Part 9

It bore date of a Southern city, and was signed by the manager of a barn-storming company of show people.

If you read the newspapers you must have read part of the story. You will read the rest of it here--the part that wasn’t told, because an ordinary chorus girl isn’t of sufficient importance to take up more than a very little space in the prints, unless, of course, she does something so violently tragic and sensational that she rises above the common herd and becomes at once a figure of almost national importance, like the young woman who once tried to shoot a senator, or the one who danced nude before a select company of young spendthrifts, or the one who made $50,000 in stocks with the kind assistance of a “gentleman friend.”

Just four months before, the old man’s daughter had been working in a big dry goods store--a mill that grinds pretty fine sometimes--and one day she attracted the attention of a man who was putting a show out on the Southern tour. He saw talent in her, or at least he thought he did, but if the truth were to be told he fell in love with her, and came to the conclusion that she would make a better traveling companion than anyone he had seen so far--this season. He had a code of morals that was iron clad, but wouldn’t stand investigating. In his eyes they were all cattle, and like cattle he graded them.

But this isn’t going to be a moral story, because it is the truth.

If you want morality nowadays you will have to go to fiction, where the man always marries the girl and they live happily ever after. It sounds nice and leaves a sweet taste in the mouth, but it is a long cry from the truth except in a few rare cases.

So here’s the picture, about as commonplace as it can be made.

A girl with visions of the stage, a dream of a life of ease and luxury, imagining that some day she will be a performer of merit; a violent hatred of the unending routine of the store, and ready at a moment’s notice to turn her back on the old man in the flat.

Isn’t that the way?

Bring them into the world, care for them and nurse them. Worry over their little troubles, deny yourself that they may have more; sacrifice everything for their happiness, and then at the critical moment when they might become a comfort instead of a care, presto! along comes a man with a line of talk that would make a cat on a back yard fence take to cover, and away they go, saying good-by if they happen to think of it, and forgetting that there are such things in the world as obligation or gratitude.

But this isn’t really what I started to say. You see, I have a brother who is a minister, and I am under the impression that he is teaching me bad habits--that is, if it is a bad habit to sit down and preach about a lot of things that are wrong when you would probably do the same things you condemn in others. It’s a case of don’t do as I do, but do as I say.

It’s a cinch to tell other people to do the right thing, but it’s another thing to be on the level yourself.

After that little digression I’ll show you this girl on the road singing choruses with the bunch, and just a bit swell-headed because she was in a position to call the manager by his first name. That didn’t help her with the rest of the crowd any, and they called her names when they were where she couldn’t hear them, while at the same time there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t have changed places with her in a holy minute.

She had one or two fights on her hands, but she always won out.

The manager found out she had a figure that would have been worth a place in the front row of the merry-merry of Weber and Fields when that firm was at its best. Here was a chance that a good, clever, astute fellow like him couldn’t very well overlook, and he proceeded to have her taught a few dances of the kind that are not sanctioned in polite society, or even on the stage, or which make any pretence to being legitimate. He was working on the principle that all is grist that comes to the mill, and he was also looking ahead.

There are, as a rule, a pretty gay lot of boys in those Southern towns, and they are not averse to paying a good bit of money for a show after the show, especially if it is the kind that is forbidden. If the sensuous dance of the Nautch girl can be imitated in all of its windings, twistings and quiverings by a shapely American girl whose disregard for clothing amounts to almost contempt--that is, on certain occasions--there is enough money to make it an object not only for the performer but the manager.

“I am going to put you up against a proposition that will make the hit of your life,” was the way he started it.

“That’s me,” she said; “what is it?”

“Why, do a stunt in the altogether for the sports.” Then he took a couple of extra puffs at his cigar to keep his nerve up.

“The altogether--what’s that?”

She had an idea what it was, but she wanted to get it straight.

“Oh, it’s all the rage down here--you dance without much clothes on. All the girls are wild to get some of the money, but there’s nothing doing with them, for your figure will make them look like a lot of kippered herrings that’s been smoked for a week. You see, we’re in this business for the coin, and we might as well get it and get it quick. If we don’t there’ll be a thousand others after it. It’s a case of take it or leave it and it’s up to you. How about it?”

He stiffened her up so she was willing to make good. He told her she had enough curves to make the Venus de Medici look like a barn door, and that she was a peach with the original bloom on, all of which she believed because it was pleasant for her to hear, and was getting a bit stuck on herself. It was a modern case of showing Eve all over again where the golden apple grew, and inducing her to reach up and get it.

