CHAPTER SEVEN
"All work and no play makes Jack a dead one," remarked Sabrina, the Show Girl, as we met her at the appointed place. "Don't I look like the wreck of the Hesperus? Honest to goodness, I feel like nine dollars' worth of dog meat hanging out of a hospital window. Was you at the ball, also? I mean did you attend last night's festivities? Ah, me! The joy and laughter of yesterday is sure the hangover of today. I thought I would caper down to the ball last night and just see how the other half lived, and instead of being a mere obtrusive observer I developed into what you might term the main event of the evening. You see it was this way. The Chorus Girls' Union, of which I am now a member, gave a ball in commemoration of the event of the Mayor vetoing Tim Sullivan's bill about women smoking in public. It was instigated by the 'Knight for a Day' girls, because when they went to plead before the Aldermen the newspapers forgot to mention the show they were from, so that the long talk didn't do the press agent any material good, as it were. The hall was tastily decorated with pictures of the Aldermen embellished with cigarette butts and champagne corks.
"By the way, if you see smoke coming from the Knickerbocker Theatre Building, don't turn in a fire alarm, for it is just the Friars showing their good feeling by trying to smoke up all the Friar cigars and cigarettes in town.
"All of our set was there, and numerous telegrams of regret were read from the road companies. As I say, I was seated quietly in a rathskeller listening to the noise, when one of the young ladies inadvertently remarked that there was to be big doings at a nearby hall, and suggested that as she was selling tickets, it would be a good plan to buy some and go and look the affair over, not to mingle with the throng, but merely to add tone to the event. That listened very well indeed, and we all climbed into a cabbage and vamped over.
"We managed to secure a box and were seated surveying the dancers, of which there were a few, and the wine agents, of which there was a herd, until one of the said agents happened to spy our little crowd, and with that true Southern gallantry for which wine agents are so noted, he sent over a quart bottle for each one of the party, but in the excitement of the moment forgot to include glasses, so rather than look a gift horse in the mouth, metaphorically speaking, we did not mention the oversight and contented ourselves with drinking out of the bottles in true democratic spirit. Did you ever imbibe Tiffany Water direct from its native heath, as it were? No? Then let me warn you from that lurking pitfall. It has the same taste, but the effect, di mi, the effect is multiplied by six.
"All of a sudden I became inoculated with a wild desire to burst forth into song, and also with the idea that when it came to tripping the light fantastic toe I had Genee looking like the first lesson in a $5 course. With that hunch in mind I shook the rest of the mob and descended to the floor accompanied by my personal press agent. I was wearing, at the time, one of my latest importations both underneath and outside. When the band for the nineteenth time struck up the 'Merry Widow' waltz, by permission of Henry W. Savage, I capered out upon the floor, where, much to the edification of the assembled multitude, I pulled off a combination of the 'Merry Widow' waltz and Dance of the Seven Veils that will be the talk of the town until Bingham does something else foolish. Did it cause excitement! Well, say, if it hadn't been for the kindness of a friend I would at this time been pacing a prison corridor in striped pajamas.
"Honest, when I came to this morning and Estelle—that's my maid—told me what I had done, I vowed that I never would speak to a wine agent again, for I was just that mortified. After me remembering to be a lady, and then before a mob to kick over the traces and crab the act. Believe me, every time I see an advertisement for that brand of wine a blush mantles my cheeks. Sure, I can blush. See. And for tears, it's just like turning on the faucet in the bath tub. All the young creatures in our set have to be there with the blush of modesty and the tear tank, for in the heat and gayety of a wine party, when some one springs a travelling man's story if we couldn't flash a flush we would be doped out as being brazen hussies, and tears are always handy. Either for the police, the landlord or an ardent suitor. The modern girl has to be equipped for any emergency like a hook and ladder truck. But here I am giving away all our girlish secrets.
"Take it from me I'll never again gallop around the juniper bowl. I wouldn't be a lush worker like that Alla McCune for another $10,000 legacy. She's just started the habit lately. She thinks it's stylish. Sure, every time she goes out with a crowd that drink anything stronger than beer she thinks she is in society. Every time she gets a snoot full she falls in love. Fact. My, such a scene as she caused in the hotel the other evening. She doped it out this way: She was all alone, a stormy night, a bottle of Scotch and a syphon. Why not light up? Talk about your Great White Way, why, she had it looking like a dark alley in Darkest Brooklyn. Along about 6 o'clock in the evening a gentleman called to see her. As soon as he entered the portal Alla knew that she had at last met her soul twin.
