being could do to bring her to--rubbed her hands and
slapped her face; but even then she was in no fit condition to appear.
Go on she would, in spite of my prayers, and what does she do when she
comes tripping on, blithe and gay as a school girl, but stumble and do a
slide on her profile half way across the O.P. side, just as the tenor
was starting the chorus to his song, 'Bevey in Little Children.' He
being a nervous party springs a blue note that got the musical director
hysterical and he forgot to give the bass drum man his cue and the whole
thing went to blazes.
"It was lucky that the stage manager was making a date on the dressing
room stairs, or what she would have got would have been a-plenty.
"You know Laura O'Toole who was married a few weeks ago? Well, she is
again a widow. Her husband got a job with a road show. She was thinking
of wearing mourning, but her husband staked her to the price of a new
spring suit and she said that conventionalities could go hang, as she
had a shape and was going to show it. I don't blame her. Why let grief
put it on style?
"Gee, it won't be long before summer, and then we will get our salaries
reduced. That's the trouble with the people I work for. Every time they
get a success here in town they start to reduce salaries. If the company
would stand for it we would be owing them money every week before the
end of the season. They think a girl hasn't nothing to do but ride
around in an automobile and look sweet.
"Well, me to get on the war paint. Say, have you offered your services
for the Friar Festival yet? Well, you had better get on the job if you
want to consider yourself classy. So long! Oh, you know the ushers will
hand flowers over the footlights if you just tell him who they are for.
Bye-bye."
The show opens on Broadway and Sabrina shows surprise at the
number of harsh words in the English language. She discloses the
methods of the Lease Breakers Association and mentions the
events that transpired at a little informal gathering.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"My, did you see what the critics said about our show?" exclaimed
Sabrina, Show Girl, as her maid opened the door. "Wasn't it awful? I
didn't know there were so many mean words in the book. And the nerve of
them to pan me after meeting several of them socially. One of them said
that I looked so good standing up that it was a crime to have me sit
down, but when I spoke for goodness sake get the muffler. The mut! I
should go down and horsewhip him. But no, that's what us people that
figure in public are bound to get. They never say a good word until
after the minister says, 'Dust thou art to dust returneth,' and then
some cluck is liable to come along and dig up a bunch of letters.
"I am thinking seriously of taking a flat until summer. I don't like
this hotel, one has to keep so many conventionalities. Why, the other
day my 'phone was out of order and I ran down to the desk in my kimona
to telephone and the clerk had the nerve to call me for it. Can you
surpass that? I told him to open his ears and let his head cool off.
"I was looking at a nice flat the other day, but they want me to sign a
lease. What do I know about a lease? There ain't no half salary clause
in it. If I did sign the lease and want to beat it all I would do would
be to call in the Lease Breakers' Association and I could leave the next
day. That mob responds to a call like the crowd in the Cadillac when
some one says, I'll buy,' and you can take it from me that's going some.
"Sure, haven't you heard of the Lease Breakers' Association? They
guarantee to break any lease in less than a week. It is composed of a
mob of select ladies and gentlemen who can make the most noise. A person
wishing to leave their abode and handicapped with a lease has but to
blow the whistle for this gang and furnish plenty of refreshments and
there is nothing to it. I attended one the other evening and we all had
the one grand time.
"A friend of mine has ceased being married and naturally has no more use
for a whole flat, so she approached the cruel landlord and asked for a
release. Did she get it? Not. He told her that she would have to stick
or stand the consequences. Does she tear out a bunch of hair and rave
all over the room? Not her. She gets the members of the Lease Breakers
on the 'phone and that night they hold the big celebration and the next
morning four tenants kicked to the landlord. The morning after that the
whole building kicked in a body and the janitor had to repair two
ceilings. Then the guv asked her to move and she refused until he gave
up her month's rent. She was foolish like one of those birds they call a
fox. I guess, yes. These landlords have to go some if they want to get
ahead of the simple Bohemians. What they want rent for beats me. They
own the houses and that ought to satisfy them.
"If I do get this flat, take it from me, we will pull off the grand one
time. I intend to hold a reception every evening after the show until I
get a request to move.
"Say, here's the big jest in our set. You know, Olga Jones and her
husband don't get along very well together. Their temperaments don't
jibe.
"Well, her soul mate and she had given hubby the slip and were down in
my apartments putting on the finishing touches to the big eats. Soul
Mate was telling the story of his life to Olga when in kicks the dame
that Soul Mate had formerly been in love with.
"They are both wise people and neither tip their mit, though Soul Mate
grew restless with his feet. This was about 4 a.m. and the mere shank of
the evening, as it were. When all of a sudden, Bing! Bing! on the door
and in waltzed Olga's handicap, who had been out and soaked up a souse,
and not finding little wifey when he returned to the hut, he starts out
on a still hunt and ropes in my shack.
