Part 3

The same kind of girls are roaming the streets, the same kind of booze is being served on the little round tables in stuffy back rooms, and the same class of waiters are making short change whenever the mark looks easy. There may be a new police captain in the district or the precinct, but there are some things in this world that can’t be held down any more than a man can hold down a charge of dynamite after the cap has been exploded.

Talk about your high pressure life--that’s it. Ten years is the limit for the careful ones, and I’ve seen them go off in five. Why, only the other day a hospital ambulance backed up to a downtown tenement, and when it went away it carried a woman whose lease of life had about expired.

There was a crowd which gathered, as usual--men, women and children, all filled with a morbid curiosity, which makes people flock and gaze with interest at anything which approaches a bit of human wreckage, and of them all there was not more than one or two who knew that the sick woman had once been known as the Queen of Chinatown, and had been made the subject of many an interesting story.

It seems only a few years ago that they called her the Queen, and you wondered why until you looked at her and heard her talk.

Then you knew.

She was more than good looking, and what was just a bit rarer, she was educated. There was about her a certain amount of refinement which forced itself to the surface like a life preserver under water, every once in a while, but which as the years rolled on gradually disappeared, just like any other veneer. If the constant dropping of water will wear away a stone, in just so sure a way will environment contaminate, and human nature seek the lower level.

So here is the picture:

This so-called Queen, coming into Chinatown--by what route only she can tell--and creating a mild sensation among the Orientals who inhabit the houses on those narrow, twisting streets. The story was that a dose of knockout drops had proved the turning point in her life.

John Chinaman, you know, has a keen eye for the beautiful, not only in decorative art and choice silks, but in women.

There is his one weak point, the defective link in the chain, the one vulnerable spot in the armor of his stony reserve.

The lobbygows--the errand men of the Chinese--the whites, who execute commissions for them, and do all sorts of services, both legitimate and illegitimate, who will work in the dark as well as in the light, and whose heels can be hurried by extra compensation, saw and noted this Queen also, and in seeing, they, too, admired, but more or less hopelessly. The one spot which is quick in a woman’s composition is adulation. Let her be like ice, as cold and pure and reserved as her likeness carved out of the whitest Parian marble, or the hardest of flint-like granite, and admiration will make her as soft and supple as a Cleopatra.

She comes into her own and knows it.

She smiles and looks about for a likely head upon which to drop the wreath of her favors, and if she hesitates it is because the right head has not been bowed, or that her whim bids her hold off that she may only succumb after a struggle.

I am not putting up any defense for this Chinatown Queen. She was simply a woman with moods and humors, and pretty ways. Furthermore, which is essential in most cases, she was good to look at.

So many were the affairs that she had that there is no Solomon wise enough to tell how or when the first one began. All that is known is that she dressed in silks that were costly enough for a real queen, and which smelled of the spices and perfume of the Orient.

When I say costly, I mean from a money standard. They were more costly than that, so far as she was concerned personally, for in the end they cost her her life, and if she is not dead yet they certainly cost her happiness, which really amounts to the same thing.

For a while she lived furiously, with anything she wanted for the asking. Fine clothes, fine jewels, and money to spend is part of every woman’s life.

More than that, it is a keystone.

Besides, she was the most prominent woman in all the Quarter. For her that was fame and glory enough.

Had she been placed, by a fortunate move, somewhere else on the chess-board of life, her fame might have been more secure, but what difference does that make, so long as she was satisfied?

It wasn’t long before her real life began, when her steps, instead of being on the level or upward, traced their gradual way downward.

That was inevitable in that case, just as it is in other cases where constancy is an unknown virtue.

She passed from hand to hand like the chattel that she was. She didn’t even consider the proposition of the highest bidder, and start a hoard in some secret place which would have been a life raft to her in the turbulent days to come.

She lived on promises, and those are false things which fall to bits before adverse winds and threatening weather. Her spirits rose and fell in an inverse ratio to the rising and setting of the sun, and she took no heed of the days to come. The seed of thrift failed to find lodgment in her being.

And another thing, she never knew the real meaning of the word opportunity.

In her early and halcyon days before the opium and the night life had stamped its mark upon her face, there came, with a party of sight-seers to Chinatown one night, a man about town whose name stood for respectability, good family and wealth. She, as Queen, could not well be overlooked, and the guide took the party to her apartments on the first floor of a dingy tenement.

“What’s up here?” asked one of the party.

“Here is where de Queen of Chinatown lives,” responded the guide. “Dis is de gal wots got all de gang on de run, and as fer de Chinkys--why, dere ain’t one uv dem wot wouldn’t croak a guy fer her.”

They filed into the room and looked at the girl as they looked at the rest of the odd sights.

