Part 8

A stage manager who is used to hiring ladies whose talents lie in their legs has a system of his own in picking out good ones that don’t need padding, and he never makes a mistake any more than a red squirrel will stow away a bad nut for the winter. Face, neck, hands and arms tell the story and they never fail, and so he knew she could wear the usual size, and if anything stretch them a bit.

That was the beginning.

One night four young men about town sat in a theatre box watching the merry maidens tropping on and telling in song how happy they were that the Princess was going to be married to the poor but handsome gink whose father had a cobbler’s shop one block from the palace.

“Get onto the curves of the girl with the black hair,” said one, and in a minute there were four pairs of eyes looking at one pair of silk tights.

“Great,” said another, enthusiastically.

“Who is she?” asked a third. “I never saw her before.”

“Well, Ben certainly has an eye for beauty. I wonder where he gets them? Let’s see him and ask him to put us on, for she’s all right.”

Incidentally, Ben was the first name of the stage manager.

It isn’t necessary to go into details, for general results save a lot of time, but a couple of hours later four enthusiastic young fellows and a dimpled brunette sat at a round table in a sporty cafe, and when any of them wanted to address her they called her Curves.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked, when it was first sprung, “give me a nickname?”

“No,” was the answer, “simply a trademark.”

And they all understood.

So because of that she began her career with the world by the tail on a downhill pull.

Not to know Curves and have her call you by your first name when you met was to be the deadest kind of a dead one, and the witty stories she could tell over a quart of wine soon began to be circulated around town.

As is often the case, women were her enemies and men were her friends, and she slid along in a happy-go-lucky way, letting the morrow take care of itself.

There was no question but that her figure was the making of her, just as Jennie Joyce’s legs made her famous from one end of the country to the other when she was a reigning favorite at Koster & Bial’s old place on Twenty-third street two decades ago.

The photographer who secured some good poses of Curves in tights found himself busy printing them to supply the demand, and it was as easy to get her before a camera as it was to get a kid to a candy store. If she had received a dollar for every time she wrote across the bottom of one of her photographs “Sincerely yours, Curves,” she would have had a bank account that would have been broad, wide and deep. But she was simply a good fellow and she made no attempt to live by her wits. Like many another poor devil, she probably thought she would always be young, good-looking and popular. She didn’t know that those whom the public applauds to-day it kills to-morrow, and that it takes but a week in New York to make a favorite less than a memory.

But there was one incident in her career that stands out in relief from anything of the kind that anyone had ever done before, and it is worth telling. It was characteristic of her to do a thing of this sort, and she was the one woman in a hundred who could have got away with it.

A soulful-eyed, chocolate-skinned Brahmin priest had come to town to spread his faith, and because he talked in an exceedingly entertaining manner and told some curious and interesting stories he came to be a fad. It wasn’t that the people who went to see and hear him were interested in his religion, but it was because he was a novelty that he filled his lecture room every afternoon. Two men and Curves dropped in one afternoon at a time when this spreader of a new creed was telling about the money it would cost to do good in the world, and on that subject he was particularly eloquent.

“You Americans,” he said, “don’t know what it is to make a sacrifice; you don’t know what it is to deny yourselves any of the good things of life. Your men would not forego their cigars or wine even if the spiritual salvation of the world depended upon it, and your women would not permit themselves one particle of physical discomfort nor cheaper wearing apparel even though a hundred souls were the price. The whole world is selfish and wrapped up in itself, and religion is either a fad or a jest. The man with a million gives a few thousands and thinks he has done well, but he denies himself nothing. The woman with a check book doles out dimes and fancies herself a philanthropist, but will she make any sacrifice for the general good?”

“Here’s one who will.”

Two-thirds of the people in the room turned around and looked at Curves, and one of the fellows with her took her arm and whispered:

“What is the matter, are you dotty?”

The ox-like eyes of the religious enthusiast seemed to blaze up a bit.

