The Sorrows of a Show Girl - Kenneth McGaffey
"Did I tell you about Mamie de Vere becoming a bride again? She believes
in marrying at leisure and divorcing in haste. The justice of the peace
that always ties her nuptial knot told her that if she bought a ticket
she could save 50 cents per wedding and he would hand it to the happy
bridegroom as her dowry. Well, anyway they got maried after the show, so
that she wouldn't loose her job. I was maid of honor. Honest I was.
Don't it sound funny? And I carried her bouquet as the bridal party
marched up the hall to the office of the justice of the peace. Just as
he was about to pronounce the last sad rites a hurdy-gurdy started
playing 'Don't Get Married Any More, Ma,' with variations. Well, it made
Mamie so nervous. You know she always was a hysterical creature. It made
her so nervous that she had to have Wilbur--that's her husband--go out
and put a bug on the Ginny before she would allow the flag to drop. Then
we went out and had our wedding breakfast. There were six or eight in
the crowd, I don't rightly remember which, for sometimes there would be
only a few and then again it would be a turbid throng.
"A couple of whisky sales gentlemen joined our little gathering and
proposed a race. You know I do so love athletic sports. I don't mean
prize fighters or ball players, but feats of strength. The whisky
gentlemen had a little the best start, for they had been running trial
heats. The way we staged that drinking number was a crime. How we ended
up I care not, neither do I spin. I can merely state that Mamie and I
slid for home in a sea-going taxicab, leaving Wilbur saying things to
the head waiter that no lady would listen to.
"Oh, say, are you here with any extra junk? No, this ain't no touch. But
if you have got a reckless bundle I know how you can double it in a few
weeks. A gentleman friend of mine was captain of a fake wire-tapping
game until he got put out of business by the hard times and the lack of
suckers--synonymous. He is selling stock of a proposition that has
anything from Goldfield chased back to the desert. This is the scheme:
Listerine. He's going to train carrier pigeons to rush the growler. The
Chorus Girls' Union have already elected him an honorary vice-president.
You see, he gets these birds and trains them to carry the pail in their
teeth and smell out the nearest saloon, even a blind tiger--no matter
where they are. Then he rents the birds out by the dozen to the
theatrical organizations--special rates to musical comedies--so that all
the poor merry-merry has to do if there is no gentleman without is get a
bird from the property man, beat it for the furnished room, drop ten
cents in the bucket, write a little note to the bartender merely
stating: 'Mother has company, so not so much foam, please,' open the
window and start the dove of peace on its mission of happiness. You
needn't be afraid of the pigeon sneaking up an alley and drinking half
of it and then coming back with the stall, 'The boss is on tonight;
there ain't no bellhop to tip and all the bird wants is three or four
grains of corn, mother, and its just as happy and care free as if you
opened wine. Won't that be a boon to humanity, though? If he don't get a
Carnegie medal things are run wrong. Another stunt he is going to pull
off is canned cheese sandwiches. Well, I got to toddle along. The
Ladies' Auxiliary to the Anvil Chorus is going to hold a meeting in Alla
Sweenie's apartments. Was you ever one of them? Well, when those dames
get on the job and are grouped it makes Elinor Glyn's opinion of the
Pilgrim Mothers seem like words of praise. So long."
In which Sabrina receives money from an unexpected source, and
brings to light how she came to receive it and what she intends
doing when the entire sum is given her.
CHAPTER THREE
"Providence has got to throw something besides 'crap,' some time or
other," remarked Sabrina, the show girl as we complimented her upon her
new gown. "And I guess I am there with rings on my fingers and bells on
my toes, or words to that effect. Take me by the hand and lead me to
some secluded nook and I will unburden my young soul."
When we had seated ourselves and the waiter had retired for the second
time she began:
"You have been hearing me put up a plaintive plea about being on the
rocks. Well, I was. I had everything in hock but my self-respect, and I
had that ready to tuck under my shawl at a moment's notice and rush off
to Uncle Sim's. But never again for muh. I was up in my suite wondering
if I could sign checks at Child's when the landlady shoved a letter
under my door--she could have shoved a dog under just as well as not. I
dive for the epistle, thinking, perhaps, it is some word of
encouragement from Matt Grau. I tear open the envelope and pull out a
letter and out drops a piece of paper that could look like it meant
money. It's a cinch I beat it to the floor. It was a check. I staggered
against the gas stove I was so surprised; then I unfolded it and it was
made out to me. Can you beat that? To me, and in my real name, for one
hundred, count 'em, one hundred cold, hard Clearing House certificates.
