isn’t necessary to go into details on that subject, for every good hard
drinker knows the different sensations of the different brands the
morning after.
[Illustration: For three solid hours he sat there trussed up like a
chicken]
Jane blew into the big-city with a West wind, a dress suit case, on
one end of which were the initials of her right name, and the drummer
of a wholesale lace house who had caught her eye and won her regard by
giving her some of his samples.
Your attention is called to the fact that a drummer’s existence is a
cinch, especially if he has samples that he can afford to give away.
This one had a mustache that curled at the ends, a bank roll that
looked like a toy balloon into which a kid had stuck a pin--which was
Jane’s fault--and a nerve which was a little bit harder than Harveyized
steel. He used the nerve in his business, and besides, it came in
handy so far as Jane was concerned because he had a wife in Harlem. He
planted Jane in a furnished flat, where he paid the rent for two weeks.
Then because he had a champagne taste and a beer purse, he went to a
pal of his who was a stage manager on Broadway and got the lady a job
carrying a spear and wearing pale pink tights in a spectacular show
that was about to be produced.
He was sitting in her front room warming his shins at the steam heat
when he broke the news to her, and this is the way he did it. You
sports can take a tip from this so you can see how it is done, for no
man can ever foretell when he will be called on to produce the same
line of talk.
“Do you know,” he began, “that you are the best fellow in the world and
that the more I see of you the more I like you?”
“Do you?” asked Jane, simply, for she was nothing more nor less than a
country girl. “I am very glad of that, but you know the rent was due
yesterday and it hasn’t been paid yet.”
“Now,” he went on, ignoring the touch, “I know you well enough to know
that you would like to be independent and make your own way in the
world. I want to see you where you will be in a position to support
yourself, and so I have arranged with a man who is under obligations to
me to give you a chance and put you in the chorus of the ‘Ice King.’
You’ll get $15 a week at the start and then you’ll be jumped to $18.
After that it’s up to you whether or not you come to the front and get
the real good money with the yellowbacks.”
“But I have never been on the stage,” she said.
“Don’t I know that, and haven’t I fixed it? You’ll be broken in all
right and all you have to do is as you are told and you’ll get your
money every Monday night.”
So it was that the girl from Peapack, N. J., became independent and
self-supporting, and was able before long to send a hundred-dollar note
to the folks at home, for whom she still had a deep regard. You see, it
is only the girls who save their money who can do that sort of thing.
When the young fellows around town wanted to see a show, some one would
suggest that they go up and see Jane, and although she hadn’t a line to
speak nor a note to sing, they would line up in the front row as if she
was a star. It didn’t take the manager of the show very long to find
out that Jane could draw like a porous plaster and then he jumped her
salary up to $25.
With that she went to a fashionable hair dresser and paid $200 to
have her hair turned from chestnut blonde to a hue of a stick of pale
molasses taffy, the kind you get for five cents a throw, which sticks
in your teeth and plays the deuce with the filling.
Girls of Jane’s kind are like boxers, in that their prosperity is
manifested outwardly without delay. The aspiring young knuckle-duster,
as soon as he wins a prominent battle, will at once hie himself off and
blow in a chunk of the purse on a silk hat, patent leather shoes, a
frock coat and a cane. With the balance he will annex a diamond, then
he immediately becomes the real thing.
A girl has no use for frock coats and canes, but she goes strong on
hair, so her loose coin goes for a gallon of bleach strong enough to
change the faith of a Hindoo fakir, and that is the strongest thing in
the world, except, perhaps, an African after a hard day’s work in the
slaughter house.
She had a flat on Central Park, South--that’s wrong, it was an
apartment, because she paid over $1,000 a year for it, whereas flats
only cost about $40 a month-and she entertained the bunch with cozy
little wine dinners that would make a man leave his happy home in a
minute.
She was still getting her $25 a week, you know.
Then she tore the drummer’s name out of her address book, for he was a
back number who had shown a decided tendency to cold feet.
She described him to the butler, and said that if he ever put in an
appearance he was to be dismissed with the single word:
“Skiddoo.”
“I don’t understand,” said the butler, whose previous job had been on
Fifth avenue. “What does Skiddoo mean?”
“It doesn’t make any difference whether you understand or not, just you
say it to him and he will know, and that’s enough.”
