The Sorrows of a Show Girl Part 7

"There's going to be fifty sleeping rooms and ninety-six maids, so that if the poor skirt wakes up in the morning feeling far from a well woman all she has to do is to tickle the zing-zing and the maid is right there on the job. There is to be nineteen sound-proof parlors with two pianos in each parlor.

"While there will be a chaperon, of course, she will permit the young ladies to entertain their friends in a quiet and ladylike manner until the porter starts cleaning up the bar in the morning. The inmates will of course be allowed to sign checks, but from visitors only cash will be accepted.

"Can you see a mob of those merry dames around that drum? Talk about your something doing every minute! Say, it will look like open time around that shack. Burlesquers are canceled. They can't come into the home. Well, they never have much of a home anyway, so they don't miss much.

"Burlesque is sure one strenuous existence. Mother made me quit. That and the doctor telling me that I would ruin myself standing around a draughty stage in tights. And besides those burlesque stage hands certainly are cruel. Why, you have to put the money right in their hand before they will beat it across the alley for a can of suds. If that ain't cruelty I don't know what is. Do they think us girls would enjoy our refreshment if we have to pay for it ourselves. Why, it hasn't got the same flavor. Do you think a girl lacks cla.s.s when she puts salt in her beer?

"That home will be a great thing. Imagine going home every night without wondering if your room is locked and the landlady sitting on your trunks at the top landing. You can just flounce into your nest any old time and know that everything is right there, unless one crafty girl has bribed the chambermaid for the key. You can never tell about those people. Why, I know one girl who kept stealing hairs out of the different wigs in the dressing-rooms until she had enough to make a Dutch braid, and then she put on such a front and chest that she wouldn't speak to any of the other girls should she happen to meet them socially. I have always wanted a home, not that I haven't been offered several, but I mean a permanent one. But to continue about the benefit.

"Wilbur is going to manage it, and he expects to shake down enough to start us housekeeping, but, of course, that is strictly under your hat, and I pray you do not mention it. I think we can get Mr. Erlanger to let us use the New York Theatre if we promise not to damage the fixtures. He lets every other benefit have it and he certainly wouldn't object to a few poor chorus girls pulling off a s.h.i.+ndy, seeing as how they did so much for his success.

"Suppose none of us had gone on in the chorus of 'Ben-Hur'? Just think what would have happened. Didn't know there was a chorus in 'Ben-Hur'?

Say, what are you trying to do, kid me, or just show me a good time?

"I was around yesterday trying to get some of the oldtime merry-merry who are now some of our leading actresses to appear at the benefit, but they all threw a fit at the mere mention of the fact that they had once carried a spear. For my part I see nothing degrading in the work, even if we are held up to the gibes and chaff of some of these newspaper near-humorists.

"It certainly is an honorable calling, and if you look good from the front you can always have your pick of the menu. So that any dame that can hand out the frightened fawn glance need never starve.

"Ain't it funny the way these Johns stick their noses to the ground and start on the trail of 'the soldiers, villagers, etc.'? They'll pa.s.s up anything just to be able to stick their arm through the stage door and hand the doorkeeper a bunch of violets.

"They will leave Flossie, the belle of the village, waiting at the gate any time a burlesque three-sheet shows up on the side of the blacksmith shop. And right down front, with their feet on the base drum, handing out the coy glances before the first curtain is a foot from the stage.

"Yep, I'm still rehearsing with 'The Mangled Doughnut,' and the author of the book told me yesterday, in the strictest confidence, that it will be the best first-night performance Hartford ever saw.

"He says he expects to stay up all that night rewriting the book, but he is willing to sacrifice a few hours' sleep in the interest of Art. And for the musical numbers, as we are rehearsing forty-two songs, some of them ought to go. The only thing wrong with the show as far as I can see is that the prima donna acts like she was in a trance. It is my personal opinion--of course I wouldn't have you breathe this to a living soul for worlds--but it is my personal opinion that she sniffs the white. She either does that or jabs, though it don't show on her arm. The leading comedian is a sad affair.

"He would make a good understudy for a morgue, and that's about all.