The first trick was to come off at Memphis, Tenn., where a lot of hot sports wanted something so full of ginger that they would have put ice on the backs of their necks to keep the temperature down below the 100 mark. A committee of two called on him at the stage entrance, and after declaring themselves asked him if he had anybody with the outfit who could make good. After the preliminary skirmish it settled down to a question of price, and the matter was soon arranged, and half an hour later Daddy’s girl got the tip that she was expected to be on the job when the clock struck twelve, with a carriage to and from the hotel as a compliment to her superb figure.

No good hardened old pelter would have halted at this hurdle, and would have gone at it with a keen relish, but you must know that this was the first season out for this girl, and when it came to the time that she was to let go all that kept her from appearing in the costume that Mother Eve is supposed to have worn in the Garden of Eden, she promptly lost her nerve.

“I don’t think I can do this thing, Jim,” she remarked to the manager as they were leaving the theatre together. “It didn’t seem so bad at first, but now I don’t quite like the idea of it. I never did anything like this before, you know.”

“Of course I know,” he answered quickly, “but you want the money, don’t you? Do you want to be a piker all your life? Why, you’ll get more for a stunt like this than you can make in a month doing anything else. Just think of that.”

He was keen enough to see, however, that she was inclined to quit at any moment, but there was no proposition an old seasoned campaigner like him couldn’t handle, and when they went into the hotel cafe together he had framed things up to his own satisfaction.

“I’m going to blow you to a bottle of wine to-night, and while we’re waiting for it we’ll have a cocktail.”

He figured on dulling her sense of morality with drinks, and he went at it in the most businesslike manner possible.

Before the wine a cocktail with a cherry, then another cocktail. Three pints of extra dry, most of which she lapped up simply because it was champagne and was expensive, and then she was in a mood that was at once mellow and reckless.

“Come on,” he said, when the last drop had been drained. “Come on, the wagon is waiting and if you make a hit you won’t need to bother about those new dresses you wanted last week, for here is where you get next to a real gold mine. Why, there ain’t a girl in the show that wouldn’t go to the deuce to get this chance.”

She assented, but through it all she had a hazy idea that it was wrong and that she ought to back out. But just think of almost three pints of wine seething and bubbling inside of her while she is trying to discriminate between right and wrong. I tell you it’s impossible, for when the corks pop often enough it’s hell let loose, and a girl has to protect herself in the breakaway every time, with the odds against her.

And now, a big room, carpeted, with palms on pedestals here and there, giving it an air of luxury, and a platform at one end. Fifty men, young and old, seated in chairs that were lined up like a regiment were waiting expectantly. The smoke from many cigars and cigarettes filled the air, and the monologue man who was trying to interest them with funny stories knew he was up against it and that he was only filling in time until the big show should be ready. He told everything he knew, but never a smile was cracked, and when he came to a finish he walked off angrily.

The three musicians began a new tune with mournful cadences, but with a swing that suggested sinuous movements. The two violins wailed out the minor chords, and the piano trailed the bass. Somewhere from behind came the sharp snap of a man’s fingers and the lights went down and the theme of the music was changed.

“The Dance of the Dawn, gentlemen,” came a voice from out of the darkness and the fifty straightened up in their seats expectantly.

A shape crept out upon the stage and moved in time to the music. Then the lights gradually began to go up a little at a time until at last the face and figure of the dancer were visible. She was clad in transparent gauze, with Turkish trousers and a bolero to match, and her swayings were artistic and graceful. But there was no reason in them. They were mechanical and lifeless. She moved by instinct and intuition and the impression the dance sought to convey was lost. The manager himself worked the cymbals which punctuated the finish of each measure, and at the final crash the stage was once more shrouded in darkness.

Lights up and then the second announcement:

“The Dance of Nature.”

That soothing music was born in the brain of a Calcutta idealist who knew how to put the tip of his finger on the pulse of the senses. Three second-rate performers ground it out, but with all their mediocrity they couldn’t kill its charm, even though they dulled it somewhat.

Here was the real thing at last, and fifty pairs of eyes were glistening in anticipation.

The moment’s wait seemed like an hour, and then a girl’s voice broke what seemed to be a spell:

“Oh, I can’t, Jim, I can’t.”

“You’ve got to, it’s too late to back out now.”

“I won’t, I tell you, not for anybody.”

The next instant the nude figure of the girl was catapulted out upon the platform--a figure which dropped to its knees and then tumbled over on its face and lay there in a quivering heap sobbing violently.

A tall man with snow-white mustache rose slowly from his seat in the second row. He turned around to face the rest, and then said, as calmly as if he were in his own house:

“Gentlemen, I protest; this must not go on. It is disgraceful.”

He picked up his hat and coat and started for the door.

In five minutes the room was empty. The girl had been pulled back of the scenes by a cursing manager, but she might as well have been dumb for all she heard.

“You’re a mutt,” he was saying; “here you’ve had your chance and quit, and you’ve made a sucker out of me, too. I can’t look any of those people in the face again.”

