CHAPTER NINE
"Virtue has its own reward and that's all it ever gets," remarked Sabrina, the Show Girl, as we met her on the street. "I am once again a wage-earner. This floating around town as one of the idle rich is all to the peaches for a while, but as a continuous performance it makes a poor showing. You know when I first became an heiress I had a call-board put up in my boudoir and a little notice pinned on it that read, 'Rehearsal, 10 o'clock to-morrow, everybody,' and then I would lay in bed all morning and make faces at it.
"Everybody had a large bunch of fun kidding me about my inheritance till I was nearly bug. Why, would you believe it? I couldn't go to dinner or riding with a gentleman friend, but some humorous dame sitting at another table would arch her eyebrows and then, if I introduced them to the gent, they would say, 'I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Suchandsuch; how are things in Pittsburg?'
"At last it got so bad that I decided to go back to work and earn my little twenty per, so that I could keep my automobile and wear good clothes without the slightest taint of suspicion on my character. With that noble end in view I started on the still hunt. Nothing doing with that traveling thing.
"I tucked my little scrapbook under my arm and sat in the waiting-room. After hanging around in there for about half an hour I would be permitted to glide into the big boss. I had a nice little monologue framed up as to my virtues—no, that's the wrong word—ability.
"None of the managers asked me what I had done, but what did I GET.
"When I called on the gentlemen by whom I am now employed he said:
'Talent? Oh, piffle! Can you wear tights?' He said that to me.
"I merely mentioned that I used to work for Mr. Ziegfeld and he hired me at once. I didn't even have to show him my picture taken as Aphrodite in a classical art study.
"I went over to rehearsal, and of all the frowsy dames I ever piped—far be it from me to knock, but they looked like a bunch of pie-trammers that had just rushed over from Child's. The stage manager was a friend of mine, and I asked him when he had started an old ladies' home, and he told me—mind you, this is the strictest confidence—that the divorce courts and the cheap rates from Pittsburg was raising Cain with the crop of merry-merries.
"I was standing over near the piano when the leading lady galloped in. Believe me the dog she put on would make you think that she had every other star looking like a twinkle, and before she landed where she is now she was leading lady for a moving picture company.
"But the comedian—honest, when he gets a couple under his belt he is just that funny—gee! I nearly howled my head off at him calling the tenor Gertrude.
"Say, he got awfully peevish and was mad enough to crush a grape when he found out that he couldn't have the 'spot' when he does his duet number with the ingenue, and when he found out that he would have to dress with the character comedian, who is a low, coarse brute, always drinking beer in the dressing room and not sharing with anybody, he got so mad I thought he would burst into tears.
"He's another of these exaggerated ego guys, every move a picture, wears his handkerchief up his sleeve and all that kind of guff.
"The funniest thing about the whole show is that the author is staging the piece, and what he don't know about the show business would make the Lenox Library look like a news stand He wanted the tenor to hold the prima so she couldn't show her rings. And that's the only thing that got her the job—her jewelry.
"We open in Hartford in a couple of weeks and then play Washington and then come in here for a run.
"Honest, the way those two towns fall for this: 'Manager Soandso is to be congratulated upon securing for his next week's attraction Mr. Suchandsuch's elaborate production of the great London success, 'The Rancid Prune,' with the following all-star cast of metropolitan favorites.' And some of them, ach, Himmel!
"I do wish that the merry Springtime would hurry up and kick in. Them can have the Winter that likes it, but not for little Angel-face; give me the summer and that 'Robins Nest Again' number.
"When the bock beer signs again wave in the breeze and the Dutchman in the delicatessen don't think you are a bug when you ask for Summer sausage; when the mint commences to sprout in the cigar box on the fire escape and all nature seems glad. I just love those trips on the night boat up the Hudson with the searchlight: shining on the trees and the ice tinkling in the highball glass as the steward comes down the deck.
"You know that I am naturally—even when sober—of a romantic and emotional temperament, but those nights I can sit and hold hands and inhale cocktails until daylight without an effort.
"And then Sundays down at Manhattan Beach dubbing around in a bathing suit—and take this from me as advance information, the bathing suit I am going to wear this year is going to chase the waves clear out in the ocean. I don't know yet whether I can wear it at Rockaway or not; it's a cinch I can't if they have another moral wave like they did last year. It's chic without being bizarre.