The only thing that kept me from having a scene with myself was the fact
that I had drank up all my merry Yuletide gifts. Well, by and by, after
piping off the check, counting it, biting it, smelling it, I had sense
enough to look at the letter. This is going to be a long, sad tale, so
you had better--yes, that's it--a little more of the same. You see, it
was this way.
"Last season when I--thank goodness--when I was with a Broadway
production instead of a road show, a certain party, whom I had met while
out on the one-night stands the season before, came stampeding into town
and it fell upon my fair young shoulders to show him the sights.
Query--Did I show him the sights? Answer--Yes, I did show him the
sights. If there was any place we didn't see it was because you had to
have an introduction to get in.
"Then Edward became inoculated with an idea that it would be a good plan
to consume all the booze on Broadway, thereby preventing others from
living intemperate lives. Such a chance. You know the new tunnel
couldn't hold the reserve supply of liquids that can report for duty at
a minute's notice on the corner of Forty-second and Broadway. The first
time I got hep to those proceedings was when I received the glad tidings
over the phone from a hospital steward that a friend of mine was trying
to bite holes in the detention sheet and shrieking my name.
"I grabbed a book on 'Pink Animals I Have Met' and flew to the rescue.
When I got to the cot there was Edward's cherubic mug peeping out from
under about four miles of nice clean bandages and an attendant sitting
daintily on his chest. When he saw me he calmed down and dismissed the
menagerie for the nonce. 'Dearie,' he said, taking my shrinking little
hand in his, 'it was awful. It's only by mere chance that you find me
custodian of this Reptile Bazar instead of one of these "mangled
remains" things. It was this way. I had been down to the bar lapping up
a few drinks and pretty soon a band comes up the street. I go out to
look it over and there is nothing in sight, so I go back and get Arthur
to mix me up another to see if it won't make me feel better. I drink
that and hear the band again. I run out just in time to see it hiding
behind the post. It's bum harmony at that, so I go upstairs to take a
nap.
"'I'm lying there on the bed when all of a sudden the door opens and in
marches twelve little soldiers, about six inches high, dressed in blue
pants and red coats. They climb and start to pull off a zouave drill on
the foot of the bed. That made me sour, for I don't feel like a military
pageant, so I lift up my foot and kick them out on the floor. The
soldiers don't say a word, but jump up and climb out through the
transom. In about five minutes the door opens and in marches the whole
army, all about six inches high. Gee, there must have been a million of
them, for all I could see was blue pants and red coats. I'm lying there
on the bed, taking it all in, when up rides a dinky little officer on a
horse. He salutes me and I salute him, just to let them know that there
wasn't any hard feeling. Then he says, "I am glad to state that you have
but one life to lose for your country; therefore we are going to shoot
you." Well, you know me, Dearie. I jumped out of the window. The next
time I come out of it here is this guy doing snake charming stunts on my
stomach.'
"Can you beat that for a pipe? I look after this party with all the
loving care of a sister, and thanks to the doctor and a pump we pulled
him through. When he was able to be shipped home I went down to the
train to see him off and as he kissed me goodby he said, 'Don't you
worry, kid, I won't forget this.' I didn't pay any attention to his
chatter, thinking it nothing but balloon juice. But this letter says
that he died about a week ago and left ten thousand to me in such a way
that it won't do his wife no good to yelp. Ten thousand! Gee, ain't that
an awful huge lot of money for one poor little merry-merry to be
burdened with! The lawyers sent that first hundred along to show that
they are not pikers, and said that the rest would be along in a few
days. Gosh! I won't know what to do with it. I can't get that much in my
little lisle thread bank without spoiling the contour of that new gown
effect I am going to be poured into. Clothes, well I should hope so,
dear. When the true meaning of that effusion soaked into my system, the
way I grabbed my hat and took it on the run for the dressmaker's was a
caution to cab horses.
"I'm going to get a bunch of clothes and then slide for home. You know
my father was mayor of Emporia for nearly a whole term, and I can go
right back into society. That is a great burg; if anybody wears anything
but a Mother Hubbard on week days they are doped out as a actress. Sure!
That's the way they know that there's a show in town, that and the band.
That town will have nothing but the best. If a show isn't good enough to
hare a band it might as well cancel. It's a great show town, all right;
sometimes they have two shows there the same week, 'East Lynne' and
something else. The Boston Store has the 'Pilgrim's Progress' on the
recent fiction counter.
