The Sorrows of a Show Girl - Kenneth McGaffey
"After the olio the Busy Brigade of the Ladies' Auxiliary took the
napkin off a group of sandwiches and a bath tub of lemonade and we all
had an awful time with ourselves cracking rare quips. Me the center of
an admiring throng. They all knew I was an actress and they asked me to
act. You know the extent of my acting, a champagne dance and a burlesque
on the 'Merry Widow' waltz, and my lines are limited to, 'Oh! girls,
here comes the prince, now, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.' Therefore I ducked
the request to exhibit my art. I was going home after the show--I mean
entertainment--and Waldo, the fellow I went with before I got sense
enough to blow the burg with a musical comedy--Waldo started to walk
home with me. I will say this much for Waldo before I go any further, he
has a good eye for the future, even though he is working in a grocery
store.
"Waldo and I were walking down the quiet country lane, he telling me all
the news that had been pulled off while I had been away. When we got
down to the garden gate what do you think came off? Waldo proposed.
Honest, he proposed, just like that. Waldo's intentions were sincere,
but his work was lumpy and he went up in his lines a couple of times. He
didn't pass it out half as strong as these city chaps do when they don't
mean it. I instructed Waldo to can his chatter and forget it. Waldo got
real indignant because I wouldn't fly with him and tried to grab me. Now
I hadn't been prowling about New York alone without learning how to take
care of myself, so I gave him the heel and the way he went to the mat
was a caution for further orders. Waldo was a nice boy, but he was
rough, so after the jolt he got he had sense enough to beat it.
"Say, I had an awful time for the next two or three days. But never
again. I'll never go any further out in the country than Claremont.
These rural districts are for those that like them, but if I can have
Broadway for a country lane you won't hear a peep out of me. Honest,
when I see a car with 'Forty-second street, crosstown,' on it I wanted
to gallup up and kiss the motorman.
"Well, I've got to leave you here. Will tell you how I happened to leave
Emporia the next time I see you. Take it from me, I had rather be a
shine on Broadway than a glare anywhere else. So long."
In which Sabrina chronicles some more of the adventures that
happened to her while visiting her parents and details how she
stood the town on edge, was ejected therefrom, and the remarks
she made on the subject.
CHAPTER SIX
"They say a rolling stone gathers no moss, but it's a cinch that this
pebble could have gathered a bunch of lemons since she has fallen into
her inheritance if she had but listened to their plaintive plea,"
remarked Sabrina, the Show Girl, after we had seated ourselves at the
table.
"Has some one been seeking your hand in marriage?" she was asked.
"Honest, there are more dubs around this town who had rather get married
than work than there are actors on Broadway now. I have had three
proposals since I have been back, one of marriage. I told them all 'no.'
That I preferred to live a la carte. I could have become a farmer's
bride in Emporia if I had but said the word. I didn't tell you how I
came to sneak that snare, did I? You know I went out there with the
intention of staying a month, surging around and showing the village
belles that May Manton wasn't the only authority on correct dress. Ten
days was my limit.
"The family and every one agreed that my metropolitan broadmindedness
was too much of a strain on the sense of morality of the peasantry, as
it were. No, nothing of the slightest consequence, nothing that would
have caused the inhabitants of Broadway to even arch their eyebrows. All
I did was to inhale a snootful and go out with a friend and stand the
thriving little village of Emporia up on end and tip it over. 'Tis a
strange tale. List, and I will unfold it to you. One day I was wafting
slowly and sedately down to the Boston Store for my mail when lo! and
behold, what did I see out in front of the Palace Hotel but an
automobile. Believe me when I tell you, it was the first time I had
looked a radiator in the face for a week. Two young fellows were
monkeying around the machine, and as they were nice-looking chaps I gave
them the furtive glance, and one of them stopped and asked me if he
hadn't been introduced to me in the Harlem Casino. At any other time I
would have taken his remark as a deep insult, inferring as it did that I
was so far from Forty-second street, but now I could have fell on his
neck and cried with joy. I told him that I had never met him in the
place he had mentioned, but to let it go at that, and if he even knew
where Harlem was it was introduction enough.