And all that night this cheese sandwich with the side whiskers kept
repeating the word to himself so he wouldn’t forget it, and he wrote
it down on his cuff. He also traced it out on a card that he stuck
in behind the hat rack in the hall. In his heart and soul he thought
it was some foreign word which meant that the lady wasn’t at home or
didn’t care to be disturbed.
That’s the worst of being a butler instead of Chuck Connors.
The traveling man with the immaculate gall had reached the worrying
stage because the girl was doing so well and he had been pushed off
the track. If she had stuck to her little furnished flat and the cheap
togs he would have gone on his way whistling a merry tune, just as all
men do. But she was on the high wave and sipping the cream off the top,
and he thought there ought to be an armchair waiting for him by the
fireplace of her new ranch, which was very natural, for all men are
cast in the same identical mould. They don’t care for what they have,
and are always hunting for something that’s hard to get.
If you look like the goods you’ll have them all going, but as soon as
you tell your hard luck story you’ll get the sandbag where it will do
the most good.
One night, after the show, Jane and a bunch of the merry-merry with
money to spend, or burn, or throw away, was in the front room playing
dollar limit poker, when the drummer, with a choice collection of high
balls stowed away under his vest, and in a fit condition to either
fight or cry, came up in the elevator. He had overdrawn his salary and
was prepared to buy wine, if necessary, and he was dressed like a man
whose credit is good at the best clothing store in town.
He held his thumb against the electric button for a moment, and because
the butler was busy with a sauterne cup, very choice, being of the
Barton and Guestier vintage of ’84, the kind Smithy always orders when
he wants to be real flossy, the maid turned the knob and came face to
face with him.
He made his little spiel, shoved in and stood in the hall on one foot
waiting for the glad hand and the happy cry that he felt sure was
coming.
“What’s his name? Who is he? Why don’t you get his card?” he heard Jane
say. Then the maid came back.
“Will you please give me your card?”
“That won’t be necessary,” he remarked airily. “Just tell her Harry is
here and she will know.”
He heard the maid telling her little story and then Jane’s silver tones
floated out to him.
“What, that lobster? How did he get in? He must have had a shoe horn,
and I suppose it will take a load of dynamite to get him out.” Then
something else and all the girls laughed.
He pulled himself together and walked to where the voice came from.
The heat of the room was beginning to affect the cargo he was carrying
and he hit both sides of the wall about eight times before he got to
the door. He pulled the curtains aside and looked in on the game.
“Just thought I’d call,” he said, grinning.
“Well, didn’t I always tell you that you had bad thoughts?” she asked.
“Thought you’d be glad to see me,” he went on.
“Still thinking?” she queried. “I’ll see that raise and raise you back
ten more.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking a hand if you’ll play fair.” Just then the
butler came in with the drinks.
“Henderson,” remarked Jane without even so much as looking up, “what
was that word I taught you--do you remember it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, what was it?”
“Skid-doo, ma’am.”
“Very good. Now turn around and say it to that man.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He turned slowly and with great dignity to the drummer who was bracing
himself up against the door, and commanded:
“Skid-doo, sir.”
“So _I’m_ to be fired, eh?”
“Say it again, James; it may be some minutes before it takes effect.”
“Skid-doo, sir.”
“Suppose I don’t go?”
There was no answer to that, but Jane hadn’t been in New York a
whole year without being on to her job, and she was able to face any
proposition that ever came over the hills.
“Get me a piece of rope, James.”
“Yes, ma’am,” and away he went, just a bit faster than usual,
wondering, no doubt, what the eccentric and erratic mistress of his
was going to do next. He got the rope all right and returned with
it in short order, because this seemed to be a case where haste was
necessary, even at the expense of dignity. She took it from him and
walking over to the drummer, said, as she deftly passed it around him.
“You had me on a string once, Harry, and now I’m going to get you on a
rope.”
“Stop your kidding and be nice, Jane,” he spoke up, trying to look
upon the whole thing as a joke, but while he was expostulating she
had knotted the rope around both his arms and signalled to the butler
to help her. “I want him tied over there,” she said, pointing to the
piano, and before he knew it he was seated on the floor with his back
up against a slab of mahogany, being held by the servant while Jane was
making knots like a sailor.