"Well, I must rush right along. I've got to go over to some place and
get a mile or two of those puff gags, mine are all moth eaten. I've got
some more things to buy and then I am going around and make faces at all
these theatrical agents. Bye bye."
In which Sabrina receives the balance of the fortune, says
farewell to the hall bed-room, secures more imposing quarters, a
French maid, an automobile and other accessories as befitting
her station.
CHAPTER FOUR
"I've got Adversity laying on her back and purring with Contentment,"
remarked Sabrina the Show Girl, as she stepped out of a taxicab in front
of a cafe, "and I guess she'll stand hitched for a few minutes. Tell my
driver to wait and then come in and have a little liquid nourishment.
This is the only place I can find where one can get any kind of service.
My, ain't I getting fussy? Here 'two weeks ago coffee and butter-cakes
were a banquet. But why dig up the past, and I reiterate the remark,
'Let the dead bury its dead.' If anybody mentions Mink's to me I am
liable to throw a foaming fit and fall in it. Every time I pass a bread
line I am filled with sorrow for the poor unfortunates, while heretofore
I got sore because they had beaten me to it.
"Sure, the lawyer guy kicked in with the balance of the ten thousand,
and I am now busily engaged in putting it where it will do the most
good. Moved? Well, I should hope so, dear. Instead of existing in a
two-by-four hallroom, with an airshaft exposure, where you have to open
the door to think, I am now residing in a real suite. Maybe you think I
don't keep Estelle--that's my maid--on the job. She's the busy
proposition about that dump. As soon as I come out of my beauty sleep in
the morning I ring the bell and in capers Estelle with a dipperful of
chocolate, which I sip while reclining on my couch, and you can take it
from me it's got this stunt of romping about a cold room in a canton
flannel kimona trifling with the affections of a gas stove beat to a
purple pulp.
"Then after reading the morning paper I arise, take a bawth, and Estelle
does my hair. That is, she does part of it. I can't bear any one's teeth
but my own on my Dutch braid. You know some people are sensitive that
a-way. After the hair dressing number I inhale about $4 worth of
breakfast and then lounge about my little nest. I call it my little nest
because it is finished in birdseye maple. I always have eggs for
breakfast, and Estelle puts on the finishing touches with a feather
duster and I boss the job, smoking a cigarette. I always was strong for
having things harmonize. I suppose it is my artistic temperament. I
always drink cordials the same color as my hat. After that everything is
fixed to my entire satisfaction, and I won't stand for cigarette butts
being kicked under the bed, either. I'm that particular. Then about noon
the dressmaker makes her entrance and I pick out my gowns. Clothes! Say,
when I line out of here for that dear Emporia I'll have to buy
twenty-five tickets so as I can get a baggage car free. I'll need it.
From the apparel I am purchasing you'd think I was wardrobe mistress for
a number two 'Talk of New York' company. If I don't make those canned
goods drummers in front of the Palace Hotel think there is something in
town besides a 'Tom' show I hope I never see Broadway again.
"Then along toward afternoon I climb into some chic frock--get
that?--and taxey down here to look things over. Say, maybe you don't
think this butterfly existence is all to the berries. The other evening
I kicked down to a show I once worked in and, believe me, if some of
those dames knew what they looked like from the front they certainly
would rush out and hide in the cow lot.
"Honest, there is one doll who thinks she has got every prize beauty in
the country biting her finger nails with jealousy. Well, she came out,
led out at that. I nearly dropped dead in my seat. You know that I am
not a knocker, and there is nothing I hate worse than to hear one lady
pan another behind her back, so I will merely make this statement. If
this person would stop trying to use up all the number 18 in the block,
would get operated on for knock-knees, have her face changed and stop
trying to be a very dear friend to the whole bald-headed department
during the opening chorus, she'd be all right and might get a job with a
medicine show. I know how she keeps her job all right, all right. I
ain't mentioning any names, but a certain party, old enough to be her
grandfather, had to put money into the show before they would even let
her have her voice tried. I was out to dinner with the same crowd that
she was with the other evening. Arthur and I were sitting at the table
in the restaurant waiting for the rest of the crowd when in she canters,
dressed up regardless like a queen in a book, in a low-neck gag. She run
a bluff as if she just had it made, but if a certain K. & E. wardrobe
mistress ever catches her with it on this party is due to get pinched
for petty larceny. As soon as she spotted me she rushed over and yelped,
'Oh, Sabrina, I'm charmed to see you.' And kissed me--the cat. Then she
said, 'Dearie, I understand you have inherited a fortune.' And raised
her eyebrows just like that. Now I had been kidded enough about that
legacy of mine, and when that doll, that ain't such a muchness herself,
commences to hand out inferences, I naturally lost my goat, but
remembering that I am now a lady I let go of my hatpin and merely
remarked, 'Yes, but I came by it honestly, and I can safely say that I
am no Foxy Grandpa's fair-haired child.'
