THE TRAGEDY OF THE ASSIGNATION HOUSE.
Her name can be read a quarter of a mile away from the big electric
signs in front of a Broadway theater today. A year ago it was
emblazoned from the signboards of a Chicago amusement place. A few
years before that it was hardly known outside the little Springfield
cottage of the maiden lady with whom she made her home. Truth to
tell, she doesn't know her real name, and the title she goes by as a
theatrical star is the only one she has. For she is an orphan girl and
she was taken to rear by the two elderly maiden ladies in Springfield,
Illinois, when she was a cooing, gob-gobbing baby in an orphan asylum.
But that, as Kipling says, has nothing to do with this narrative.
If you are fortunate enough to enjoy the hospitality of her
dressing-room, between the acts, you will notice the loving tones
she uses in addressing her maid. An oldish woman is the maid, whose
face betokens fading beauty, whose supple limbs echo of some stage
experience of bygone days.
And if you are of that rare type that begets ready confidence the maid
will tell you the story as it is set down here:
"Yes, I was a show girl myself," says the maid, "and I wasn't any
ham-fatter, either, although I'm broken down now and worth nothing save
as a mother to 'Madge.' I lost my ambition long ago. I haven't any now
save to see my mistress the greatest leading lady in the land, which
she will be if the gracious Master of our destinies spares her long
enough.
"It's strange how the fates threw us together. You may have wondered
why she treats me like a sister actress and an equal, and why I never
say, 'Yes, ma'am,' and, 'No, ma'am,' to her. But God's good to me and
He put it in my way to bring her to what she is today instead of being
one of those poor beings what's referred to as 'white slaves' in the
papers, bless your soul.
"She ain't been on the stage long. But she's made good use of every
hour since she's been in the business. She ain't at all like these
lobster-loving, champagne-sipping ones you read about. Not a bit of it.
See them pictures?"
The maid pointed to a group of photographs hanging 'round the room.
Remarkable they were, in that every picture bore the shining face of a
Madonna, a mother and a babe.
"That's the kind of a girl Madge is. Loves babies, dreams about 'em,
has but one ideal, and that to have a little home of her own and a
group of prattlers. She'll have 'em, too, and she'll quit this business
if she ever finds a man in this world good enough for her, which there
ain't.
"Lord bless me, how it was I found her. She didn't know anything
outside of Springfield and the legislature and 'Uncle Dave,' who was
a member of the senate, or something, and who boarded with the maiden
ladies when the legislature sat. Uncle Dave was called uncle chiefly
because he wasn't. He was a big, fat man with a hollow talk like
yelling in a rain barrel and a laugh that shook his balloon style
figure like a dish of jelly. Seemed to be a pretty fine specimen of
an old gentleman. Used to play with Madge and tease her and chuck her
under the chin and give her the kind of advice you read about in the
Old Woman's Journal.
"So when the day came that the stock investments the old ladies had
made went bust and the two dears cried and Madge made 'em 'fess up that
there wasn't enough to feed three mouths now, not to speak of two,
Madge just up and told 'em that she was coming to Chicago to earn her
own living. She wasn't going to be any burden. And she done it. She
started instanter. Uncle Dave said he'd look out for her--he lives in
Chicago. And, sure enough, he was there to meet her at the train when
it reached the depot.
"Madge, the little dear, didn't know enough to ask a policeman. She
wouldn't have known what to do if it wasn't for Uncle Dave. He just
bundled her into a cab and gave an order and then he told her that
he was taking her to a nice place at his hotel which he had fixed up
for her. And he took her to a place on Wabash avenue and he ordered
something that was brought up by a nigger. And he told her to drink
it--she who didn't know whisky or dope from lemon pop.
"And then the old bugger sits right down and says they must write a
letter to Madge's aunts and tell them how nice she is fixed and how
they mustn't worry about her being 'lost in the great city,' or words
to that effect. And Uncle Dave puts in something about getting her a
nice position which will keep her very busy and they mustn't worry if
she doesn't write every day.
"He goes out to mail the letter, and Madge lies down, because her head
gets dizzy. And when she wakes up it's dark and she feels so funny.
Then the little dear remembers that she's got to be brave and mustn't
get lonely or homesick, even if the beautiful big room she's got
doesn't seem so snug and cozy as her little dormer bedroom under the
roof in the cottage at home.
"So she lets down her beautiful golden hair and starts to sing. And
me, what's been an old sport and no good to nobody, myself included
most of all, is in that same hotel. I'm not making any excuses for
my presence. But when I hears that golden voice floating through the
corridors of that den of iniquity I just ups and chokes plumb up, and
not thinkin' of the proprieties or anything else, I just beats it to
that door and looks for the owner of the voice.
"And when I sees that beautiful baby girl, her red hair hanging to the
floor, her big eyes lookin' at me so innocent-like, I ups and puts it
to her straight.
"'F'r God's sake,' says I, 'child, what are you doing here?'