Let anybody rise above the human herd, even a short distance, or do anything that is in the slightest way unusual, and they are bound to find themselves in the center of the spot light.

“Youse kin buy a drink off her, if yer like, or if yer’ll cough up er bone apiece, she’ll show yer how to hit der pipe,” announced the guide.

They thought it was worth a dollar each to see a Queen smoking opium, and all cheerfully handed her the fee, with the exception of this one particular man, who pressed five times the amount into her hand.

Curious things happen in this world of ours, and here is one of them:

Two hours later, the same man, who had slipped away from his party, hunted up the same guide, and giving him a good-sized fee requested the honor of another visit to the Queen.

The moral tone of Chinatown is not so high that when the guide was dismissed he should feel at all offended. He was perfectly satisfied, and he said so a few minutes later as he was relating this story to some of his friends in the saloon on the corner.

From this point the Queen herself takes up the tale. She told it to her bosom friend, the Rummager, a week later, and the Rummager’s eyes bulged and her mouth opened as she heard it. More than once she was inclined to disbelieve it, and said so, but the facts were there and proven by the presence of certain articles which could be accounted for in no other way.

“He was one of the real ones,” remarked the Queen, “and I knew it as soon as I saw him. I have seen fellows stuck good and strong, but he was the limit. He was clean gone. When he came back the second time he began as all the others do, by asking me how I came to live in Chinatown. I told him to cut it out, and cut it quick, and he took my tip. He didn’t lose a minute telling me he liked me, either, and, say, he promised me everything you could think of, up and down, if I would cut the gang and go with him. He said I could have the swellest flat that money could buy, and a horse and carriage, if I liked. I thought he was kidding at first, but he soon put me wise that he was the goods. He chinned to me for about an hour, and then he told me to put on my glad rags and he would take me uptown to a feed. I was on in a minute, and nothing but a cab would do for him. We went up on Broadway, and the layout cost him $25, easy.

“We come down the line and butted into every joint that had a light out, and every place we hit was a bottle of wine. And every drink we took it was, ‘Well, will you leave that crowd?’

“On the level, once or twice he had me going, but when I thought of all the boys down here, and the good times we’re having I couldn’t do it, and I told him so. When I left him he was ossified for fair, and he gave me these things to remember him by, he said.”

Whereupon the Queen showed up a roll of bills, a scarf pin, a match box, and the Rummager believed.

She couldn’t afford to do otherwise very well, for the Queen was, as usual, doing all the buying of drinks, and the Rummager’s thirst has been compared to a barrel of sponges.

It was only the other day that I found myself wondering what had become of that pin and box. Where have they been since then and who has owned them? That they have fallen into many hands there can be no doubt, and the first to get them was the pawnbroker.

But after that!

From silks the Queen went to calico. That is a great chasm for any woman to cross, and from three rooms she came down to one. Notice how easily the human being can adjust itself to changes.

The nights of dissipation had begun to leave their mark, and her throne was tottering.

The plumpness of her figure began to disappear, and angles crept in to take the place of curves. Her eyes were less bright, and her enthusiasm had lost its edge.

But she didn’t realize this.

She thought she was still Queen and she was living on her past, just as many other real queens have, and for that she is to be forgiven, for it is a woman’s right to think herself the same as she was when she was at her best.

It is the life buoy to which she always clings, and when she dies her arms are found clasped about it with the grip of death.

And then the day came when this Queen, a wisp and shred of a woman, whose dreams had gone, and whose calico had turned to rags, went down the street of the Quarter one night never to return.

She had married a man of her class, and they went into a tenement together.

Her sun had set--her day was done.

One day the priest was sent for to shrive her. I hope there was consolation in his visit, because a dethroned queen needs pity sometimes.

A GIRL OF THE GOLDEN GATE

When you go to the theatre, sit in a comfortable seat, and look at the gay, laughing girls who are doing all sorts of stunts in the front row, you are evidently under the impression that their lives are simply one unending series of revels and that they live in luxurious ease. In your fancy you see them going to magnificent apartments to enjoy late dinners washed down by high-priced wine; you think, perhaps, that they dress just as you see them on the stage, and that all they have to do is ask for anything they happen to want and it is theirs.

Your imagination paints you a wonderful picture of love behind the scenes, but like children’s fairy tales, half is a dream.

You are simply bringing into existence a mental painting in very attractive colors, and if you could make it real it would be a very fine thing for the girl who makes up that she may look well from behind the footlights.

There are few short cuts to the stage and the roads are for the most part hard and tiresome. The woman who gets there, and by that I mean the one who finally lands with a reputation, usually has a past that would make interesting reading--if it could be published, which is out of the question.

To-day there is a woman in New York who is a star.

So far as real talent is concerned she ought to have been a star years ago, but there was some hitch and she failed to connect.