When the job was done the game was resumed and nobody in the room paid
the slightest bit of attention to him. He threatened and begged and
finally he swore, and then Jane poured a glass of ice water over his
head to cool him off.
“I always thought you had a mean disposition,” she remarked, “and now I
know it.”
“Well, you wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for me,” he shouted.
“No, nor you wouldn’t be there if it hadn’t been for me,” she retorted.
For three solid hours he was kept trussed up like a fowl ready for the
oven, and at the end of that time the game came to an end.
“I’m going to bed now,” said Jane, “and in half an hour the butler will
come in and untie you. He will help you to your feet and when he says
skiddoo to you I hope you will understand what he means. Good night.”
For thirty minutes the clock ticked monotonously and the back of the
man on the floor was beginning to ache horribly. At last the silvery
chime announced the half hour and then Henderson stepped softly in.
One by one he untied the fastenings and it was a tough job in view of
the fact that a woman had made them. After that he helped the visitor
to his feet. He assisted him on with his coat, handed him his hat, and
together they walked, without either saying a word, to the hall door.
The butler swung it solemnly open, slowly waved his hand, bowed deeply
from the hips and said:
“Skid-doo, sir.”
“Go to hell,” came back the answer, as Harry shot down the stairs.
“How did he take it?” asked Jane the next morning.
“He took it all right, ma’am, but he was very uncivil, ma’am.”
THE WHIMS OF CURVES
The fellows who buy wine and eat terrapin at their midnight lunches--I
ought to say dinners--had found a new attraction, and for a brief while
she was the idol of the hour. But the trouble with these idols is that
they don’t last, and the finish as a rule is very disheartening, and in
many cases pathetic.
Of course, every once in a while a wise one will come to the front who
will do a little bookkeeping with herself, and when the smoke of battle
will have cleared away she finds she has enough to tell everybody to go
to blazes if she cares to be rude.
But that is the exception rather than the rule. Quick money, you know,
is like a dream, in that it only lasts while you are asleep. You think
you are in a mansion, and when the knock comes on the door you discover
that you are in the same old hall bedroom, and realize that you have to
get up just as you have been doing all your life, and work ten hours a
day--or eight, as the case may be--in order to get enough money to pay
what you owe.
The girl that all the bloods were buying dinners and flowers for came
from the West not so very long ago, and she didn’t leave any of her
good looks behind her, either. She hit the town with a dress suit case,
a good complexion and a taking way with the boys, and that’s all the
capital any skirt wearer needs in Gotham if she is only introduced to
the right crowd of spenders and keeps away from the pikers who have
their bank rolls lashed to the mast or bottled up so tight that when
they do release a bill it smells like an Egyptian mummy which has been
packed in a vault since the time of Pharaoh.
[Illustration: She put herself up at auction and was promptly bid on]
This lady hit the trail which led to the show houses. She had no idea
that she was an Adelina Patti or a Sarah Bernhardt, but she knew she
could carry a spear as good as any old-timer, and she was prepared to
make good.
“Got a job for me?” she asked the first stage manager she happened to
run across.
He looked her over and then remarked casually:
“I don’t think so, for all the star parts are given out for the
season, but you might go over and see Frohman and ask him if you can’t
understudy Maude Adams.”
“Don’t strain your voice on my account,” she said, by way of a
come-back. “I’m looking for about $18 a week in the line-up, and when
it comes to tights, I guess there ain’t any of them who has anything
on me. You had me flagged for a Sis Hopkins, but you want to throw
some sand on the track because you’re sliding. I don’t sit up at night
reading Romeo and Juliet, and where I come from they think Shakespeare
is a new kind of breakfast food. Can you get busy now?”
“I guess I’ll have to if I want to get rid of you.”
“Well, you’re learning, and that’s a good sign.”
So after he had looked her over again very carefully, he concluded
she’d do for the chorus for a starter anyhow.
A stage manager who is used to hiring ladies whose talents lie in their
legs has a system of his own in picking out good ones that don’t need
padding, and he never makes a mistake any more than a red squirrel will
stow away a bad nut for the winter. Face, neck, hands and arms tell
the story and they never fail, and so he knew she could wear the usual
size, and if anything stretch them a bit.
That was the beginning.