“You will make a sacrifice?” he asked. “What can you give?”

“I’ll give myself,” she answered, and she stood up defiantly.

People who tell this story, as well as a few who were there, say that Curves had a most elegant tide on at the time and didn’t know what she was saying, but that doesn’t alter the story, because this is simply a recital of facts which can be verified by a whole lot of the fellows, and the sequel can be found on record among the marriages in the Bureau of Vital Statistics by anyone who is interested enough to look it up.

“It is very praiseworthy,” continued the priest, “but how do you propose to put your gift to a practical use? You say you will give yourself. Do you mean by that that you will devote your time to this work which I am trying to carry on?”

“Not that way so you can notice it, but I have a lot of men friends here and each one of them has asked me to marry him more than once. I like them all and as marriage is a lottery anyhow, they can bid for me, and you get the money.”

As she spoke she was climbing up on the table in the center of the room. “I am ready for the first offer and I don’t care who makes it, for I’m taking as many chances as anybody else.”

Now here was a situation that reads like a romance, and here was the one in a thousand to get away with it. The women were shocked, of course; the men were interested, and as for the priest he didn’t know whether to take it seriously or not, until finally what might have been an awkward situation was relieved by a man who said:

“Well, if she’s game enough to have herself auctioned off, I’m game enough to make a bid, so I’ll say $500, with the proviso that the cause of religion, which our revered friend represents, shall get half, the other half to go to the lady who shows such a praiseworthy spirit.”

Then three gaunt females over forty arose in the majesty of their outraged womanhood and stalked from the room, while a dozen others moved uneasily in their seats.

The Brahmin was still figuring.

“Am I worth no more than $500?” put in Curves.

“I’ll make it $750,” said one of the men who had accompanied her.

“You paid twice as much for a horse last week, Billy,” she retorted.

“I didn’t think of that. Let it go at $1,500, for there’s going to be competition.”

The priest’s hand was nervously fingering a silk handkerchief.

“Two thousand,” the first bidder’s voice came like a bullet from a gun, and Billy laughed nervously.

“Go ahead, Billy, it’s up to you again,” and Curves nodded at him encouragingly.

“She’s worth it, Bill,” whispered his friend. “Your Panhard cost you $11,000 and it takes $100 a week to keep it going. Curves can be very economical when she tries,” and he laughed at his joke.

“Twenty-five hundred,” bid Billy.

“Sold,” cried Curves, “although _I’m_ worth more.”

“Very extraordinary,” said the priest, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “This could happen in no other country in the world.”

“Write him a check, Billy, for what you owe him,” said Curves, “and then we’ll go out and get married. And don’t you think it would be nice to have him to dinner with us?”

“Sure thing, and we’ll have the other fellow who bid along, too. By the way, who is he? I don’t ever remember to have seen him before. Do you know him?”

Now what a chance here for a climax, for a real whipping finish, as it were. It might be arranged so that the girl would say sadly:

“Yes, he holds the mortgage on the farm and has threatened to foreclose it if I don’t marry him. Oh, Billy, you must save me.”

Then Billy would pull out his check book, pay the villain off to the penny and the man would go tearing out of the door shouting:

“Foiled again, c-u-u-rses on you, but I’ll have revenge,” with the accent on revenge.

But no such thing happened, because you see Curves never had an interest in a farm, and it is very much to be doubted if she knew anything about a father or mother. The result was that she said:

“Oh, I suppose he’s some guy that’s been to the show and got stuck on my shape.”

The honeymoon lasted six months, which was enough for Billy, and he beat it to New Orleans, while his friends told Curves that they thought he had committed suicide.

CHEYENNE NELL; TRIMMER

The gambler in this story came from the West to get a little New York money. He had been getting it for years from the Sierra Nevadas to El Paso, and from Seattle as far east as Omaha, which he said was far enough for anybody who liked fresh air, but he had struck a run of bad luck and one of his pals told him that the best way to break it was to trim a New York sucker.

