even consider the proposition of the highest bidder, and start a hoard
in some secret place which would have been a life raft to her in the
turbulent days to come.
She lived on promises, and those are false things which fall to bits
before adverse winds and threatening weather. Her spirits rose and fell
in an inverse ratio to the rising and setting of the sun, and she took
no heed of the days to come. The seed of thrift failed to find lodgment
in her being.
And another thing, she never knew the real meaning of the word
opportunity.
In her early and halcyon days before the opium and the night life had
stamped its mark upon her face, there came, with a party of sight-seers
to Chinatown one night, a man about town whose name stood for
respectability, good family and wealth. She, as Queen, could not well
be overlooked, and the guide took the party to her apartments on the
first floor of a dingy tenement.
“What’s up here?” asked one of the party.
“Here is where de Queen of Chinatown lives,” responded the guide. “Dis
is de gal wots got all de gang on de run, and as fer de Chinkys--why,
dere ain’t one uv dem wot wouldn’t croak a guy fer her.”
They filed into the room and looked at the girl as they looked at the
rest of the odd sights.
Let anybody rise above the human herd, even a short distance, or do
anything that is in the slightest way unusual, and they are bound to
find themselves in the center of the spot light.
“Youse kin buy a drink off her, if yer like, or if yer’ll cough up er
bone apiece, she’ll show yer how to hit der pipe,” announced the guide.
They thought it was worth a dollar each to see a Queen smoking opium,
and all cheerfully handed her the fee, with the exception of this one
particular man, who pressed five times the amount into her hand.
Curious things happen in this world of ours, and here is one of them:
Two hours later, the same man, who had slipped away from his party,
hunted up the same guide, and giving him a good-sized fee requested the
honor of another visit to the Queen.
The moral tone of Chinatown is not so high that when the guide was
dismissed he should feel at all offended. He was perfectly satisfied,
and he said so a few minutes later as he was relating this story to
some of his friends in the saloon on the corner.
From this point the Queen herself takes up the tale. She told it to
her bosom friend, the Rummager, a week later, and the Rummager’s eyes
bulged and her mouth opened as she heard it. More than once she was
inclined to disbelieve it, and said so, but the facts were there and
proven by the presence of certain articles which could be accounted for
in no other way.
“He was one of the real ones,” remarked the Queen, “and I knew it as
soon as I saw him. I have seen fellows stuck good and strong, but he
was the limit. He was clean gone. When he came back the second time
he began as all the others do, by asking me how I came to live in
Chinatown. I told him to cut it out, and cut it quick, and he took my
tip. He didn’t lose a minute telling me he liked me, either, and, say,
he promised me everything you could think of, up and down, if I would
cut the gang and go with him. He said I could have the swellest flat
that money could buy, and a horse and carriage, if I liked. I thought
he was kidding at first, but he soon put me wise that he was the
goods. He chinned to me for about an hour, and then he told me to put
on my glad rags and he would take me uptown to a feed. I was on in a
minute, and nothing but a cab would do for him. We went up on Broadway,
and the layout cost him $25, easy.
“We come down the line and butted into every joint that had a light
out, and every place we hit was a bottle of wine. And every drink we
took it was, ‘Well, will you leave that crowd?’
“On the level, once or twice he had me going, but when I thought of all
the boys down here, and the good times we’re having I couldn’t do it,
and I told him so. When I left him he was ossified for fair, and he
gave me these things to remember him by, he said.”
Whereupon the Queen showed up a roll of bills, a scarf pin, a match
box, and the Rummager believed.
She couldn’t afford to do otherwise very well, for the Queen was, as
usual, doing all the buying of drinks, and the Rummager’s thirst has
been compared to a barrel of sponges.
It was only the other day that I found myself wondering what had become
of that pin and box. Where have they been since then and who has owned
them? That they have fallen into many hands there can be no doubt, and
the first to get them was the pawnbroker.
But after that!
From silks the Queen went to calico. That is a great chasm for any
woman to cross, and from three rooms she came down to one. Notice how
easily the human being can adjust itself to changes.
The nights of dissipation had begun to leave their mark, and her throne
was tottering.
