CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"My, did you see what the critics said about our show?" exclaimed Sabrina, Show Girl, as her maid opened the door. "Wasn't it awful? I didn't know there were so many mean words in the book. And the nerve of them to pan me after meeting several of them socially. One of them said that I looked so good standing up that it was a crime to have me sit down, but when I spoke for goodness sake get the muffler. The mut! I should go down and horsewhip him. But no, that's what us people that figure in public are bound to get. They never say a good word until after the minister says, 'Dust thou art to dust returneth,' and then some cluck is liable to come along and dig up a bunch of letters.
"I am thinking seriously of taking a flat until summer. I don't like this hotel, one has to keep so many conventionalities. Why, the other day my 'phone was out of order and I ran down to the desk in my kimona to telephone and the clerk had the nerve to call me for it. Can you surpass that? I told him to open his ears and let his head cool off.
"I was looking at a nice flat the other day, but they want me to sign a lease. What do I know about a lease? There ain't no half salary clause in it. If I did sign the lease and want to beat it all I would do would be to call in the Lease Breakers' Association and I could leave the next day. That mob responds to a call like the crowd in the Cadillac when some one says, I'll buy,' and you can take it from me that's going some.
"Sure, haven't you heard of the Lease Breakers' Association? They guarantee to break any lease in less than a week. It is composed of a mob of select ladies and gentlemen who can make the most noise. A person wishing to leave their abode and handicapped with a lease has but to blow the whistle for this gang and furnish plenty of refreshments and there is nothing to it. I attended one the other evening and we all had the one grand time.
"A friend of mine has ceased being married and naturally has no more use for a whole flat, so she approached the cruel landlord and asked for a release. Did she get it? Not. He told her that she would have to stick or stand the consequences. Does she tear out a bunch of hair and rave all over the room? Not her. She gets the members of the Lease Breakers on the 'phone and that night they hold the big celebration and the next morning four tenants kicked to the landlord. The morning after that the whole building kicked in a body and the janitor had to repair two ceilings. Then the guv asked her to move and she refused until he gave up her month's rent. She was foolish like one of those birds they call a fox. I guess, yes. These landlords have to go some if they want to get ahead of the simple Bohemians. What they want rent for beats me. They own the houses and that ought to satisfy them.
"If I do get this flat, take it from me, we will pull off the grand one time. I intend to hold a reception every evening after the show until I get a request to move.
"Say, here's the big jest in our set. You know, Olga Jones and her husband don't get along very well together. Their temperaments don't jibe.
"Well, her soul mate and she had given hubby the slip and were down in my apartments putting on the finishing touches to the big eats. Soul Mate was telling the story of his life to Olga when in kicks the dame that Soul Mate had formerly been in love with.
"They are both wise people and neither tip their mit, though Soul Mate grew restless with his feet. This was about 4 a.m. and the mere shank of the evening, as it were. When all of a sudden, Bing! Bing! on the door and in waltzed Olga's handicap, who had been out and soaked up a souse, and not finding little wifey when he returned to the hut, he starts out on a still hunt and ropes in my shack.
"Hubby comes in carrying weight for grouch and pipes party of five—Blonde Party, Olga, Soul Mate, Wilbur and me. Calls down wifey for not coming home. Business of language. I kick in and tells him to have a drink. Nothing to it. Oil on the troubled waters looked like an also ran.
"Hubby was perfectly content and after a drink or two he beat it, telling wifey to hurry home. Fine. Blonde Party finds she is fifth wheel and also ducks. Then Olga lands on Soul Mate. 'Who is this peroxide party?'
"'Only an old passing fancy,' chirrups Soul Mate.
"Olga tears her hair and bites out a bunch of hectic language about having the only man she ever loved being false, and how life is naught but a hollow bubble and all that kind of rot. Wilbur having sporting blood was for kidding them on and seeing if they would mix it, but me desiring peace and quiet told what I didn't know about the affair and squared things. Business of embracing.
"Did you pipe the sassy half-sheets Mr. McManus got out for the Friar Festival? Ain't they just too pretty for words? Do you know who that guy reading the Friar song down in the corner is? Don't breathe a word and I'll tell you. It's Phil Mindel. Honest it is. George sketched it from life one night over at the Booze Arts.
"Us chorus girls were talking of marching to Albany in a body with drums beating and flags flying and demanding that the anti-betting bill be ditched. It is something fierce the way these reformers are trying to put the bee on our pleasures.
"I just dote on horse races. Why, I can go to the track and sit in the cafe for hours. I wonder what these guys think we are going to do with our spare time this summer? Sit at home and make sofa pillows? Why, there is no greater sport in the world than riding out to Sheepshead or Jamaica in an auto and then borrowing money from your escort to bet on the patty-pats. It's a great system. If you lose the John gets nothing, and if you win you take everything, so it is fair for all parties.
"If they want to do something truly noble they should put those moving picture shows out of business. Pretty soon when they want the chorus to show up they will let down a sheet, throw on the picture and turn loose, 'Welcome, your highness, welcome' on the phonograph. I ain't mentioning any names, but there is a bunch of these parties that belong on a moving picture.
"What do you know about the circus? Ain't it all to the pickles? Me there the other matinee in a real box, courtesy of the management. Did you get your attention called to the two Janes that did the ride in the hurdics down the hill? Some class to that act. Imagine looping the loop in the air! Not for Sabrina, the pride of the chorus. As long as I can make my living on my shape you don't catch me trying to damage it soaring around in the atmosphere. Not for five dollars more a week, as bad as I need the money.
"I went to see Wells Hawks and the elephants. Both of them are permanent fixtures, though they do say that he is kept busy looking after the animals at both the Hip. and the circus. And the clowns! May I be struck dead if I didn't just rear back and howl my head off at those crazy clucks.
"Alla McSweeney certainly is a sneeze. She has no idea of the fitness of things. I was telling her just the other day. I said, 'Alla, you certainly are no piker. You'll go out and mace a good fellow for a big feed just as if he was a John. Now, that ain't right. When you are out with a James go to it and eat your head off. But when you are out with some one in the business or a newspaper man be circumscribe. Though you may want to wade through the whole dope sheet hitch your desire and order what you think he can afford, and lay back until you get a live one.'
"What? Sure we do. If a Jane goes out with a John that has nothing but. Nothing's too good for her and walking is hard on the feet. The more money the wop spends the bigger sport he thinks he is, but a fellow professional has honorable intentions, sometimes, and it is considered wise not to show what you are accustomed to until after he has bought the ring or written some letters. I may go out with some fellow and order everything from soup to nuts just to show him that I can, but the way I won Wilbur's heart was by ordering a cheese sandwich the first time he invited me out.
"My goodness! How I run on, and here it is getting late. Well, I must toddle along and see how the Friar Festival is. I have a personal interest in that. So long. Say, the next time you expect to get lanced for the big feed tell her you were once in the business and it will save you money. Ta, ta."
In which Sabrina has a row with the stage-manager, leaves the show, frivols in the vineyard, denounces the male sex as being all alike, threatens, to take the veil, but finally falls upon the neck of her betrothed and all is forgotten.