“They’re fly guys there all right,” remarked this same man, casually, “but the flyer they are the easier it is to trim them. I would sooner stack up against a stock broker that runs one of those bubble machines and can speak sixteen different languages than get into a game with a Kansas farmer any day. The farmer knows he ain’t in it and he’s got his eye out for a job every time; his coat is buttoned up so tight that he has contraction of the lungs and his heart doesn’t beat right, but the gink that knows it all thinks he’s so damned smart that he’s got everybody in the world in his corral, and those are the fellows you catch with their vests open.”

All homely philosophy, but as true as gospel and worth looking into.

So Big Ben--that was his name in the country where slouch hats are the real thing--pulled his freight one night and hit the Overland Flyer for Gotham. His name was Big Ben no longer, for the cards he carried in his vest pocket read:

BENJAMIN F. VAN BUREN, MINING ENGINEER.

He bought tickets for two at the station, and there is the heart of the story, as one of the tickets was for Cheyenne Nellie.

The lady in the case is worth a paragraph at the very least, for she had the reputation of being the best short-card dealer in Texas, and at a game of bank, whether playing the cards or handling the box, she was there with the goods and never asked any odds on account of her sex.

She had the long, slim hands of a card player, and if she hadn’t taken to the pasteboards she might have been a piano player and getting all kinds of money for hitting up the ivories at swell concerts. She was soft of voice and soft in manner, and all you had to do to make a lady out of her was to wrap her in a silk robe and she’d make the horses in the street turn around and look after her.

On one memorable occasion she went into the smoking car of a Denver train and calmly lighting a cigarette, smoked it without deigning to notice the men around her.

The trip was settled in a minute and in this way.

“It’s a long ride, Nell,” observed Ben, “to the place I’m going, and I’m afraid I’ll get lost or lonely, so if you’ll come along with me I’ll tog you out like a queen and give you the time of your life. Will you carry my brand for the trip?”

“How big is your bank roll?” she asked, with an eye to the practical side of the proposition.

“Twenty-seven hundred, and two thousand to draw on if I lose out.”

“That’s enough for a starter. What are you going to do--short-card ’em or bank ’em?”

“Anything and everything including stud, and if I get the big bundle we’ll hike for that place across the big pond where the real games are. What’s the name of it--I forget now. I had it written down somewhere, but I guess I’ve lost it. It begins with an M I think, and there was a fellow at the show the other night who had it in his song about how he broke the bank there.”

“Oh, you mean Monte Carlo.”

“Yes, that’s it. We’ll go there and I’ll put you up against the game, for you always were hell when it came to a no-limit play.”

One night stop-over in Chicago to see a show, and then, twenty-four hours later, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Van Buren, of Portland, Oregon, registered at the Waldorf-Astoria.

“Kind of like a theatre, ain’t it?” remarked Ben, as they sat in the palm room after dinner. “Looks like Romeo and Juliet where the gal is on the gallery and the fellow with the skin-tight pants is asking her to come down and talk it over.”

Men who are supposed to know say that New York is the loneliest place in the world, that is, if you don’t know anyone, and that a desert island is a center of population compared to it if you are not in right. On the face of it that looks like a good argument, but it is going to be disproved right here. Go to a big and fashionable hotel and register, then sit around and be a bit conspicuous, look like ready money, and above all, easy money, and you’ll draw people like a Jack rose draws bees. They’ll find you out just as easily as the ferret gets to the timid rabbit--by going after you--and unless your heart is covered with callous spots and your pockets are fastened with safety pins, when you come to count up at night you’ll find you are short a bit of change. In this world, you know, things are not always what they seem, and the fellow who looks the wisest and talks the loudest isn’t the smartest any more than the man with the retreating forehead is the stupidest. The one with the cranium of a cocoanut may have spent all of his life developing the instinct of the hunter and the cunning of the fox, and that queer-shaped thing on top of his shoulders is the sign which he has hung out and which says as plainly as if the words were printed on his forehead: “Come on, boys, I’m easy; come and get my change.” I know all about this and speak from experience, for I used to sit in a poker game with a Dutchman who looked like a pinhead, and when the rest of us walked home he used to take a cab, because he had all the money, and his name was Schneider, too. What do you think of that?