Why, I offered him suggestions for some new business in his cafe scene and he went up-stage on the run and informed me that when he desired instructions from the chorus concerning the way to handle his part he would address me in writing. I said to him: 'Far be it from me to get gay, old top, but I would respectfully suggest that you get busy with the pen and ink.' Then he was going to have me fired. Such a chance.

"He had better find out what I know about the past history of the person who hired me before he hands out any lurid language about my dismissal.

I know right where I stand, and though I am one of the shop girls in the first act, instead of having my regular place as an American heiress, I know right where I stand every shake out of the box.

"Viola St. Clare is sure having the one strenuous time with her new husband. The poor dear is nearly balmy in the crumpet from worry. You see, they have been married but four long weeks, and the last three nights he has been coming home sober, and she believes he is deceiving her, so she is trying to get enough money from him so that she can hire a private detective to have him shadowed.

"They tell me that Sam Harris has to punch a time clock. I know one thing, and that is when I am married Wilbur will not be one of the leading lights of the Knickerbocker, even if I have to prance down there and drag him out by the neck. Gee, there ain't much doing in town now.

Wilbur and a couple of friends are already running trial heats for the Twenty-three Club dinner, and if he ever recovers from that our engagement will be announced. I am having the photographs taken now.

"Tell me, do you think it's good form for a lady to have her wedding announcement accompanied by pictures of herself in tights. Wilbur says that it won't help me, but it will do the show a lot of good, and he says somebody connected with my show should be done good besides the manager.

"I will say one good word about our show--it has a grand first act. The other two acts may be on the cheese, but the first act is good. The author says the first act of a show is the only one that needs any attention, because it is the only one the critics ever stick for anyway.

We got great scenery; the second act is made of what you might call a composite set, being composed out of all the scenery from the other failures this year.

"Did I say other failures?"

"I spoke inadvertently. 'For this elaborate production, with its all-star cast of metropolitan favorites and its famous beauty chorus,'

as Wilbur says, may be all right.

"Mind you, I only say may.

"The first act is laid in a quince plantation, and the quinces of the chorus are discovered at curtain rise picking the luscious fruit. There is a naval vessel in the harbor. This was put in so the tenor could wear his white duck uniform; he had to wear something, and when the management found that he had a white duck uniform--every tenor has, you know, or he wouldn't be a tenor--when the management found that he had a uniform they took the money they had advanced for costumes away from him and rewrote the first act.

"As I say, we lemons are picking quinces or we quinces are picking lemons, any way you want to take it, and after finis.h.i.+ng the opening chorus we rush up stage, open center, and in comes the prima donna in a pony cart--a stone boat would suit her better, but that is neither here nor there--see pony cart, chance for number by pony ballet, with six trained doughnuts--you see that's where the t.i.tle of the play is introduced. That's the only time the t.i.tle shows up except a duet between the leading lady and the tenor ent.i.tled 'I Had Rather be a Doughnut in Harlem Than a b.u.t.ter Cake in Childs'.'

"The prima and the tenor do an imitation of the 'Merry Widow' waltz. The author didn't want that put in, but the backer of the show convinced him that nowadays every true musical comedy had an imitation of the 'Merry Widow' waltz, so he let it slide.

"After that in comes the comedian as the valet of a wealthy American just arrived on the battles.h.i.+p.

"He has got a great entrance. It's brought out by some plot lines spoken by two of the chorus girls that he has taken a taxaballoon from the boat and while up in the air he bites the rope of the balloon in two in a fit and falls center stage with a red spotlight on him. That's the musical cue for his song.

"'I'd Rather Be Up in the Air Than Up in the Bronx.' He has learned twenty-two extra verses and says that he will give them all if the ushers' hands hold out.

"When he is through in comes the soubrette, formerly a lady boilermaker in Canarsie, but now disguised as an adventuress, in search of the missing papers.

"She has the papers in a locket given her by her mother, but don't know it until the comedian bites her on the neck in the third act and breaks the chain, when the locket falls to the ground and the papers fall out.

"The second act is a scene in Maxim's, where the leading lady is was.h.i.+ng dishes. That gives more comedy, with the comedian as a dish.