Of course, he didn’t consider where she figured.

Then he walked out and left her there with a skirt wrapped around her as her only covering.

The janitor found her when he came to turn out the lights.

She was partly dressed then, and shivering. He helped her finish dressing, and then he went out to get her a drink to warm her up a bit.

Later she wandered out and got another drink to make her forget and still another that her mind might be blank.

At daybreak she was in the hospital in a state of coma from which nothing could rouse her. She never came back again, and when the call-boy in the theatre in the next town was calling out: “Fifteen minutes--first act,” she died.

Yet his friends say the manager is one of the best fellows in the business.

THE MONOLOGUE GIRL’S STORY

It was after the show that there were four of us sitting at the round table in the back room of The Dutchman’s on Third avenue. It’s a pretty good place, that self-same back room, and the big steins of beer are pretty good, too, with a heaping plate of pretzels always on the side and a sandwich to be had by pressing the button.

There was Al Fostell, the German comedian, who ought to have been in the legitimate long ago; Harry Ferguson, famous for his impersonation of _Happy Hooligan_; Harry’s wife, Lulu Beeson, the Star of Texas, and so great a dancer that she has a Richard K. Fox medal about as long as her arm, which any beskirted performer can get by beating her at the soft shoe buck; and one other, whom I shall simply designate as The Girl, because, even though she plays a star part in this, she doesn’t want to be known to the general public.

The Girl was brilliant, versatile and clever. She took it into her head to become a dancer once, and among other things she learned the fandango. She went to Mexico with a troupe and danced that famous measure in a way that made them cheer her to the echo. She played faro bank and won enough to keep her in clothes for a year.

The talk had drifted on marriage and Fostell started things.

“I have been married a good many years, more than I care to tell,” he said, “and I have been trying to induce my daughter to call me uncle so they won’t get on to me. I claim that a performer’s domestic life can be just as pure and happy as that of a business man. I agree that there is a lot of immorality in the profession, but you’ll always find a lot of outsiders helping things along. There are times when we seem to be targets for the whole world to shoot at.”

“In my opinion,” put in Ferguson, “the performers who are in the business to make a living on their merits are for the most part decent people whose lives are an open book. The women of the chorus of the big shows on Broadway--the kind who haven’t a line to speak and who couldn’t speak it if they had--are responsible in the main for all of these sweeping charges of immorality. Our children are born in the shadow of the theatre, and a great part of their lives are spent in the green rooms and dressing rooms. We try to do the best we can by them and bring them up properly.”

Then The Girl, who can tell stories and sing in a most charming way, and who for that reason has a salary that is worth considering, broke in:

“You men with wives sit back and talk of morality and all that sort of thing and you don’t know what it means. You two are lucky because you have married good women who look after your interests and bring your children up as best they can under the circumstances. You only see things from the viewpoint of the male animal, who is used to being waited on and catered to. The average man says, ‘I am handsome,’ ‘I am great,’ ‘I am distinguished,’ or ‘I am the real one,’ as the case may be. He sees a girl whose appearance catches his fancy and straightway he must have her. He likes her and that settles it. It makes no difference whether or not she likes him--her feelings are not to be considered. He is the one. If his passion is a strong one he pursues her to the finish and hounds her. If she still holds out he becomes actuated by a motive of revenge and so he sets out to try to injure her, to prevent her from making a living that she may feel the pinch of poverty. He uses all the influence at his command to crush and humiliate her, and then he taunts her.

“Boys, I’ve been through the mill and I know what I’m talking about. I’m a kid no longer, and I wouldn’t marry the best man on earth, nor tie myself up to him for either a definite or an indefinite length of time. No double acts for me, but monologues from now on until I get my 23.

“Let me tell you something you never heard before.

“One night I went down to the Battery and sat on the sea wall there for hours looking at the water smashing away at the rocks. It was moonlight and almost bright enough to read a paper. I had enough to think of while I was sitting there and I thought it, too. I know what it is to have a whirring sound in your brain, for I had it then. I was trying to get up enough courage to throw myself overboard, for I really wanted to die. I had seen all of life and of men that I wanted and had enough. I had been driven by a man from the place where I lived to the jumping-off spot as coldly, and calmly, and deliberately as a drover would direct the course of a steer to the abattoir. He had made living impossible for me.

“Those noises in my head had reached that stage where they were like the sound of the L road trains going past your windows at night when you’re trying to sleep, but the stronger they grew the less they annoyed me, and the idea came to me that if I wished hard enough death would come very easy.

“You know that old act of mine where I used to imitate a woman who had gone insane from grief at being abandoned by her lover? You know what a hit it always made. Well, it’s nothing like the real thing. Heart-breaking grief in its highest form is quiet. It doesn’t want the limelight or stage center, but a dark corner and seclusion. It wants to be left alone.