So before a week had gone by, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Van Buren were nodding and saying “How do you do?” and “Good morning” and “Good evening” to about twenty or thirty men who made the hotel their headquarters. Incidentally it was given out that Ben was on here to buy some machinery for one of his mines in Nevada and that he wouldn’t mind having a little fun with anything that came along so long as the stakes were not too big for a man of his modest disposition.

The tip went down the line in the usual channels and then one rainy night a man who said confidentially that he was a banker suggested that as there was nothing else to do Mr. Van Buren could, if he felt so disposed, walk around to his hotel where there were two or three other good fellows, and they might have a little game of draw.

“None of us want to go into big money, you know,” he said, apologetically, “for it’s simply a game among friends and it’s about as good a way to pass the time away as I know of. We don’t, as a rule, play with strangers, but I guess you’re all right, so come along.”

“Look out for a cold deck, Ben,” whispered Nell as he started; “play light and close to your skin at the go-off, and it won’t hurt to lose a little at the start.”

Wherever you go or whatever you do in this world, always take a woman’s tip--not the tip of every woman of course, but when you find one who delivers the goods at every jump out of the box and calls the turn on the case card nine times out of every ten, then be wise and attune your ears to her siren song, even though the notes seem to be a bit cracked at first and the cadenzas strike you as being skewed and off the key.

There were five in the game, counting Ben, and up against the wall, like a new kind of decoration, was a Senegambian, whose business it was to see that the gentlemen had cigars to smoke and wine to drink without limit. Between deals they talked about business, how stocks were selling, what chance there was for a flyer in Steel, and if Depew intended to resign from the Senate or not. The play was light and reckless and no one there seemed to care whether he won or lost.

“We play two or three times a week,” explained one to Ben, while the African was getting a fresh pack, “and I consider poker the greatest thing in the world to take a man’s mind off his business. Is there any stock in your mine for sale? I wouldn’t mind taking a block if it looked right. So this is your first visit here? Well, we’ll try and make it pleasant for you while you stay, but you must reciprocate if we ever hit your country. Will you show us some shooting?”

It went that way until Ben got to feeling a little easy in his play himself. But he couldn’t lose. Everything came his way, including jackpots, and when the silvery chimes of the clock on the mantel reminded them that it was one o’clock the play came to an end and the man from the West cashed in a matter of $72.

“It was only a friendly game, Nell,” he said, when he woke her up from a sound sleep half an hour later. “They are simply a lot of good fellows and I couldn’t help winning, but they want revenge to-morrow night and then I’ll get some real money.”

“Three thousand miles is a good long walk, Ben,” she said, “and that’s a little tune you want to keep humming to yourself all the time. The easy marks at cards all died during the time of the big wind and only the fly guys are left. You’re in a strange barn this trip, so don’t think that everything you see is hay.”

From playing three nights a week they got down to playing every night, and Ben always came back with a small winning, but he wasn’t getting the money he was after and it got on his nerves.

“It’s only chicken feed _I’m_ winning,” he complained to her one night, “and it just about pays expenses.”

“Well, just you keep your shirt on, for I’m in with some nice old dames who think they are the real ones at bridge, and I’m thinking of getting a little of that same kind of feed myself--the real killing will come later. You never want to be in a hurry about those things, you know, because if you hurry them it’s all off. Get those fellows to play up in the room some night so I can look them over and see their style.”

“I’m next to their play all right,” he said, “They’ll stand to lose so much and no more and there ain’t one of them who would bet a thousand that he was alive.”

“Invite them up, anyway. You’ve been drinking their booze and smoking their good cigars long enough. You ought to put up for them once in a while, and if they are all right you will have a few decent friends, anyhow.”