She’s all right now, however, and when she pulls down her fat bundle of bills every week she doesn’t think of the old days on the Pacific Coast when she was doing one turn an hour in the mining camps, and well content if she got enough at the end of the show to pay for her room and give her a balance on the side to keep up her wardrobe--stage wardrobe, I mean--for she didn’t seem to care much how she dressed when on the street, and so far as that was concerned, she was on the street very little, for reasons that are obvious.

She was a nice looking little girl in those days, full of ginger and all that sort of thing, and she had the kind of magnetism that made a good many men think they couldn’t live without her. She was bright and saucy, and happy-go-lucky, taking things as they came, singing her songs with an abandon and grace that went a long way toward filling up the house.

But it was when she danced that she was at her best. That half-wild Spanish Cachuca made those rough men rise to their feet and cheer her as if she was the most wonderful girl in the world, and when the boys were flush many a hundred dollars in gold went over the flickering footlights to her feet, so that she really and truly danced on gold. It was the Westerners’ way of paying homage to anyone they liked, and it is done to-day, but not to so great an extent.

You see, there was no limit on those fellows in the blue shirts and bearded faces, and what was a handful of gold more or less to them then or at any other time?

They were an open-handed lot, living only for the day, and to the devil with to-morrow, lavishing all they had upon anyone whom they liked.

As the money rolled in to her so it rolled out, easily and without apparent effort, and at the end of a year she had just what she started with--a couple of dresses, the most part of which was tinsel.

And that brings me right back into the heart of this story, the preliminary having been sufficiently long to give you a thorough introduction to this little lady--queen of the mining camps.

It isn’t likely you ever heard of a fellow who for some romantic reason or other called himself Palo Alto Bill. He was a tin horn gambler, good at short cards, willing to take a chance at any proposition that ever came over the hills, so long as he could figure in it financially, but he had no heart. It was all Bill from first to last, and he didn’t have enough generosity in his entire system to drop a bone to a hungry dog. You know the breed--they think they are all right, but they are so eaten up with selfishness, and egotism, and vanity, that they stride along with their elbows pushed out, as if they were going to shove everybody else off the earth.

He was handsome all right, with black hair--black as an Indian’s--a curling mustache, and a wonderfully taking way with a woman.

This was the combination that stacked itself up against the little singer with the suggestion that they travel in double harness for mutual benefit.

That was all there was to it.

He saw her, he liked her; why shouldn’t he have her? And if she had been married it would have been the same to him. He would in all probability have suggested an elopement on a pair of fast horses.

“How long have you been in the business, Sis?” was the way he started it.

He was smoking a cigarette at the time and he didn’t even take the trouble to look at her, but holding his head back, blew the rings of smoke, one after the other, toward the low ceiling.

“Oh, about a year, and I’ve been making good ever since I started.”

“That’s what you have. I suppose you’ve got a big bunch of coin by this time, eh?”

“If I have I wish someone would find it for me. There may be a lot of fun in the game, but there’s no money, that is, not yet.”

“Well, let me give you just one straight tip. What you want is a manager--someone to boom you. Suppose you and I double up, and then I’ll show you how to get the money, and hold it, too. Nothing cheap about me. You’re a good fellow and I’m a good fellow, and we can do well together. I’ll put you where you belong, for you ain’t getting half of what’s coming to you. How about it?”

Just remember that this was in the West, where a girl has a mighty hard time of it without a protector of some sort, and that there were a hundred tie-ups by mutual consent for one real swell matrimonial clinch, with a sky-pilot to sing his little song of “I now pronounce you man and wife.” Also bear in mind that she had known Bill about six months and that his style rather appealed to her, because he was artistic in a crude sort of a way, and besides, he wore his clothes with a certain amount of grace that was good for the female eye to look on.

So they tied up together and Bill began his life of ease and prosperity. The next week was announced as her grand farewell appearance, and she was the recipient every night of a testimonial of so substantial a character that, as she herself put it, her salary seemed like pennies for candy. In these many testimonials might have been recognized the fine Italian touch of Bill, who had a Hermann-like knack of waving his hands in the empty air and producing real money. And while she was busy picking up the nuggets and gold bucks which the enthusiastic miners flung at her, he was attending to his end of the contract by arranging a tour. He had a few schemes under his hat that would have brought him in all kinds of money if he had had a fair swing, but he was born with the soul of a grafter, and that is very much like a taint in the blood, in that it can never be effaced. It may disappear for a while, but it is always liable to turn up at the most unexpected time.

When the week was done the company started--the company in this case being a couple of miners, who were in hard luck and who went ahead of the show; Bill and the girl.

I saw her the other night in a famous eating place on Broadway putting away a chop and a small bottle, and I wondered then if she remembered San Bernardino that June morning when everything she had in the world was held in one small bag which Bill carried.

