The Sorrows of a Show Girl Part 11

"That's right, give them a touch of high life. Zow-e, if we are going less than a mile a minute I hope I have to walk home. Cheese, there's a bike cop. Can you loose him? Beat it. Good-by, Bobby. Look out, there's another one in front. Slow up, for goodness sake, or we will be pinched.

What is it, sergeant? Oh, no, sir. Not more than six miles an hour, I am sure.

"This machine has got a dudedad on it that prevents it from going more than ten. Won't you have a little drink, officer? Just smile on the gent in the front seat; he's right there with the distillery. Wilbur, chase the roof off a jug of suds for the Lieutenant. I tell you, Captain, on my honor as a lady, we are not going more that six miles an hour. Must take us to the station! Why, you low-down, monkey-faced excuse for a sparrow cop, would you have the crust to stand up in front of a judge and tell him that we were going faster than ten miles an hour? If you want to get us to the station it's a cinch you will have to push the machine. Walk! Not so you could notice it. The only way you can get me there is to drag me by the hair of my head, and if you dare lay your mitts on my new marcel wave I will report you to your Commissioner, and if a certain friend of mine don't stand strong enough with him to have you broke, I'll eat my ostrich plume!

"Will let us go if we promise not to do it again? Why, certainly we won't, Sergeant. Thank you, Lieutenant. Here's a little something for the Relief Fund. Good-by, Captain. Wilbur give the driver two bells. The nerve of that guy thinking he could pinch me. I'll have you know that I am only nicked by the best cops on Broadway, and not by any high-gra.s.s constable. Hand 'em salve, pardy, hand 'em salve. A soft answer turneth away wrath. If that don't turn the trick use a brick.

"Oh, gee, there it is. Go around and come up the other side so we can be seen from all the tables.

"Let's take this table. Waiter, get on the job, as these gentlemen and ladies wish to address a few remarks to you. Oh, there's Grace McSweeney. Pipe the hat she is sporting. b.u.m taste, it strikes me. Who is that slob with her? Oh, h.e.l.lo, dear! I was just speaking of your new hat to Sadie. We both admired it so.

"We were wondering how you could wear it coming up on the Subway. I've found that the wind blows them all to pieces in my car. Who's the wop?

From Pittsburg? Oh, is that so? He reminds me so much of a very dear friend of mine that was sent up for life. No, I suppose it's not the same party, though they are as alike as two peas. No, I don't care to meet him. You know one in my position cannot afford to a.s.sociate with every Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry. Must you toddle? Good-by, dear.

"Cat! Did you get wise to the way I slipped her the sa.s.sy roast? Well, here's down the Irish channel. Varlet, fill up the flagons again. I just love to sit here and look out at Nature and the railroad tracks and the brick scows.

"Where do we go from here? You made me think I was back in the business.

Oh, I don't care. Yonkers, over in Westchester County, or we can take the ferry for Jersey if you want to go out in the wilderness. It makes not an iota of difference to muh. Just as long as the chauffeur stays sober. Shall we hike? Lets slip up the drive for a ways. Sadie, are you ever going to have sense enough to keep your hoofs off those crackers?

Honest, I don't believe your think tank is feeding properly. Why don't you blow in it and clear it out?

"Sure, I'll caper out to Yonkers if the rest of the crowd want to. I am just that kind of a fellow. Ain't I, Wilbur, dear? Oh, my, don't for mercy sakes disturb him. He's hunting locations for the Friar three-sheets that Mr. Gillen slipped 'em. He's got Mr. McMa.n.u.s' art studies planted now so that the burg looks like a Kansas town the day after the number two car of the circus leaves.

"Did you know that they are enlarging the secret tunnel in the new Friary so that Toxen Worm can get his getaway if the occasion should arise? Honest, it looks like the front view of the Hoboken tunnel. Oh, law me, what is that in the offening? Eureka! It's another cafe, or do muh eyes deceive me? I am athirst, let us rest our weary beast and partake of a flagon of nut brown ale. Say, I guess I would be bad in this Shakespeare thing. Alight, fair maids, and nominate your idea provokers.

"Waiter, follow those people's directions and do not let the mice build nests under your feet. Sink this and we will then continue our journey.

"Now, Sadie, as a friend I ask you don't do a ballet on them crackers.

Run over the mutt. What care we for life. Gee, the canine is right there as the artful dodger. Ah! what? Bing! What was that? A puncture! My! For goodness sake, how long will we be bogged down. Oh, we can wait that long, can't we, dears? Pipe the yokel. Shall I hand him a game of chatter? No? Oh, very well.