"And I can safely say without fear of successful contradiction that I look well in it, and if I can keep my hair from getting wet I'll be the one best bet. But if the briny mingles with my marcel wave—good night, nurse!
"One of Mr. Hepner's assistants told me that if salt water ever touched my golden tresses that the only thing I could do to keep them from turning green was to get scalped.
"A friend of mine who owns a yacht is going to send his wife and daughter on a trip to Europe, and he told me to count myself one of a party of six that are going to make a tour of all the neighboring resorts—no, not that kind—Summer resorts. Fresh!
"We had the one grand time last year.
"I never had a more enjoyable time. Just press a button and the steward was right on the job to take your order.
"Anything from a glass of hops to a Merry Widow cocktail, and you didn't have to dig once. Everything paid for ad lib.
"Ah! those happy evenings that appeal so to every true lover of Nature and well mixed drinks. To sit and listen to the lapping of the waters—and booze.
"Us girls are talking about getting a houseboat this season if we don't have to work. Of course, the chances are that it will never come off, but up to date that is the last dressing room pipe.
"We are figuring on getting a nice place within trolley distance of Broadway and then get several of our wine agent friends to stock it for us.
"We won't need much furniture—an ice box and a corkscrew are the only real necessities.
"Do you think it would cast asparagus on my character if I should reside in a houseboat unchaperoned.
"Oh, we can get the wardrobe mistress for a chaperone, but why talk shop; and besides she gets a bun on and goes to sleep in a hamper, and we girls have to pack our own bundles, and if she got soused while chaperoning the mob it would take away the otherwise proper air of refinement and leave us open to the gibes and scoffs of those who were not so fortunate as to be invited to our houseboat.
"Say, I don't want to indulge in brag or ostentation, but the gown I am going to wear to the Friar festival they are going to pull off in May is going to have some class to it.
"Wilbur—that's my betrothed—is going to be one of the main guys, and when it comes his day to get the showing keep your eye on muh.
"I think Mr. Klaw and Mr. Erlanger are just the nicest men to give the
Friars the New York Theatre for the big doings.
"You want to go. All our set will be there with their hair in a braid.
"Oh, yes; Wilbur and I are getting along just splendid. We have been engaged now for nearly two weeks and have only broken it off three times.
"I went to see 'Miss Hook of Holland' the other night and Wilbur got jealous and told me that if his show wasn't good enough for me to see without having to go to others to just come across with his ring and he would cancel the engagement.
"I, being a girl of some spirit and pride, just naturally yanked Mr.
Ring off and threw it at him.
"That made him hedge and before long we were cooing over a bottle of wine like a couple of turtle doves.
"You can't take any too much off these men. Keep 'em guessing; thats my system. And then they will walk sideways, so as to not overlook any bets.
"Take that Alla McSweeney for example. She falls in love and is always on the job, like Faithful Fido. Sits around the flat and gazes at his photo all day and from quitting time on she is there with her ear to the ground waiting to hear him get out of the elevator.
"That aint little Sabrina's graft.
"Nix. Wilbur calls up and I tell him to wait a minute and let him cool his heels downstairs for a while, and then when I do send for him to come up he is more glad to see me and manages to amuse himself in hunting for a stray glove or a handkerchief.
"And then sometimes when he calls up I am out, just to let him know that he is not the only star performer.
"That stunt keeps them at heel all the time and so busy trying to keep track of you that they don't have time to look for any other dame. So that it works both ways for the dealer, and a couple of tears will always copper any wrong play you make.
"This Beatrice Fairfax dope may be all right in the simple country maiden, but it don't go in the show business worth a whoop. You've got to be on your toes in this game and play no steady system.
"My, how I run on! Here I will be late for rehearsal and will have to give the stage manager an excuse and he will fall for it until some time I have got good reason for being late, and then he will call me.
"Say, is it considered au fait for a bride-about-to-be to do a little plugging for wedding presents this early in the game? Well, so long."
Sabrina in this chapter attends a beefsteak party and becomes involved in an argument with a certain party who was formerly her roommate but whom she left quietly and by night.