"That terse remark made her sit up and take notice, for she had been
telling one of the members of the party who she was trying to make a hit
with that she got her money from her large estates in England. The only
thing she knows about England she learned at a Burton Holmes lecture
that she got into on a ticket she found in the subway.
"The gentlemen of the party called time and we sat down to the table.
She started putting on airs and telling what she knew about the Thaw
trial, so to let her know that I was right there I passed out this one,
'It's a cinch if anybody did any shooting to save your life he'll get
the chair the first throw out of the box, and the jury won't be out any
longer than it takes to get their hats, either.' Say, if she had had a
gun she'd have shot me. One of the gentlemen remarked to me, 'You don't
care for this young lady, do you?' I said, 'Sure, I like her. I like her
about as much as Bingham likes Jerome.'
"This female party started to drinking champagne as if it were suds, so
naturally it wasn't long before she got a snootful, and one of these
crying kind, all the party began to kid her until at last she sobbed,
'Well, there is always one place I can go to where I am welcome.' One of
the guys said, 'Yes, dearie, I know it, but it is after 1 o'clock now
and that place is closed.' Then little Bright Eyes beat it and we all
had a real nice evening after that. Oh! She's a smooth one, all right;
she nearly made me lose my job once if it hadn't been that the stage
manager was carrying my suitcase I would have been decorated with my
little two weeks out in the wilds somewhere. You see it was this way: We
had a tree, not the one Arthur owned, but another, and one of the
comedians had to stand inside of it for about fifteen minutes before he
could make his entrance--laughing number--this was only a dinky little
place and only had one small airhole. Well, this foxy dame stuffed this
airhole full of limberger cheese, so when it came time for his entrance
instead of coming forth blithe and gay as per book, the comedian came
out looking as if he had apoplexy, the same naturally causing the
merry-merry to giggle ad lib. Did you ever see a wild fish? Honest, when
that man came off I thought he was going to commit murder; what he said
on the subject is not for me to repeat. Right in the middle of the
harangue this dame remarks, 'I think it was Sabrina.'
"The next think she thunk was to wonder who let go of the asbestos
curtain, for I happened to overhear that 'aside' and bounced a
stage-brace on her think tank. If she had gone on again that night it
would have been in a wheeled chair. Another stunt she did was to put
lampblack all over the tenor's glove and he wiped it off on the prima's
shoulders so she looked like a zebra in a bathing suit, and every time
she would tell the firemen when the chorus men were getting fresh
courage by smoking cigarettes in their dressing rooms, but that is all
over now and my stage career is ended until I spend all this surplus
cash. I take it on the run for that dear Kansas tomorrow, so I think I
will go and see if Estelle has finished packing. Try and be good while I
am gone, and if anything happens for goodness sake wire me, for out in
that neck of the woods even paying for telegrams from New York is a
pleasure. Au revoir."
In which Sabrina makes a visit to her parents in Emporia,
returns after but a brief stay and chronicles some of the events
that transpired while in the city of her birth.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Kill the prodigal, the calf has returned!" cried Sabrina the Show Girl,
as her taxicab drew up to where we were standing.
"Thought you were in Emporia!" we exclaimed in surprise.
"I was. I came; I saw; I conquered. Or whatever whoever said it, did.
Jump in and I'll tell you all about it. Fine business. I had more
exciting events than ever appeared before under one canvas. But never
again. You know when I started about ten days ago? Trouble? Why, I had
more trouble than a manager with nine stars and one good dressing room.
And I had to leave Estelle, my maid, here at that. I tried to get a
stateroom, but nothing doing, so me for a berth with the common herd.
Train going along fine, about 3 in the morning me pounding my fair young
ear in lower six, when all of a sudden. Biff! Mr. Engine slaps a cow in
the back and the whole works deserts the track and the caboose I'm in
slides over the bank, turns over on her side and dies, lower six at the
bottom. I get handed the following--one suitcase, two pairs of shoes and
a fat hardware salesman from upper five. Not forgetting my womanly
rights I turn loose a rebel yell and start to climb out of the opposite
window with the kind assistance of the arm of the berth, the face of the
fat salesman and a broken window, appearing as the Pink Pajama Girl on
the side of the car that was at that time understudying the roof.