"Come to find out they were making a trip across the continent, and had
stopped there to get a little gasolene for the machine. We talked things
over and I found out that they knew several people I did, and anyway
they were from New York and that helped a heap. They were going to leave
that afternoon, but I prevailed upon them to stay over until the next
day. I was invited into the hotel for dinner, and we opened the first
bottle of champagne wine, as they say out West, that had been opened in
Emporia since the Governor went through. In truth, the bottle was
covered with specks, and the label had faded so you could hardly read
it, but when the cork went 'wop!' three traveling men at the next table
burst into tears.
"After we had consumed all the champagne wine they had in the snare, I
tipped them off to a speak-easy, and we decided to ride down there in
the machine, and then go for a little tour, as it were. By this time it
had been noised through the city that some one had taken the bottle out
of the show window, and a large crowd had assembled to see the
plutocrats come forth. We capered blithely out to the machine, climbed
in and hiked for the blind tiger. After the usual red tape the captain
sold us about two quarts of jig-juice--the kind that makes a jack-rabbit
spit in a bulldog's eye.
"Anon, we again went for a ride, and I am here to state that the way we
breezed through that village made the proverbial Kansas cyclone look as
if it was running on crutches. The inhabitants that didn't duck for the
cellars stood on the plankwalk and made rude and discomplimentary
remarks. Some well-meaning Rube had tipped his mitt to the town marshal,
and that worthy cluck had stretched a rope from the blacksmith shop to
the corner of the livery stable, so naturally we had to pause. Enter
Marshal R.U.E. with business of making a pinch. After filing the usual
protests we were haled before the Magistrate. Here's a copy of the
testimony:
Marshal--Judge, Your Honor, these prisoners are charged with
defacing landmarks, violating the pure food law, exceeding the
speed limit and disorderly conduct. Judge, Your Honor, these
miscreants defaced our landmarks by drinking the only bottle of
champagne wine that has ever been in our village--the bottle that
for so long has graced the window of our leading hotel and was
looked on with pride and reverence by the townspeople. A bottle
that has been cherished for generations until these monsters came
with their ill-gotten gold and purchased same.
They violated the pure food law by drinking said bottle of
champagne which has been proven by the State Board of Examiners to
contain 18 per cent. alcohol. The aforesaid prisoners exceeded the
speed limit by rushing through our quiet streets at a terrific
pace, to the danger of the lives and limbs of our wives and
children.
The prisoners at the bar are charged with disorderly conduct by the
following facts: They emptied said bottle of champagne, which was
reputed to hold one quart. That bottle of said wine was emptied
completely, which is proven by your marshal, who, after the orgy in
our leading hotel, did approach a waiter of said hotel and ask for
a taste of said wine, but upon investigation the bottle was found
to be entirely empty.
The aforesaid bottle contained one whole quart of an intoxicating
beverage and was distributed among three people. Therefore, Judge,
Your Honor, the prisoners must have been intoxicated and therefore
disorderly. Your Honor, the prosecution rests its case.
Judge--Prisoners, step to the bar. You are charged with, etc., ad
lib. What have you to say before sentence is passed upon you?
Prisoners--Not a blamed word.
Judge--I find the prisoners guilty and sentence them to pay a fine
of $50, or ten days in the city prison.
Prisoners--Gee, you must be going to build a new courthouse.
Judge--Five dollars for kidding the court.
"I knew those fellows couldn't stand the strain of the $55 fine, so,
turning my back in maidenly modesty to the court, I dug down in the
lisle-thread bank and came up with a hundred dollar bill, the first one
ever seen in Emporia. I tossed it carelessly on the desk, remarking,
'Take it out of that.' You could have knocked the court's eyes off with
a club. I don't think he ever saw that much money in one group before in
his life. The clerk of the court grabbed the fresh-air fund and did a
rubber into the family safe for the change. All quiet along the Potomac.
The whole blooming city didn't have change for a century note. Can you
beat that? And they say there is no graft in Kansas. They had to go over
to the speakeasy for a change. What do you know about that? A court of a
Prohibition State going to a gin-mill for money.
"After we got through telling the court what he reminded us of and what
he looked like, we tripped out to the machine and climbed on board and
started out again. We rode around until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning,
and I got to bed just as the help was getting out to do the chores.
Maybe you don't think that evening's amusement caused some scandal.
"Why, before breakfast the entire population was wise to the fact that
Sabrina, the pride and glory of the village, was out drinking liquor and
playing progressive hell with a couple of strange gentlemen.