The plan of procedure was simple. She was to get a date in a town, Bill was to go around and boom her as the best that ever hit the Coast, and tell of the hit she made in ’Frisco. Then when she came on the stage to do her dance the two hobos were to start the cheering. Toward the finish of the act one of them was to walk down the aisle to the footlights and toss up a handful of gold coins, and then the other was to follow suit. That would start the crowd giving up; for after all, people are like sheep, they will always follow a leader.

It was a good stunt, and there wasn’t any chance for a failure.

It worked out just as Bill figured it would, and it kept him busy enough looking after the money end of the game.

It was the turn in the tide for her so far as her fortunes and popularity were concerned, and she simply created a furore wherever she appeared. In those days she wore a twenty-dollar gold piece around her neck. It was held by a string which ran through a hole she had bored herself with a great deal of labor. It was the first piece of money she had ever received over the footlights and she said it was her mascot, and declared she would always keep it. It might have been her mascot, but I’ll bet a hundred to one that she hasn’t it now.

Put a good looking girl on the stage, have her make a hit so that she is talked about, and she’ll attract more men than a leg show in Paris. There’s an irresistible fascination about the stage that makes even bald-headed old papas fall. It’s a hard thing to figure out, but it’s a fact, nevertheless.

In this particular case they flocked around her like sheep for a shelter when a storm is in the air, and the girl took to wearing good clothes, ordered from ’Frisco, and using to their full capacity the services of a maid.

And then there came upon the scene the other man. He had hit the Coast from Colorado, and his mine was turning out the yellow stuff so fast that he had more than he could do to spend it. He was busily engaged in the exciting pastime of buying everything he saw when he met the girl that Bill was leading along the golden road to wealth. There was nothing half-way about his methods, so he promptly went out and bought the biggest diamond he could find, put it in an envelope upon which he wrote in lead pencil:

“The best stone for the nicest girl; come and have a bottle of wine with me after the show.”

He didn’t need to sign his name to it, for the stage hand who received a ten-dollar gold piece as a tip for taking it to her pointed him out as he sat at one of the tables well up toward the stage.

“He seemed to be kind of stuck on you,” he remarked casually; “will I tell him you’ll see him?”

She put the ring on her finger and looked at it critically, holding it first this way and that so that the light would catch it. The inspection evidently pleased her, for she said:

“Sure; he’s entitled to it after this.”

That is how it came about that, still in her stage dress, she went directly from the stage to the table where Croesus sat and smiled on him, while the diamond flashed like a calcium.

One bottle broke the ice, two put them on a friendly footing, and three made them lifelong friends. They were on the fourth and their heads were close together. He was talking in a low tone, while she was listening intently and nodding her head in affirmation every moment or so when Bill happened along.

He didn’t like the looks of this and he showed it plainly. He touched her on the shoulder with an air of proprietorship and remarked curtly:

“Come on.”

“Who’s your friend?” asked the wine opener; “introduce me.”

“I’m the real one,” said Bill.

“Husband?” asked the other, laconically.

“Not yet,” she answered.

“Oh,” and his eyebrows were lifted a trifle. Then he turned to Bill. “Sit down and have a drink; I want to talk to you.”

Then the fifth bottle was brought on.

He held his brimming glass aloft.

“Wish me luck, old man, for I’m going to take this little girl away from you,” and his blue eyes looked into Bill’s black ones with a steady and disconcerting gaze.

“I guess we’ve got something to say about that,” said Bill, putting his glass down suddenly.

“Not much. You see, I’m going to give you a thousand dollars and that will be your meal ticket until you find a new prima donna.”

“You made a mistake,” said Bill, “you meant $5,000.”

“I agree with you; I did make a mistake; it’s $2,500, and you’d better grab it quick, because it’s easy money and it’s the limit, too.”

The girl was playing with the ring, turning it around her finger aimlessly, never once looking and saying no word. Bill drained his glass, put it down, and then looked at the stage.

“Do I get it now?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes, now.”

He held out his hand, palm upward, with a suggestive movement, and in just fifteen seconds it held an order on the Assay Office for the amount. It was as easy as going into a store and buying a blue flannel shirt. Thirty days later--a record for speed, by the way--the girl opened in San Francisco as the star in a farce comedy on which ten thousand dollars had been spent before the curtain went up. She had talent, but not enough to make good, and after a week’s losing run the play was shelved. She gained a lot of experience and had a suite of rooms at the best hotel in town, which was something for a girl who had previously been housed in an eight by ten. That was what gave her a running jump into the profession, so to speak. She landed on both feet now, but none of her friends would dare bring up the subject of the glorious West to her.

That were best forgotten.

WHEN FISTS WERE TRUMPS