The plumpness of her figure began to disappear, and angles crept in to
take the place of curves. Her eyes were less bright, and her enthusiasm
had lost its edge.
But she didn’t realize this.
She thought she was still Queen and she was living on her past, just as
many other real queens have, and for that she is to be forgiven, for it
is a woman’s right to think herself the same as she was when she was at
her best.
It is the life buoy to which she always clings, and when she dies her
arms are found clasped about it with the grip of death.
And then the day came when this Queen, a wisp and shred of a woman,
whose dreams had gone, and whose calico had turned to rags, went down
the street of the Quarter one night never to return.
She had married a man of her class, and they went into a tenement
together.
Her sun had set--her day was done.
One day the priest was sent for to shrive her. I hope there was
consolation in his visit, because a dethroned queen needs pity
sometimes.
[Illustration]
A GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE
When you go to the theatre, sit in a comfortable seat, and look at the
gay, laughing girls who are doing all sorts of stunts in the front row,
you are evidently under the impression that their lives are simply one
unending series of revels and that they live in luxurious ease. In
your fancy you see them going to magnificent apartments to enjoy late
dinners washed down by high-priced wine; you think, perhaps, that they
dress just as you see them on the stage, and that all they have to do
is ask for anything they happen to want and it is theirs.
Your imagination paints you a wonderful picture of love behind the
scenes, but like children’s fairy tales, half is a dream.
You are simply bringing into existence a mental painting in very
attractive colors, and if you could make it real it would be a very
fine thing for the girl who makes up that she may look well from behind
the footlights.
There are few short cuts to the stage and the roads are for the most
part hard and tiresome. The woman who gets there, and by that I mean
the one who finally lands with a reputation, usually has a past that
would make interesting reading--if it could be published, which is out
of the question.
To-day there is a woman in New York who is a star.
So far as real talent is concerned she ought to have been a star years
ago, but there was some hitch and she failed to connect.
She’s all right now, however, and when she pulls down her fat bundle
of bills every week she doesn’t think of the old days on the Pacific
Coast when she was doing one turn an hour in the mining camps, and
well content if she got enough at the end of the show to pay for her
room and give her a balance on the side to keep up her wardrobe--stage
wardrobe, I mean--for she didn’t seem to care much how she dressed when
on the street, and so far as that was concerned, she was on the street
very little, for reasons that are obvious.
She was a nice looking little girl in those days, full of ginger and
all that sort of thing, and she had the kind of magnetism that made
a good many men think they couldn’t live without her. She was bright
and saucy, and happy-go-lucky, taking things as they came, singing her
songs with an abandon and grace that went a long way toward filling up
the house.
But it was when she danced that she was at her best. That half-wild
Spanish Cachuca made those rough men rise to their feet and cheer her
as if she was the most wonderful girl in the world, and when the boys
were flush many a hundred dollars in gold went over the flickering
footlights to her feet, so that she really and truly danced on gold. It
was the Westerners’ way of paying homage to anyone they liked, and it
is done to-day, but not to so great an extent.
You see, there was no limit on those fellows in the blue shirts and
bearded faces, and what was a handful of gold more or less to them
then or at any other time?
They were an open-handed lot, living only for the day, and to the devil
with to-morrow, lavishing all they had upon anyone whom they liked.
As the money rolled in to her so it rolled out, easily and without
apparent effort, and at the end of a year she had just what she started
with--a couple of dresses, the most part of which was tinsel.
And that brings me right back into the heart of this story, the
preliminary having been sufficiently long to give you a thorough
introduction to this little lady--queen of the mining camps.
It isn’t likely you ever heard of a fellow who for some romantic reason
or other called himself Palo Alto Bill. He was a tin horn gambler, good
at short cards, willing to take a chance at any proposition that ever
came over the hills, so long as he could figure in it financially, but
he had no heart. It was all Bill from first to last, and he didn’t have
enough generosity in his entire system to drop a bone to a hungry dog.
You know the breed--they think they are all right, but they are so
eaten up with selfishness, and egotism, and vanity, that they stride
along with their elbows pushed out, as if they were going to shove
everybody else off the earth.