"Let's have a picnic. Wilbur, get on the job and skid out the liquids.

Alla, you may bring out what is left of the crackers. If that woman hasn't paraded over them biscuits until there isn't a piece there big enough to make a nice comfortable mouthful for a young flea.

"Throw 'em away, we don't want to overload our stomachs anyhow. Can you surpa.s.s that for a man. Here we've come all these weary miles carefully nursing these bottles to our bosoms and then that excuse there has the crust to speak up and say, 'I forgot the corkscrew.' Can you beat it?

Wilbur, you just get on the job and pull them out with your teeth. Get away, you big standup and fall down, I'll show you how to get them out.

What do you think us fair s.e.x wear hat pins for, hey, shover? Want some of this jig juice for your tire? Right-o! Ain't I the English scamp? Got her fixed all right? Climb in, folks, and we will journey homeward, for I am beginning to feel thirsty and you certainly don't get the same treatment here that you do in town. Sadie, now that the crackers are gone I wish you would please remember that that is my foot. Say, you can never learn some of these dolls nothing. Nothing personal, my dear, though your hair is light.

"Don't you dish me out any hectic language, for I am a lady. I might forget myself and smear one all over you. Wilbur, are you going to sit up there and see your near-bride insulted by a woman? If you don't come back here and make her stop abusing me I'll take and b.u.mp your two hearts together. Now that goes if you hear it and I am speaking in no whisper.

"Can that fight talk even if this is a pleasure party. My, how time does fly! We are nearly home now. Let's all go down the street and see what's doing. Must you leave us? Don't rush away in the heat of the forenoon.

So long. My, I am glad that man's out of the machine!"

Sabrina, in spite of the anti-betting law, goes to the race track and returns with money. She also drops a few remarks concerning gentlemen who claim their scarf-pins have been purloined by ladies.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Them Senators that put the kibosh on that racetrack bill can consider themselves as personal friends of every chorus Fluff that ever scanned a dope sheet," remarked Sabrina, the Show Girl, as she alighted from a new big automobile. "Pipe the ferry-boat. It's all mine; name on every piece. And I am personally thankful to those gents that I am the proud possessor of the same.

"Did I catch? Well, I should hope so, dear. I landed this buzz wagon out of a ten dollar pike bet. Can you surpa.s.s it? Talk about playing in luck. Wait until I touch wood. Wilbur says betting on the races beats trifling with the affections of an expense account all to pieces.

"You know that, though I lead a simple and uneventful existence, the inheritance that was left me was pretty near all in, and it was either up to me to get married, get a job on one of the roofs or catch a live one, and I thought the best of all the evils was to catch the aforementioned live one. I am not one of these Janes that goes dotty over the pit-i-pats, and though I always sit up until The Morning Telegraph comes out on the street, the racing news is not the first thing I turn to.

"Wilbur's show closes in a couple of weeks and he is going to the island for the summer. Can that old stuff. I mean Coney, not Blackwell's. I been piking around for a hunch for some time, and just the other evening I was out with a party who is interested in the bet placing business at all of the big tracks, and he said he was hep to a few killings, and any time I would come out he would give them to me and I could play the other books.

"Knowing that he had influence, I naturally took an interest in him, but, say, this is a long, sad story and--. Ah, certainly! I knew you could not suppress your Southern hospitality much longer--that is, I hoped you couldn't. Yes, waiter; bring me a long one.

"Well, I took a peep at my check-book about a week ago and decided that it was me for the track. I meets this wop and he certainly lands me in right. He gives me a twenty case note and the card. I got the twenty changed and plants ten of it in the Lisle Thread Bank, making up my mind that no matter what happened the day would not be ill-spent.

"I plays his tip at 8 to 1 on the first race and ketches. Out of that ninety I plant forty. Still following the kind gentleman's advice I pikes the fifty on a dog in the second race and he never does come in.

"Can you beat that? This betting person picks the whole card but this one race. I lose my fifty and was thinking seriously of going home when I got a yen to try it again, so I dug up a twenty out of the hose.

Honest, it nearly broke my heart to separate myself from that roll, but I just had to do it. I get twenty to one, go into hysterics at the quarter, faint at the half, but come to in time to see my money coming in so far ahead it looked as if he was out for a pleasure trip. Can you see me with that 400 in my mit? Talk about throwing fits. Why, I had the Leamy Ladies looking like children romping on the nursery floor.