“The next thing I remember was someone saying to me ‘Come out of here; what are you trying to do--drown yourself?’

“And there I was in the water up to my waist with a policeman holding me by the arm. He turned me around so that I faced the wall again and we walked back to where he helped me up. Then he took me, all dripping and so cold that I had no feeling at all, to the station house, where I was charged, under a most absurd law, with attempted suicide. They were humane enough to send for an ambulance and I was taken to the hospital and fixed up so I could appear in court the next morning. The man was there--the man with his sneering smile and his air of well-fed comfort. He had come down to look me over. He probably wanted to see the girl who had refused nearly everything that money could get, simply because she was not for sale and couldn’t be bought like a new scarf or a hat of the latest mode. He also wanted to parade his prosperity before my misery, probably that before anything else. Even he must have pitied me because of my position, and he edged over to where I was and whispered:

“‘It isn’t too late yet, and I want to help you.’

“‘You mean that you want to get me out of here?’ I asked.

“‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘I want to get you out.’

“‘Well, if I were you,’ I told him, ‘I wouldn’t take any chances because if I get out of here and you ever speak to me again I will do the very best I can to kill you.’

“He shrank back as if he had been stung, and so great was his terror that I almost laughed at him. Then he turned and walked away.

“That is the curtain of my story. I could begin at the beginning and make it a long one, but what’s the use? I could make a romance of it, or even a tragedy, and now that I am my sane self I could even make it a comedy. I could go over the list of things he promised me and what he promised to do for me, and you would think he had all the wealth of the Bank of England at his back, but his mind ran in a groove so narrow and his manner was so offensive that the only thing that kept him in the human being class was the fact that his nostrils were not shaped like those of a swine, and that instead of grunting he used language that was fairly intelligible. But for once he was toppled from his self-built pedestal and he crashed down in the wreck of his own self-conceit. Men like that make the world seem immoral and immoral in fact, and a few such as he would degrade the noblest profession in the world. Egotists and atheists, believing in nothing save self, they taint a community like a plague.

“Bring us some more beer, Billy, for I’m going home. I’m tired and dead to the world.”

“I wouldn’t like to be the man you hated,” said Ferguson.

“My boy, I can neither hate nor love, I am simply numb. I have had seven proposals of marriage, both in the profession and out of it, but there was nothing doing. I am absolutely emotionless. I ask no favors on account of my sex and I owe my allegiance to no man. But I am watching my tormentor growing gradually old. I see him once in a while, you know, and I am keeping track of him. It’s my one joy in life. The gray has come into his hair and it is turning white and the wrinkles are spreading themselves over his face like avenging fingers. I know he is not really happy, although he pretends to be, and some day, in some luxurious apartment, he’ll lie dying. A million dollars will not give him one more breath nor would a hundred millions add one more day to his existence, and when he is very close to that gate which always opens inward and from which there is no retreat and I really know that he is going, then I will laugh; not the kind of a laugh you know, boys, but the kind of a laugh that follows a soul across the border line of death and which keeps echoing for ages.”

“Did you ever play the part of _Ophelia_?” I asked.

“No, but I could.”

And we all believed her.

A TWISTED LOVE AFFAIR

This is the story of a wooing that went astray.

There are many such stories floating around, and they are all good, if they could only be told. But there is the trouble, for, like family skeletons, they are sunk so deep in the cellar or locked up so securely in the closet that there is no getting to them, even for a minute.

How these two met or where they met is of no material difference, and here is where a romantic touch might be introduced. The truth is that they came face to face with each other on the boardwalk at Atlantic City. He had been up to old Vienna while she had taken in the show on the Pier. A dozen or more of those high steins of Pilsner had made him a bit reckless, and that was his only excuse. She was lonely, and that was hers. It’s a great combination, like guncotton and a match. All right apart, but let them meet and the result is pyrotechnical. When they were twenty feet apart there was a sudden flash of lightning of the vivid brand they have on the Jersey shore, followed by a crash of thunder heavy enough to make a cigar store Indian step down and crawl under his pedestal. Then a few drops of rain about the size of a quarter, and a general scurrying for shelter.

The man whistled for a covered rolling chair, and the girl with eyes shut and head down ran directly into his arms.

She recoiled like a rubber ball that has been thrown up against a brick wall, while he felt to see if his watch was still fast in the mooring at his vest.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” and she gathered up her skirts as she prepared for another flight.

“Don’t mention it,” he answered with admiration, “but I think you could beat Jeffries if you were trained down a bit.”

“Sir!”

“Now don’t sir me; it’s raining and that blanket of yours won’t stand water. I’ve an option on the only chair in sight. It’s yours; help yourself, and if you don’t mind I’ll go as far as my hotel. Are you on the job?”