He was handsome all right, with black hair--black as an Indian’s--a
curling mustache, and a wonderfully taking way with a woman.
This was the combination that stacked itself up against the little
singer with the suggestion that they travel in double harness for
mutual benefit.
That was all there was to it.
[Illustration: A wonderful but untrue picture of love behind the
scenes]
He saw her, he liked her; why shouldn’t he have her? And if she had
been married it would have been the same to him. He would in all
probability have suggested an elopement on a pair of fast horses.
“How long have you been in the business, Sis?” was the way he started
it.
He was smoking a cigarette at the time and he didn’t even take the
trouble to look at her, but holding his head back, blew the rings of
smoke, one after the other, toward the low ceiling.
“Oh, about a year, and I’ve been making good ever since I started.”
“That’s what you have. I suppose you’ve got a big bunch of coin by this
time, eh?”
“If I have I wish someone would find it for me. There may be a lot of
fun in the game, but there’s no money, that is, not yet.”
“Well, let me give you just one straight tip. What you want is a
manager--someone to boom you. Suppose you and I double up, and then
I’ll show you how to get the money, and hold it, too. Nothing cheap
about me. You’re a good fellow and I’m a good fellow, and we can do
well together. I’ll put you where you belong, for you ain’t getting
half of what’s coming to you. How about it?”
Just remember that this was in the West, where a girl has a mighty
hard time of it without a protector of some sort, and that there were
a hundred tie-ups by mutual consent for one real swell matrimonial
clinch, with a sky-pilot to sing his little song of “I now pronounce
you man and wife.” Also bear in mind that she had known Bill about
six months and that his style rather appealed to her, because he was
artistic in a crude sort of a way, and besides, he wore his clothes
with a certain amount of grace that was good for the female eye to look
on.
So they tied up together and Bill began his life of ease and
prosperity. The next week was announced as her grand farewell
appearance, and she was the recipient every night of a testimonial of
so substantial a character that, as she herself put it, her salary
seemed like pennies for candy. In these many testimonials might have
been recognized the fine Italian touch of Bill, who had a Hermann-like
knack of waving his hands in the empty air and producing real money.
And while she was busy picking up the nuggets and gold bucks which
the enthusiastic miners flung at her, he was attending to his end of
the contract by arranging a tour. He had a few schemes under his hat
that would have brought him in all kinds of money if he had had a fair
swing, but he was born with the soul of a grafter, and that is very
much like a taint in the blood, in that it can never be effaced. It may
disappear for a while, but it is always liable to turn up at the most
unexpected time.
When the week was done the company started--the company in this case
being a couple of miners, who were in hard luck and who went ahead of
the show; Bill and the girl.
I saw her the other night in a famous eating place on Broadway putting
away a chop and a small bottle, and I wondered then if she remembered
San Bernardino that June morning when everything she had in the world
was held in one small bag which Bill carried.
The plan of procedure was simple. She was to get a date in a town, Bill
was to go around and boom her as the best that ever hit the Coast,
and tell of the hit she made in ’Frisco. Then when she came on the
stage to do her dance the two hobos were to start the cheering. Toward
the finish of the act one of them was to walk down the aisle to the
footlights and toss up a handful of gold coins, and then the other was
to follow suit. That would start the crowd giving up; for after all,
people are like sheep, they will always follow a leader.
It was a good stunt, and there wasn’t any chance for a failure.
It worked out just as Bill figured it would, and it kept him busy
enough looking after the money end of the game.
It was the turn in the tide for her so far as her fortunes and
popularity were concerned, and she simply created a furore wherever she
appeared. In those days she wore a twenty-dollar gold piece around her
neck. It was held by a string which ran through a hole she had bored
herself with a great deal of labor. It was the first piece of money she
had ever received over the footlights and she said it was her mascot,
and declared she would always keep it. It might have been her mascot,
but I’ll bet a hundred to one that she hasn’t it now.
Put a good looking girl on the stage, have her make a hit so that she
is talked about, and she’ll attract more men than a leg show in Paris.
There’s an irresistible fascination about the stage that makes even
bald-headed old papas fall. It’s a hard thing to figure out, but it’s a
fact, nevertheless.