"There was nothing to it. I had a hunch to grab the bundle and beat it for home and crawl under the bed. And then I had another hunch that told me to stick for the big show. I plant one century in my war bag and get seven to two on the next with the other three. I win.

"Then I do want to go home. I felt ill.

"But just then a gentleman introduced himself to me and we went and had a little drink. That made me feel better, and so I ditched the purveyor of refreshments and fled to the clubhouse. There is nothing more to tell except that I couldn't lose and I came home in an automobile with my clothes so full of this evergreen stuff that I looked as if I had spavins or something else.

"I made $6,000 on the day, which is not so bad for a poor fluff like me.

That night the gentleman who gave me the tips called me up and wanted his original twenty back, saying the public got all his roll. Can you beat that? I told him I thought he was a moonstone sport, and to never darken my door again.

"He needed money bad, and through a friend I let him have a couple of thou on this machine. Ain't I the business woman?

"Wilbur and I have just been riding ourselves to death ever since. He has been acting awful lately. Ever since he heard that Friar Weber and Friar Field were going to appear together at the festival he has been soused. It was all I could do to restrain him from kissing Phil Mindel in the Cadillac the other evening. He just don't care what he does.

"Have you bought your tickets? Let me see. I have six choice ones here in the seventh row. You'll want to bring your family, of course, 'cause it will be the chance of a lifetime. Nothing like it seen before under one canvas. For stellar attractions it's going to have Barnum & Bailey's looking like a Sunday school entertainment. Yes, sir, and I personally will be there like the Trinity chimes.

"Alla McSweeney has gone and blown herself for one of these racecourse hats. You know these big things that have a half-mile track around the outside. While I do not wish to injure the poor dear, still I will say that she certainly looks one of these long-handled j.a.p umbrellas. You know she is such a skinny thing! Honest, this new hip style they are boosting this season just saved her life. She was getting saddle galls from carrying so many naturals. I wouldn't say this unless I absolutely knew, and of course I have seen her early in the morning when you haven't.

"There are little confidences us girls exchange in the privacy of our boudoirs that would never do for the ear of a man. She tried to get a job as one of those six-foot girls in 'The Love Waltz,' but the manager told her she had better go with a circus. She naturally queried 'Why?'

And he, the rude thing, told her she could get a job as a quarter-pole.

That's why she could never get a job with the Held show. She was all right in low neck, but when it came to tights! Well, you know bowlegs never did appeal to the front row.

"Mind you, I wouldn't say a thing that would hurt her character the least bit, but you should have seen the way she carried on when she was out in Chicago. You know that anyone who runs around with those La Salle street spendthrifts loses cla.s.s, anyway, and she just tore around that North Side something scandalous, and till my dying day I never will forget the scene she and the comedian's wife had on the platform in that dear Peoria.

"Alla, bless her heart, she is a good soul, is a flighty creature and she accepted the attentions of the comedian which his wife was not supposed to be jerry to. But one day some gabby girl put wifey next. We were all down to the station waiting for the train to come in when up romps wifey to this doll, who is making the big talk with a chorus man--just shows you what extent she will go for company--she was talking to this chorus man and wifey capers up to her and says: 'You been flirting with my husband, haven't you?' And hauling off wifey hangs one on Alla's map that is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Bing goes Alla to the platform down and out. She was in such a trance that we had to rub her hands and borrow a drink from the press agent, who came back with the show to see if he couldn't get his salary, before she would come to. Pale, why that girl was so white that her number eighteen looked like big gobs of red paint on each cheek.

"I never saw a girl so surprised in my life. For the nonce she was nonplussed. She didn't know what to make of it. When she did you should have heard the language she used. It is not for me to tell it in a respectable crowd, for I only use it to Estelle, that's my maid, when she pulls my hair, but it was certainly not fit for publication in a family newspaper.

"She's continually getting into trouble. If it ain't one thing it's another. It's a wonder to me she hasn't been pinched oftener than she has.

"I never will forget one time she was out riding with a handsome gentleman from Pittsburg in a cab and while leaning on his shoulder his diamond scarfpin got caught in her teeth. She being a bashful young thing--then. Well, when she takes her head off his shoulder the pin naturally comes along, too, and then she got afraid that he would think she was trying to nick it so she stuck the pin in her hat band, intending to restore it on the way home. But in the next cafe they stopped in she picked a fight and left him in a huff. Would you believe it, that guy had the nerve to come around the next day and declare that she had pinched the bauble and threaten to land her in the b.o.o.by hatch if she didn't come across.

"And they call that chivalry!