"If you want anything known in one of those wopburgs, just tell it to
the butcher--it's got a town crier or a litho threesheet faded. Mother
had the info on the whole game before she got the curl papers out of her
hair. A couple of the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Herbert Killjoy Memorial
did picket duty out in front of the house all night so as to be first in
with the glad tidings.
"They galloped up like Sheridan twenty miles away. The Killjoy sisters
beat it, and I was just assuring mother that getting pinched was
considered very distingue by the upper crust of the eastern metropolis
when in prance the village selectmen followed by the deacons of the
church. When they came into view I knew the bell had rung on Sabrina,
the souse. They all came in looking like the first act of a funeral, and
Homer Jenkins, the head deaconorine, looked real solemn, and said, 'We
regret to inform you that we have found it our painful duty to dismiss
your daughter from the church.' I spoke up real gay like and said, 'Go
as far as you like, I never was a commuter anyway.'
"The selectmen were at the bat next and the main guy of that informed
father that I would have to be put under bond to keep the peace, as my
actions of yesterday in drinking the champagne wine had caused nine of
the village near-sports to get stewed on Rhinewine and seltzer, and to
please let them have the money now, as they had to pay the mayor's
salary to-morrow. Then I delivered my philippic as follows: 'If you
spangled-eyed dubs think you are going to shake me down for any more
change you had better drop in your penny and get next to yourselves.
Nix, not. I've already coughed up more than the rest of the entire
population, and you are not going to lance me for any more just because
I've got a bundle. You're good people, you've got big feet, and I would
like to see you run fast. Now beat it. I'm going to blow the burg on the
next caboose, and while I don't wish you any bad luck I hope the town
hall burns down. Now take it on the run or I will give you all a good
scolding and send you to bed.' And the funny thing about it is, they
slid. I tell the folks that my light is hid under a bushel in Emporia,
grab the bus, and here I am and nothing short of an explosion will make
me leave. Put this on your 'call board,' the only good thing about these
hick hamlets is they remind you of New York because they are so
different. So long. Don't fall down the elevator shaft."
In which Sabrina attends a ball given by the Chorus Girls' Union
and frivols extensively in the vineyard and later does a
specialty with ice skates and a bottle of arnica.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"All work and no play makes Jack a dead one," remarked Sabrina, the Show
Girl, as we met her at the appointed place. "Don't I look like the wreck
of the Hesperus? Honest to goodness, I feel like nine dollars' worth of
dog meat hanging out of a hospital window. Was you at the ball, also? I
mean did you attend last night's festivities? Ah, me! The joy and
laughter of yesterday is sure the hangover of today. I thought I would
caper down to the ball last night and just see how the other half lived,
and instead of being a mere obtrusive observer I developed into what you
might term the main event of the evening. You see it was this way. The
Chorus Girls' Union, of which I am now a member, gave a ball in
commemoration of the event of the Mayor vetoing Tim Sullivan's bill
about women smoking in public. It was instigated by the 'Knight for a
Day' girls, because when they went to plead before the Aldermen the
newspapers forgot to mention the show they were from, so that the long
talk didn't do the press agent any material good, as it were. The hall
was tastily decorated with pictures of the Aldermen embellished with
cigarette butts and champagne corks.
"By the way, if you see smoke coming from the Knickerbocker Theatre
Building, don't turn in a fire alarm, for it is just the Friars showing
their good feeling by trying to smoke up all the Friar cigars and
cigarettes in town.
"All of our set was there, and numerous telegrams of regret were read
from the road companies. As I say, I was seated quietly in a rathskeller
listening to the noise, when one of the young ladies inadvertently
remarked that there was to be big doings at a nearby hall, and suggested
that as she was selling tickets, it would be a good plan to buy some and
go and look the affair over, not to mingle with the throng, but merely
to add tone to the event. That listened very well indeed, and we all
climbed into a cabbage and vamped over.
"We managed to secure a box and were seated surveying the dancers, of
which there were a few, and the wine agents, of which there was a herd,
until one of the said agents happened to spy our little crowd, and with
that true Southern gallantry for which wine agents are so noted, he sent
over a quart bottle for each one of the party, but in the excitement of
the moment forgot to include glasses, so rather than look a gift horse
in the mouth, metaphorically speaking, we did not mention the oversight
and contented ourselves with drinking out of the bottles in true
democratic spirit. Did you ever imbibe Tiffany Water direct from its
native heath, as it were? No? Then let me warn you from that lurking
pitfall. It has the same taste, but the effect, di mi, the effect is
multiplied by six.