"Hubby comes in carrying weight for grouch and pipes party of
five--Blonde Party, Olga, Soul Mate, Wilbur and me. Calls down wifey for
not coming home. Business of language. I kick in and tells him to have a
drink. Nothing to it. Oil on the troubled waters looked like an also
ran.
"Hubby was perfectly content and after a drink or two he beat it,
telling wifey to hurry home. Fine. Blonde Party finds she is fifth wheel
and also ducks. Then Olga lands on Soul Mate. 'Who is this peroxide
party?'
"'Only an old passing fancy,' chirrups Soul Mate.
"Olga tears her hair and bites out a bunch of hectic language about
having the only man she ever loved being false, and how life is naught
but a hollow bubble and all that kind of rot. Wilbur having sporting
blood was for kidding them on and seeing if they would mix it, but me
desiring peace and quiet told what I didn't know about the affair and
squared things. Business of embracing.
"Did you pipe the sassy half-sheets Mr. McManus got out for the Friar
Festival? Ain't they just too pretty for words? Do you know who that guy
reading the Friar song down in the corner is? Don't breathe a word and
I'll tell you. It's Phil Mindel. Honest it is. George sketched it from
life one night over at the Booze Arts.
"Us chorus girls were talking of marching to Albany in a body with drums
beating and flags flying and demanding that the anti-betting bill be
ditched. It is something fierce the way these reformers are trying to
put the bee on our pleasures.
"I just dote on horse races. Why, I can go to the track and sit in the
cafe for hours. I wonder what these guys think we are going to do with
our spare time this summer? Sit at home and make sofa pillows? Why,
there is no greater sport in the world than riding out to Sheepshead or
Jamaica in an auto and then borrowing money from your escort to bet on
the patty-pats. It's a great system. If you lose the John gets nothing,
and if you win you take everything, so it is fair for all parties.
"If they want to do something truly noble they should put those moving
picture shows out of business. Pretty soon when they want the chorus to
show up they will let down a sheet, throw on the picture and turn loose,
'Welcome, your highness, welcome' on the phonograph. I ain't mentioning
any names, but there is a bunch of these parties that belong on a moving
picture.
"What do you know about the circus? Ain't it all to the pickles? Me
there the other matinee in a real box, courtesy of the management. Did
you get your attention called to the two Janes that did the ride in the
hurdics down the hill? Some class to that act. Imagine looping the loop
in the air! Not for Sabrina, the pride of the chorus. As long as I can
make my living on my shape you don't catch me trying to damage it
soaring around in the atmosphere. Not for five dollars more a week, as
bad as I need the money.
"I went to see Wells Hawks and the elephants. Both of them are permanent
fixtures, though they do say that he is kept busy looking after the
animals at both the Hip. and the circus. And the clowns! May I be struck
dead if I didn't just rear back and howl my head off at those crazy
clucks.
"Alla McSweeney certainly is a sneeze. She has no idea of the fitness of
things. I was telling her just the other day. I said, 'Alla, you
certainly are no piker. You'll go out and mace a good fellow for a big
feed just as if he was a John. Now, that ain't right. When you are out
with a James go to it and eat your head off. But when you are out with
some one in the business or a newspaper man be circumscribe. Though you
may want to wade through the whole dope sheet hitch your desire and
order what you think he can afford, and lay back until you get a live
one.'
"What? Sure we do. If a Jane goes out with a John that has nothing but.
Nothing's too good for her and walking is hard on the feet. The more
money the wop spends the bigger sport he thinks he is, but a fellow
professional has honorable intentions, sometimes, and it is considered
wise not to show what you are accustomed to until after he has bought
the ring or written some letters. I may go out with some fellow and
order everything from soup to nuts just to show him that I can, but the
way I won Wilbur's heart was by ordering a cheese sandwich the first
time he invited me out.
"My goodness! How I run on, and here it is getting late. Well, I must
toddle along and see how the Friar Festival is. I have a personal
interest in that. So long. Say, the next time you expect to get lanced
for the big feed tell her you were once in the business and it will save
you money. Ta, ta."
In which Sabrina has a row with the stage-manager, leaves the
show, frivols in the vineyard, denounces the male sex as being
all alike, threatens, to take the veil, but finally falls upon
the neck of her betrothed and all is forgotten.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We came upon Sabrina seated alone at a table in the rear of a cafe; her
hat was tilted rakishly over one ear, a couple of strands of hair were
hanging down over her forehead, a bright spot glowed on each cheek and
her eyes had a dim, moist appearance. The table was covered with glasses
and bottles and the chairs looked as if they had been hastily shoved
back.