In this particular case they flocked around her like sheep for a
shelter when a storm is in the air, and the girl took to wearing good
clothes, ordered from ’Frisco, and using to their full capacity the
services of a maid.
And then there came upon the scene the other man. He had hit the Coast
from Colorado, and his mine was turning out the yellow stuff so fast
that he had more than he could do to spend it. He was busily engaged
in the exciting pastime of buying everything he saw when he met the
girl that Bill was leading along the golden road to wealth. There was
nothing half-way about his methods, so he promptly went out and bought
the biggest diamond he could find, put it in an envelope upon which he
wrote in lead pencil:
“The best stone for the nicest girl; come and have a bottle of wine
with me after the show.”
He didn’t need to sign his name to it, for the stage hand who received
a ten-dollar gold piece as a tip for taking it to her pointed him out
as he sat at one of the tables well up toward the stage.
“He seemed to be kind of stuck on you,” he remarked casually; “will I
tell him you’ll see him?”
She put the ring on her finger and looked at it critically, holding
it first this way and that so that the light would catch it. The
inspection evidently pleased her, for she said:
“Sure; he’s entitled to it after this.”
That is how it came about that, still in her stage dress, she went
directly from the stage to the table where Croesus sat and smiled on
him, while the diamond flashed like a calcium.
One bottle broke the ice, two put them on a friendly footing, and three
made them lifelong friends. They were on the fourth and their heads
were close together. He was talking in a low tone, while she was
listening intently and nodding her head in affirmation every moment or
so when Bill happened along.
He didn’t like the looks of this and he showed it plainly. He touched
her on the shoulder with an air of proprietorship and remarked curtly:
“Come on.”
“Who’s your friend?” asked the wine opener; “introduce me.”
“I’m the real one,” said Bill.
“Husband?” asked the other, laconically.
“Not yet,” she answered.
“Oh,” and his eyebrows were lifted a trifle. Then he turned to Bill.
“Sit down and have a drink; I want to talk to you.”
Then the fifth bottle was brought on.
He held his brimming glass aloft.
“Wish me luck, old man, for I’m going to take this little girl away
from you,” and his blue eyes looked into Bill’s black ones with a
steady and disconcerting gaze.
“I guess we’ve got something to say about that,” said Bill, putting his
glass down suddenly.
“Not much. You see, I’m going to give you a thousand dollars and that
will be your meal ticket until you find a new prima donna.”
“You made a mistake,” said Bill, “you meant $5,000.”
“I agree with you; I did make a mistake; it’s $2,500, and you’d better
grab it quick, because it’s easy money and it’s the limit, too.”
The girl was playing with the ring, turning it around her finger
aimlessly, never once looking and saying no word. Bill drained his
glass, put it down, and then looked at the stage.
“Do I get it now?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes, now.”
He held out his hand, palm upward, with a suggestive movement, and
in just fifteen seconds it held an order on the Assay Office for the
amount. It was as easy as going into a store and buying a blue flannel
shirt. Thirty days later--a record for speed, by the way--the girl
opened in San Francisco as the star in a farce comedy on which ten
thousand dollars had been spent before the curtain went up. She had
talent, but not enough to make good, and after a week’s losing run the
play was shelved. She gained a lot of experience and had a suite of
rooms at the best hotel in town, which was something for a girl who had
previously been housed in an eight by ten. That was what gave her a
running jump into the profession, so to speak. She landed on both feet
now, but none of her friends would dare bring up the subject of the
glorious West to her.
That were best forgotten.
[Illustration]
WHEN FISTS WERE TRUMPS
There was no reason why they should have called the play “The Casino
Girls” except that it might have sounded attractive to the out-of-town
people, and the word Casino, in the mind of the average manager, is
always good for the money. But it was a good show, nevertheless, with
lots of nice girls in tights and spangles, and you could spend two
hours there about as well as you could anywhere.