"When I got out I turned loose a couple more whoops on the clear morning
air just to let them know that I was still on the job, and took a casual
survey of the disaster. Naturally our car was the goat and the only one
that had gone wrong. The fat salesman does the appearing act next,
dragging his suitcase; waived formality and asked me if I would have a
drink. Me for the drink, and then I got him to climb back down and
rescue the rest of my apparel, and I dressed standing up there on the
side of the car, much to the edification of the train crew that were not
busily engaged in assuring the other dames in the car that they were not
dead. By and by along comes another train, and they load us all in and
we get to Chicago only about four hours late. Me being that fatigued I
rushed right up to the Sherman House, but there wasn't a room vacant on
the top floor, so I knew I would not feel at home there, so I go
capering over to the Annex.
"Gee, but that Chicago is a bum town, and yet in Emporia they look upon
it as a Mecca of pleasure. The only pleasure I ever got there was trying
to analyze the smells from the stock yards. They don't eat anything in
Chicago but chop suey. Did you ever shoot any of that junk into your
system? Them can have it that likes it; but never again for muh. You get
it in a little dish, and the blooming stuff smells as if it was some
relation to a poultice; you eat it and then go home and chew all the
enamel off the bed. No, I don't know what it is made of; if I did I
wouldn't eat it. That's the only thing Chicago is good for, chop suey
and smells. When they get through talking about the World's Fair perhaps
they will think up some new form of amusement. I met a wop in Chicago,
one of these real romantic kind that only grow there. I was seated in a
secluded corner of the ladies' waiting room of the Annex, and he came up
and asked me if I didn't want to step in the Pompeian room and hear the
waters of the fountain lapping up against the marble. I told him I much
preferred to be up against a bottle of wine and do the lapping myself.
He, with that true Chicago gallantry, said, 'Excuse me first, I want to
'phone a friend.'
"I'm glad I didn't hold my breath while he was gone. I think he must
have taken a surface car for Oak Park. Those Chicago rum-dums are the
true sports, all right, all right. If necessity compels them to buy
anything stronger than beer they commence to look sassy at the waiter
and talk loud. Chicago is sure rightly named when they call it the Windy
City. You just ought to have heard the line of jolly some of those boys
tried to hand out to me. To me, mind you, to me! They must have thought
that I was some unsophisticated young ingenue that never had been
further away from State street than an occasional excursion across the
lake to St. Joe.
"I sloshed around town for a couple of days just to give those people a
change from the usual run of Randolph street romps, then I hit the
hummer for bleeding Kansas and Emporia.
"Say, I had a great first entrance into that burg and nothing else; but
a crate of lemons got off to crab the act. When I climb down off the
hurdle, behold, the village choir right there on the job to see the
train come in. The arrival of the train--notice the train--is what you
might call the main event of the day. As soon as the village yokels saw
my trunks being unloaded they all did the grand duck for the theatre to
strike the house manager, thinking it was a show. I hadn't tipped my
mitt to the folks, so they were not at the tank to give me the parental
embrace, but after giving the necessary instructions to the baggage man
I climbed into the Palace Hotel bus and romped up to my ancestors'
abode.
"Business of weeping on neck. Mother wigwags father, who comes over from
the grocery store, where he is electing the President of the United
States. Business of rejoicing ad. lib. Sister comes in from the village
school; neighbors kick in to see what's coming off. Entrance of trunks,
gasps of surprise by populace. Distribution of presents by muh.
"That night there was a young people's meeting at the church. A young
people's meeting is a signal for every old dame in the township that's
not married to iron out her white silk waist and take it on the run for
the tabernacle. After the usual prelude the minister got up and said,
'We would like a few words from Sabrina, who has lately returned to our
little flock from the busy scenes of the great and wicked metropolis.' I
had to get up and hand out the usual stereotyped and mimeographed stuff
about being glad to be in their midst once again and it did my heart
good to see so many bright and shining faces, etc., etc. I had on a
modest little frock that had only lanced me about three hundred and made
the aurora borallis look like a dark night. So that the admiring public
wouldn't overlook any bets in the costume line I enlivened my discourse
with these illustrated song gestures, every move a picture.