One night four young men about town sat in a theatre box watching the
merry maidens tropping on and telling in song how happy they were that
the Princess was going to be married to the poor but handsome gink
whose father had a cobbler’s shop one block from the palace.
“Get onto the curves of the girl with the black hair,” said one, and
in a minute there were four pairs of eyes looking at one pair of silk
tights.
“Great,” said another, enthusiastically.
“Who is she?” asked a third. “I never saw her before.”
“Well, Ben certainly has an eye for beauty. I wonder where he gets
them? Let’s see him and ask him to put us on, for she’s all right.”
Incidentally, Ben was the first name of the stage manager.
It isn’t necessary to go into details, for general results save a lot
of time, but a couple of hours later four enthusiastic young fellows
and a dimpled brunette sat at a round table in a sporty cafe, and when
any of them wanted to address her they called her Curves.
“What are you trying to do?” she asked, when it was first sprung, “give
me a nickname?”
“No,” was the answer, “simply a trademark.”
And they all understood.
So because of that she began her career with the world by the tail on a
downhill pull.
Not to know Curves and have her call you by your first name when you
met was to be the deadest kind of a dead one, and the witty stories she
could tell over a quart of wine soon began to be circulated around town.
As is often the case, women were her enemies and men were her friends,
and she slid along in a happy-go-lucky way, letting the morrow take
care of itself.
There was no question but that her figure was the making of her, just
as Jennie Joyce’s legs made her famous from one end of the country to
the other when she was a reigning favorite at Koster & Bial’s old place
on Twenty-third street two decades ago.
The photographer who secured some good poses of Curves in tights found
himself busy printing them to supply the demand, and it was as easy to
get her before a camera as it was to get a kid to a candy store. If she
had received a dollar for every time she wrote across the bottom of one
of her photographs “Sincerely yours, Curves,” she would have had a bank
account that would have been broad, wide and deep. But she was simply
a good fellow and she made no attempt to live by her wits. Like many
another poor devil, she probably thought she would always be young,
good-looking and popular. She didn’t know that those whom the public
applauds to-day it kills to-morrow, and that it takes but a week in New
York to make a favorite less than a memory.
But there was one incident in her career that stands out in relief from
anything of the kind that anyone had ever done before, and it is worth
telling. It was characteristic of her to do a thing of this sort, and
she was the one woman in a hundred who could have got away with it.
A soulful-eyed, chocolate-skinned Brahmin priest had come to town to
spread his faith, and because he talked in an exceedingly entertaining
manner and told some curious and interesting stories he came to be
a fad. It wasn’t that the people who went to see and hear him were
interested in his religion, but it was because he was a novelty that he
filled his lecture room every afternoon. Two men and Curves dropped in
one afternoon at a time when this spreader of a new creed was telling
about the money it would cost to do good in the world, and on that
subject he was particularly eloquent.
“You Americans,” he said, “don’t know what it is to make a sacrifice;
you don’t know what it is to deny yourselves any of the good things
of life. Your men would not forego their cigars or wine even if the
spiritual salvation of the world depended upon it, and your women would
not permit themselves one particle of physical discomfort nor cheaper
wearing apparel even though a hundred souls were the price. The whole
world is selfish and wrapped up in itself, and religion is either a fad
or a jest. The man with a million gives a few thousands and thinks he
has done well, but he denies himself nothing. The woman with a check
book doles out dimes and fancies herself a philanthropist, but will she
make any sacrifice for the general good?”
“Here’s one who will.”
Two-thirds of the people in the room turned around and looked at
Curves, and one of the fellows with her took her arm and whispered:
“What is the matter, are you dotty?”
The ox-like eyes of the religious enthusiast seemed to blaze up a bit.
“You will make a sacrifice?” he asked. “What can you give?”
“I’ll give myself,” she answered, and she stood up defiantly.
People who tell this story, as well as a few who were there, say that
Curves had a most elegant tide on at the time and didn’t know what she
was saying, but that doesn’t alter the story, because this is simply a
recital of facts which can be verified by a whole lot of the fellows,
and the sequel can be found on record among the marriages in the Bureau
of Vital Statistics by anyone who is interested enough to look it up.