That’s how it happened that the play came off in No. 723.

It was the smallest kind of a small and inoffensive game, unmarked by any incident or episode until one of the men, looking his hand over with unusual care, remarked in the most casual manner possible:

“If I had the nerve I have a hand here that I would like to bet big on.”

“How big?” asked Ben, taking another look at the cards that had been dealt to him.

“I don’t know much about poker, but I think a thousand would be about right to start with.”

“Mine looks worth that much to me,” said Ben, with his face like a mask.

“I’m game; does a check go?”

Over in one corner of the room, with a novel before her, sat Nell. She was almost directly opposite Ben, and as he looked up he saw the upper lid of her left eye droop slowly, recover, and then droop again. He skinned his cards and looked them carefully over. The pips showed four kings and an ace, pat. It was worth big money in any four-handed game, and he knew it.

“Does a check go?” came the query again.

“No, I weaken; I thought I had a better hand. You’ve got me beat from the start.”

It might be made a long story from this point on, but there is not room here to tell in detail how half an hour later Nell rose from her comfortable seat in the armchair in the corner, and walking over to the table manifested a slight interest in the game, and after one or two more hands had been dealt, thought she would like to play if the gentlemen didn’t object, which they didn’t. How she played like any woman would be expected to play, losing angrily and winning sweetly, until on one of her deals, Ben found himself in possession of a hand which only needed the ace to make a royal flush. The limit was raised before the draw, then taken off altogether, and the money began to pile itself on the mahogany. Then they drew for cards, and when Ben looked things over he found in his one card draw the ace that made his hand good.

“Mine is worth $500,” remarked the player opposite him.

“I’ll kiss mine good-bye,” said Nell, as she dropped her pasteboards in the discard.

“Raise you $500,” put in Ben, looking at the first bettor.

“Five hundred more,” was the third man’s bid.

“It’s too hot for me,” was the comment of the fourth, as he pushed his cards away from him.

It was raised in jumps of $500 until there was about $11,000 up, and Ben had been boosting every raise as fast as it came to him.

Then the call was made and the show-down was worth going miles to see, for the battle at the finish had narrowed down to Ben and one other.

“Take a check for the next bet?” asked the other.

“No,” came the terse answer.

“Then I’ll have to call you. But I’ve got you beaten!”

For answer Ben spread out his invincibles.

For a moment the silence was painful.

“Are they good?” asked Ben.

“You know damned well they are,” came the answer.

Then Mr. Benjamin Van Buren, mining engineer, of Portland, Ore., gathered in the oof in the most leisurely manner possible.

“Now you can buy me that new hat you promised me, can’t you, Ben?” said Nellie.

“I sure can buy you a dozen hats now if you want them.”

Exactly thirty minutes later three men were lined up against the bar below.

“You can talk from here to the Coast, if you want to,” said one, “but I tell you the woman did the trick. Didn’t she deal the cards? I tell you she short-carded us. She’s a gold mine.”

TRAGEDY OF A DANCE

It was just a plain unpretentious flat in New York, the kind that is rented for about $40 a month. You know the style--four or five rooms and bath and a narrow little space which is dignified by the name of private hall, and which is supposed to be the real thing in living apartments. It was furnished in the way in which anyone would expect, and an auction sale wouldn’t net more than $50 for everything that was there.

In the front room sat a man who wasn’t as old as he looked, but whose apparent age was caused by ten hours a day in an attempt to make a living for himself. For twenty years he had been ground down by fate, and at the end of it all he had nothing, and he was in debt to the world for exactly three score of years.

Now at the last mile post he had come face to face with a tragedy.

In one calloused hand he held a telegram. In the other was the photograph of a girl--good looking in a way, saucy, blue-eyed and blonde. It had been taken in theatrical costume and that told half of the story. The other half was in the telegram.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and read again:

“Your daughter died in the hospital here to-day; please advise as to the disposition of the remains.”