"'Minding my own business,' she should have said. But she ain't got
that kind of a heart in her. Instead she ups and tells me in the most
innocent way about Uncle Dave and Springfield and the two maiden aunts
what weren't aunts at all, but just foster mothers to one child. And
she tells me how Uncle Dave has brought her to this lovely place to
live and is going to get her a job.
"'Job, hell,' I busts out, and she blushes and looks scared. Don't you
know this is the ---- hotel, the most terrible assignation house in
this big, rotten old burg, where other girls like you, Margaret Burkle,
for instance, were taken by designing old villains, kidnapped, enslaved
and robbed of their virtue and their innocence?'
"At that she looks bewildered, as if she don't understand, and I didn't
have the nerve to draw a map for her, knowin' as I did that I might
have a mess of lively young hysteria on my hands. But I just puts my
hand on her head and tells her to 'Never mind,' and then I slips out
and shuts the door.
"I calls a bellboy who has got some money in tips for drinks and other
things from my room and I asks him to slip down to the office and see
who's registered for room 346. I knew I couldn't find out, as the foxy
proprietors of this rotten old dump don't keep a regular book register,
but a card index, so that they can tear up a card easy and destroy it
in case any angry husband or irate wife tries to drag them into the
divorce courts with evidence.
"The boy beats it downstairs and comes back in double quick time, owin'
possibly to some extent to the big four bit piece I slipped into his
hand. I waits for him to say something, and when he said it I wouldn't
have had to ask him, for I knew it in advance.
"'It's John Brown and wife,' he tells me, winkin' solemn and wise-like.
"'That'll do for you,' I tells him. Then I don't waste no time, but
jump into my clothes and beat it for that little girl with the auburn
hair.
"'You come with me--pack up an' git,' I tells her.
"'Why, what, but Uncle Dave--'
"'T'ell with Uncle Dave,' says I, not feeling sanctimonious; 'hustle up
now.'
"The little dear looks kind of bewildered, but I'm feelin' so proud and
bully in my heart to see that she's trustin' me and doin' as I say. I
bundles her out of the dump fast as I can do it and just as we reaches
the door up rushes a big, fat, apoplectic old Santy Claus and blusters:
"'Here, you, where you going with that girl?'
"'Say, you cradle robbing old pork barrel, back stage for you in a
hurry or I'll sic the dangle wagon onto you. Skidoo now and no back
talk, or I'll read about you in the morning papers with great eclat,' I
says.
"He does a little Swiss yodle or something back in his throat and then
he notices a big boy in a blue suit swingin' a piece of mahogany comin'
our way and he don't stop to tip his hat.
"The little dear don't understand it all, but she's bright, if
unsophisticated, and I could have just hugged her right there on the
street for trusting me in comparison to him, as smug and sleek as
Father O'Hara, though that's as far as the comparison goes.
"I takes the little darling over to the North Side with me to the home
of a fine little actor and his wife, who are more for real home than
they are for the gay life. And they don't ask no questions, but just
take her right in to their hearthside.
"Little Madge was too proud for them, though, even if she had been an
orphan and allowed herself to be given a home when she was too small to
work and didn't know how to beg, much less spurn any charity.
"She goes out every day to look for work. She don't find anybody that
wants to hire a girl in a made-over alpaca and clodhopper shoes, though
her form and figure is something you don't see in them automobiles that
whizz up and down on the boulevards.
"She tries to get into a show company, being of that temperament and
having a real voice, and she has some narrow escapes from bumping up
against fake booking agencies that would have sold her into the same
kind of a gilded palace of sin Uncle Dave had cooked up for her.
"One day, when she's walking on State street, so shoddy that her little
bare feet are touching the pavement through the holes in her soles, she
sees a big sign and the wigs in the windows of Burnham's hair store.
"She goes in there. A clerk steps up to her, kind of smart-like, and
she almost bowls him over. She just reached up, pulls out a couple of
pins, takes off her hat and down drops a regular Niagara of Titian
tinted tresses.
"'How much for this?' she asks him.
"He just gasps and goes back to tell it all to Mr. Burnham, and that
individual comes out and dickers with her right then and there for the
purchase of her crown of glory.
"She got sixteen dollars an ounce--a big, fat bank roll. She reinvests
some of it for enough false hair to make her look all right and then
she goes over to one of the big stores and buys the kind of clothes
that nobody knows how to wear like her.
"It's the most stunning little beauty in the world that comes home that
night. With her clothes and her beauty she don't have no trouble at all
to make an engagement. Those two maiden aunts are living in a little
bungalow that she's built for them out in a suburb of Chicago today;
and me--I'm on the job right here just as you see me.
"Uncle Dave? He turned up--not so many days ago. And he has the
pneumogastric to try to chuckle her under the chin just like he used to
in Springfield. And she don't say a word.
"She just turns white as a bit of powdered chalk. I catches her as she
keels over. I holds her with one hand. With the other I sticks a hatpin
into Uncle Dave where it will do the most good."