But this isn’t to be a story about a show in general, nor is it written
with the object of handing a bouquet to the estimable gentleman who had
the “Casino Girls” under his wing. He had troubles of his own, but he
was paid for that. If some one would sit down beside me for an hour or
so--that is, some one who knew--and tell me nice little stories about
all of the girls--or shall I say ladies?--with that show, I am quite
sure I would have enough material to last me for a good many weeks to
come, and it wouldn’t be scandal, either. I should leave that for the
religious papers and a few of the sanctimonious dailies.
But it happens that just now I have only one good card up my sleeve, so
I’ll play that for all it is worth, and then wait for something else to
leak out and find its way to the mahogany desk where I do stunts like
this one.
You will have noticed if you have seen the show, one of the young
women who is a bit more athletic than the others. She has a fist that
can hand out a scientific punch and an arm to back it up. She wears
tights with the rest of the crowd and doesn’t attract special attention
until the olio is put on, and then she shines forth as a specialist.
She punches the bag in a manner that is truly marvelous, and what she
doesn’t do to that pear-shaped leather pendant couldn’t be done by
anybody--man or woman.
The medals dancing on her chest as she uppercuts and swings would
signify that she is an artiste of more than usual merit, and the
self-assurance and confidence she displays during the brief time she
is on show that she is quite sure of herself and that she knows the
business from the make-up box to the bow at the finish.
Furthermore, in addition to her other accomplishments, she has been
known to kick the crown of a hat held six feet from the floor, which,
by the way, is no mean trick.
Now a few turns of the leaves of the calendar backward, a wiping out
of recent years, and you are at the beginning of the story. Not in New
York, but in Ohio--the finish is in the big city, as all good finishes
are.
A good-looking, rugged girl was there; a normal girl whose only
heritage was health, strength and ambition, which, by the way, in many
cases, is better than money. She took in all the shows that came to
town, and had about as good a time as any other girl could have under
the circumstances. She didn’t get stage struck. She had no ambition to
sing or dance before the public, nor did she give a rap about Romeo and
Juliet. Nothing like that for her.
You see her time hadn’t come and she had not yet struck her gait.
The first intimation she had that she was stung with the theatrical bee
when she saw a bag-punching act in which the man made many misses, but
faked it through so that it looked like the real thing.
That was what she had been waiting for all that time and she never knew
it. The next day she bought a bag, had a platform rigged up and started
in to practice. She worked in a woodshed, I think it was, with no one
to teach her, and she hammered and punched until she was about ready to
drop from exhaustion, but she never gave up. She would travel anywhere
to see a bag-punching act and get a few tips, and although there were
not many in the business at that time, especially out in Ohio, the few
she did land told her all they knew and that wasn’t half enough.
She had reached that stage when she was fairly good, but didn’t know
it, when there blew into the town a 120-pound boxer of about the fourth
class who could pound the leather just enough to get a salary that
would pay his board and buy a few drinks, but the fact that he was
a bag puncher was enough for her, so she made his acquaintance and
hustled him around to her improvised gymnasium to show her what he
knew. To her surprise there was nothing in his routine that she wasn’t
familiar with, and when she went at the bag herself she did a few
stunts that made him open his eyes in amazement.
“Who put you next to that?” he asked.
“No one; I learned it myself.”
[Illustration: She has been known to kick the crown of a hat held six
feet from the floor]
“Ever do an act?” was the next question he shot at her.
He had a quick mind--anybody has who knocks around on the road for a
few seasons--and he was already beginning to figure.
“No, but some day when I get good I am going to ask some kind manager
to give me a chance.”
“You don’t have to wait any longer, Sis; you can come with the show
right away and we’ll do an act together.”
Here was a meal ticket that would be good for many a hard winter when
the other fellows were eating snowballs, and, if he could help it, it
wasn’t going to get away from him.
And that is the beginning of the story.
It didn’t get away from him, for he married her as soon as he could
find the money to pay a minister, and that didn’t take very long.
He fixed up an act which might have been better, but which was good
enough to get work with reasonable regularity. There was only one thing
to it and that was her bag punching, and if it hadn’t been for his
hustling around and getting dates he would have been a rank case of
excess baggage. In the meantime, he was teaching her how to box, and
when the act grew stale they had a boxing finish that never failed to
go big with the crowd.