"The American is hiding from his wife and goes to Maxim's because he knows she'll be there. If she wasn't, shucks! There wouldn't be no show.

"He does his specialty with a piece of cheese--not the prima donna--and after that the American Beauty Chorus comes in and does a refined can-can.

"My how I have run on! I just know I'll be late for rehearsal, but don't forget the benefit. We need the money, Wilbur and me. So long!"

In which Sabrina prepares to leave town with the show, but pauses to pa.s.s a few remarks on love, comedians, murders, maids, spring millinery and the advisability of anyone marrying their first husband.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Goodbye, dear," said Sabrina, as we met her hurrying up Broadway. "Our show leaves town to-morrow. We got to get to Hartford in time for a dress rehearsal before the evening performance. My, such a time we have had. You know the comedian we had threw up the sponge at the last minute and we had to dig up another. Thank goodness, this one is a gentleman and not getting fresh with the merry-merry every time he gets a chance.

"Oh, say, was you at the Friars' Sunday Night in Bohemia a couple of weeks ago? The Friars spend every night in Bohemia or the Knickerbocker bar, so Wilbur says. But honest, this was a great stunt, seconded only by the Festival they are going to pull off in May.

"The curtain went up on what looked like a busy day in Childs', and Wells Hawks was in the spotlight, surrounded by a bevy of blondes and empty champagne bottles. They tell me that Gus Edwards had to blindfold Hawks to lead him up to the table where the empty bottles were, and as for the girls, it was with a great effort that they restrained themselves.

"All they could do was to look at the empty bottles, hold their noses and drink mineral water. Ain't it awful, Mabel? Anyway, everybody had a good time, so what care they for gibes and jeers? Many the time have I held a champagne cork to my nose, closed my eyes and dreamed that I was having a time. Well, to continue about our show. Wilbur says it will never go, because they only got block stands, and an agent ain't got no show without at least one kind of a litho. Wilbur said it hurt the artistic instinct of a billposter in these hick towns to put up all block stands, and you generally have to slip them a little something to be sure that they burn up all the extra stuff, so that the manager of the company wouldn't find it should he go snooping around the bill room when the show gets in town. He says if they get a good litho of a killing or a chorus they will go out of the way to stick them up just for art's sake. Wilbur is going to give me a suit case full of hard tickets to the Friar Festival, and told me to mace every John I came across on the road for as many as he would stand for. He said the more I sent in the more he would know I loved him. Wilbur is so romantic!

"This new comedian we got with the show is pretty good, but of course I can see defects. And the new prima donna is real nice. She asked me into her dressing-room the other afternoon and slipped me a little idea encourager that she had in a flask. But the way she is in love with the tenor, honest, it's sickening to me. She watches him from the time he comes in the theatre until the time he leaves, and then calls him up on the 'phone at his home.

"The other day when he asked one of the girls to tie the ribbon in his cuff she got so jealous that I thought she was going to give the poor kid a lam on the lamp. What she can see in that tenor is beyond me. What anybody can see in a tenor has got me guessing, for that matter. Wilbur says that's just the way with temperamental people, and he lost a job once just because he forgot to land pictures in the Sunday editions of all the newspapers in town of the manager's own particular guiding star, but planted a bunch of her dearest friend instead. He says there's no pleasing them, and the only way to have peace and harmony around the whole show shop is to print flashlights of the entire company. And even that looks like blazes, for the editor will always reduce an eight-column flashlight to a two-column cut, no matter how many drinks you buy him.

"He says he saw a murder once--was the only witness, in fact--and he took it on the run to a newspaper office and offered to trade a Charles Sommerville to the editor for a reading notice about the show, and the editor told him that they could get all they wanted from the police, and what they didn't get wouldn't hurt the public if they didn't know about it. He says if that wouldn't give the press agent art a kick in the neck nothing would.

"Wilbur says he loves his art and nothing pleases him better than to find a box office that will take his I O U. Us chorus have been sure working hard the past week, and Ben Teal has been just that kind and gentle, and didn't put a one of us on the pan. We certainly have got some lovely costumes; they ain't much to them, but what there is is beautiful. They smell a little of camphor, but they have been packed away in hampers ever since last season, and that accounts for it.