"All of a sudden I became inoculated with a wild desire to burst forth
into song, and also with the idea that when it came to tripping the
light fantastic toe I had Genee looking like the first lesson in a $5
course. With that hunch in mind I shook the rest of the mob and
descended to the floor accompanied by my personal press agent. I was
wearing, at the time, one of my latest importations both underneath and
outside. When the band for the nineteenth time struck up the 'Merry
Widow' waltz, by permission of Henry W. Savage, I capered out upon the
floor, where, much to the edification of the assembled multitude, I
pulled off a combination of the 'Merry Widow' waltz and Dance of the
Seven Veils that will be the talk of the town until Bingham does
something else foolish. Did it cause excitement! Well, say, if it hadn't
been for the kindness of a friend I would at this time been pacing a
prison corridor in striped pajamas.
"Honest, when I came to this morning and Estelle--that's my maid--told
me what I had done, I vowed that I never would speak to a wine agent
again, for I was just that mortified. After me remembering to be a lady,
and then before a mob to kick over the traces and crab the act. Believe
me, every time I see an advertisement for that brand of wine a blush
mantles my cheeks. Sure, I can blush. See. And for tears, it's just like
turning on the faucet in the bath tub. All the young creatures in our
set have to be there with the blush of modesty and the tear tank, for in
the heat and gayety of a wine party, when some one springs a travelling
man's story if we couldn't flash a flush we would be doped out as being
brazen hussies, and tears are always handy. Either for the police, the
landlord or an ardent suitor. The modern girl has to be equipped for any
emergency like a hook and ladder truck. But here I am giving away all
our girlish secrets.
"Take it from me I'll never again gallop around the juniper bowl. I
wouldn't be a lush worker like that Alla McCune for another $10,000
legacy. She's just started the habit lately. She thinks it's stylish.
Sure, every time she goes out with a crowd that drink anything stronger
than beer she thinks she is in society. Every time she gets a snoot full
she falls in love. Fact. My, such a scene as she caused in the hotel the
other evening. She doped it out this way: She was all alone, a stormy
night, a bottle of Scotch and a syphon. Why not light up? Talk about
your Great White Way, why, she had it looking like a dark alley in
Darkest Brooklyn. Along about 6 o'clock in the evening a gentleman
called to see her. As soon as he entered the portal Alla knew that she
had at last met her soul twin.
"She was hanging on to the table at the time and when she let go to
embrace him, instead of being clasped to his yearning bosom, as she had
planned, her knees gave away and she skated on her profile across the
divan. This cluck, being of a timid nature, instead of running for the
ammonia, slammed the door and sprinted for the elevator. Alla, as soon
as the door closed, realized that she had been jilted, and resolving not
to be canned without a struggle, she threw on her pony coat over her
kimono, and pinning her hat roguishly over one ear, she fled the snare
and ran down eight flights of steps into the street, with two coon bell
boys after her. She turned into Broadway, going like Hose No. 7, with
her kimono streaming to the breeze, and ran all the way down to Rector's
and into the door before she was stopped by the head waiter. The two
bell boys caught up and loaded her into a cab before the police came and
managed to get her back up to the hotel, though the fight she put up was
a caution. Wine is sure a mocker and Scotch highballs is fierce.
"I heard from the folks in Emporia the other day and they are still
talking over the time I and the two guys in the automobile pulled off.
The minister sprung a long sermon on the effects of strong drink on the
young and the Emporia Wasp--you know they did call it the Bee, but the
guy that bought it from the Bee people renamed it the Wasp, because he
got stung worse than any bee could sting--the Emporia Wasp came out with
a long editorial about the profligate rich and the Attic Debating
Society had a big pow-wow in the basement of the church on the subject,
'Be it Resolved, That more people are killed by strong drink than by
hanging.' All this had such a moral effect on the young that the soda
fountain didn't sell a claret phosphate for three weeks after. And the
Ladies' Aid got so busy over Azbe Lewis, the town drunkard, that he had
three proposals of marriage, but he decided to take the lesser of the
evils and stick to drink. I think he ain't such a dope at that.