“It is very praiseworthy,” continued the priest, “but how do you
propose to put your gift to a practical use? You say you will give
yourself. Do you mean by that that you will devote your time to this
work which I am trying to carry on?”
“Not that way so you can notice it, but I have a lot of men friends
here and each one of them has asked me to marry him more than once. I
like them all and as marriage is a lottery anyhow, they can bid for me,
and you get the money.”
As she spoke she was climbing up on the table in the center of the
room. “I am ready for the first offer and I don’t care who makes it,
for I’m taking as many chances as anybody else.”
Now here was a situation that reads like a romance, and here was the
one in a thousand to get away with it. The women were shocked, of
course; the men were interested, and as for the priest he didn’t know
whether to take it seriously or not, until finally what might have been
an awkward situation was relieved by a man who said:
“Well, if she’s game enough to have herself auctioned off, I’m game
enough to make a bid, so I’ll say $500, with the proviso that the cause
of religion, which our revered friend represents, shall get half, the
other half to go to the lady who shows such a praiseworthy spirit.”
Then three gaunt females over forty arose in the majesty of their
outraged womanhood and stalked from the room, while a dozen others
moved uneasily in their seats.
The Brahmin was still figuring.
“Am I worth no more than $500?” put in Curves.
“I’ll make it $750,” said one of the men who had accompanied her.
“You paid twice as much for a horse last week, Billy,” she retorted.
“I didn’t think of that. Let it go at $1,500, for there’s going to be
competition.”
The priest’s hand was nervously fingering a silk handkerchief.
“Two thousand,” the first bidder’s voice came like a bullet from a gun,
and Billy laughed nervously.
“Go ahead, Billy, it’s up to you again,” and Curves nodded at him
encouragingly.
“She’s worth it, Bill,” whispered his friend. “Your Panhard cost you
$11,000 and it takes $100 a week to keep it going. Curves can be very
economical when she tries,” and he laughed at his joke.
“Twenty-five hundred,” bid Billy.
“Sold,” cried Curves, “although _I’m_ worth more.”
“Very extraordinary,” said the priest, wiping his forehead with his
handkerchief. “This could happen in no other country in the world.”
“Write him a check, Billy, for what you owe him,” said Curves, “and
then we’ll go out and get married. And don’t you think it would be nice
to have him to dinner with us?”
“Sure thing, and we’ll have the other fellow who bid along, too. By the
way, who is he? I don’t ever remember to have seen him before. Do you
know him?”
Now what a chance here for a climax, for a real whipping finish, as it
were. It might be arranged so that the girl would say sadly:
“Yes, he holds the mortgage on the farm and has threatened to foreclose
it if I don’t marry him. Oh, Billy, you must save me.”
Then Billy would pull out his check book, pay the villain off to the
penny and the man would go tearing out of the door shouting:
“Foiled again, c-u-u-rses on you, but I’ll have revenge,” with the
accent on revenge.
But no such thing happened, because you see Curves never had an
interest in a farm, and it is very much to be doubted if she knew
anything about a father or mother. The result was that she said:
“Oh, I suppose he’s some guy that’s been to the show and got stuck on
my shape.”
The honeymoon lasted six months, which was enough for Billy, and he
beat it to New Orleans, while his friends told Curves that they thought
he had committed suicide.
[Illustration: She went into the smoking car and calmly lighted a
cigarette]
CHEYENNE NELL; TRIMMER
The gambler in this story came from the West to get a little New York
money. He had been getting it for years from the Sierra Nevadas to El
Paso, and from Seattle as far east as Omaha, which he said was far
enough for anybody who liked fresh air, but he had struck a run of bad
luck and one of his pals told him that the best way to break it was to
trim a New York sucker.
“They’re fly guys there all right,” remarked this same man, casually,
“but the flyer they are the easier it is to trim them. I would sooner
stack up against a stock broker that runs one of those bubble machines
and can speak sixteen different languages than get into a game with a
Kansas farmer any day. The farmer knows he ain’t in it and he’s got his
eye out for a job every time; his coat is buttoned up so tight that
he has contraction of the lungs and his heart doesn’t beat right, but
the gink that knows it all thinks he’s so damned smart that he’s got
everybody in the world in his corral, and those are the fellows you
catch with their vests open.”
All homely philosophy, but as true as gospel and worth looking into.