"Say, sniff. Can you detect the low, plaintive cry of an arnica bottle?
I am learning how to skate. Yes, I fell for it. Fell for it is good.
'Course I did. All over the ice. You see it was this way. I was up to a
tea one of the girls gave in honor of the judge getting a divorce from
his wife--we call it a tea because there wasn't any there. We were all
sitting around panning those who were not among those present, until at
last one of the girls who didn't dare leave till the party broke up
suggested that we go down to the park and take a skate. The hostess was
real nice. She suggested that it wasn't necessary to beat it clear down
there to get a skate, as she had some in the house, and if we drank that
up the Dutchman on the corner knew she was good for any amount within
reason. But we didn't mean what she meant, so we departed. Going down I
became perhaps a little too excited over the coming event and went to
some length to inform the assembled skirts that when it came to cutting
ice I, not seeking to boast, but I was there, forte, and such pastimes
as writing names or doing Dutch rolls I considered rudimentary in the
skating number and only performed by the immature.
"I may have overestimated my ability some, for I had never been on
skates before in my life, but I'm no piker and I follow that old
principle of willing to try anything once, so when it came time I let
the boy put the skates on without a murmur, and was assisted to the ice
by about six or eight eager hands. Say, I looked out at the gang gliding
about, gave the signal to let go the ropes and took the fatal step.
Curtain. Say, I went round so fast both skates clinched in my marcel
wave. Would you believe it, there wasn't hardly any one in sight when I
started falling, but before I got through the police had to move the
crowd on. The only thing I could do gracefully was to throw a faint. I
turned one loose until somebody tried to force a glass between my teeth
and then I came to, but it was only water, so I had a relapse. Then a
nice gent kicked in with a flask and I came to. Maybe you think those
artful kidders didn't hand it to me. Anybody but a lady would have lost
her temper and cursed them. But I told them where to get off, and don't
you forget it, but I used no language that would have led people to
think I was anything but what I should be. After that I managed to skate
around a little, but let me tell you, that night I got down on the floor
to take my shoes off all right, but it took Estelle--that's my maid--and
a derrick to get me up again. Say, it's getting late and I must be
going. You know Mabel is now a bride again, and her little husband has
been staying down at the club instead of loitering about the flat, so
the other night when he knocked on the door to get in, Mabel said, 'Is
that you, Charles?' And now she can't get him out of the house nights.
You see, her husband's name is Arthur. So long."
Sabrina now falls in love with a press agent with the hectic
chatter. He proposes and is accepted, and Sabrina shows her love
and devotion by going his bail when he is arrested for
permitting his jealousy to get the better of him in a
restaurant.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Who's the guy that said "Love laughs at locksmiths?" Just show him to
muh. I'll show him where he got in wrong. It's enough to get a perfect
lady's goat. My Wilbur tried it the night he got pinched, and all he got
was a clout on the knob from the desk sergeant and a languishing number
in a prison, and I don't dare to go within a mile of the drum.
The way I caper from one tribulation to another would make a sick woman
out of far stronger than me. Yes, I have at last found a man that loves
me for myself alone. He's a press agent, and he hands it out so sincere
that I know he must mean part of it. He's going to buy me an engagement
ring as soon as he gets his expense account. He's with a Broadway
musical comedy, and though he has run some of the girls' pictures, he
has not made the slightest advance toward any of them.
He's been coming to see me for nearly a month. My heart went out to him
the minute he said he had a stand in with three city editors.
Us actresses never get over our theatrical training. He's a quiet party,
and instead of hanging about the Knickerbocker bar with the rest of the
agents, he stays in the office and pounds out copy. He gave me a
beautiful silk parasol that I know didn't cost him less than four pairs
of seats. And all this before he asked me for my hand in marriage.
Honest, I'll never forget the night he proposed as long as I live. Not
that I never was proposed to before, and some of them would have had me
starred, but the romantic surroundings and all that kind of thing. It
was this way: Me and him were the guests at a beefsteak party, and after
the fourth drink he commenced to show me marked attention, and when we
got out of the cab in front of my hotel he offered to help me upstairs,
though I generally have a bellboy for that purpose, and when we had got
up in my apartment and Estelle had gone to give the bellhop a quarter
and the pitcher, he popped the question, and such beautiful language, I
remembered it the next morning and wrote it down.