"She was hanging on to the table at the time and when she let go to embrace him, instead of being clasped to his yearning bosom, as she had planned, her knees gave away and she skated on her profile across the divan. This cluck, being of a timid nature, instead of running for the ammonia, slammed the door and sprinted for the elevator. Alla, as soon as the door closed, realized that she had been jilted, and resolving not to be canned without a struggle, she threw on her pony coat over her kimono, and pinning her hat roguishly over one ear, she fled the snare and ran down eight flights of steps into the street, with two coon bell boys after her. She turned into Broadway, going like Hose No. 7, with her kimono streaming to the breeze, and ran all the way down to Rector's and into the door before she was stopped by the head waiter. The two bell boys caught up and loaded her into a cab before the police came and managed to get her back up to the hotel, though the fight she put up was a caution. Wine is sure a mocker and Scotch highballs is fierce.
"I heard from the folks in Emporia the other day and they are still talking over the time I and the two guys in the automobile pulled off. The minister sprung a long sermon on the effects of strong drink on the young and the Emporia Wasp—you know they did call it the Bee, but the guy that bought it from the Bee people renamed it the Wasp, because he got stung worse than any bee could sting—the Emporia Wasp came out with a long editorial about the profligate rich and the Attic Debating Society had a big pow-wow in the basement of the church on the subject, 'Be it Resolved, That more people are killed by strong drink than by hanging.' All this had such a moral effect on the young that the soda fountain didn't sell a claret phosphate for three weeks after. And the Ladies' Aid got so busy over Azbe Lewis, the town drunkard, that he had three proposals of marriage, but he decided to take the lesser of the evils and stick to drink. I think he ain't such a dope at that.
"Say, sniff. Can you detect the low, plaintive cry of an arnica bottle? I am learning how to skate. Yes, I fell for it. Fell for it is good. 'Course I did. All over the ice. You see it was this way. I was up to a tea one of the girls gave in honor of the judge getting a divorce from his wife—we call it a tea because there wasn't any there. We were all sitting around panning those who were not among those present, until at last one of the girls who didn't dare leave till the party broke up suggested that we go down to the park and take a skate. The hostess was real nice. She suggested that it wasn't necessary to beat it clear down there to get a skate, as she had some in the house, and if we drank that up the Dutchman on the corner knew she was good for any amount within reason. But we didn't mean what she meant, so we departed. Going down I became perhaps a little too excited over the coming event and went to some length to inform the assembled skirts that when it came to cutting ice I, not seeking to boast, but I was there, forte, and such pastimes as writing names or doing Dutch rolls I considered rudimentary in the skating number and only performed by the immature.
"I may have overestimated my ability some, for I had never been on skates before in my life, but I'm no piker and I follow that old principle of willing to try anything once, so when it came time I let the boy put the skates on without a murmur, and was assisted to the ice by about six or eight eager hands. Say, I looked out at the gang gliding about, gave the signal to let go the ropes and took the fatal step. Curtain. Say, I went round so fast both skates clinched in my marcel wave. Would you believe it, there wasn't hardly any one in sight when I started falling, but before I got through the police had to move the crowd on. The only thing I could do gracefully was to throw a faint. I turned one loose until somebody tried to force a glass between my teeth and then I came to, but it was only water, so I had a relapse. Then a nice gent kicked in with a flask and I came to. Maybe you think those artful kidders didn't hand it to me. Anybody but a lady would have lost her temper and cursed them. But I told them where to get off, and don't you forget it, but I used no language that would have led people to think I was anything but what I should be. After that I managed to skate around a little, but let me tell you, that night I got down on the floor to take my shoes off all right, but it took Estelle—that's my maid—and a derrick to get me up again. Say, it's getting late and I must be going. You know Mabel is now a bride again, and her little husband has been staying down at the club instead of loitering about the flat, so the other night when he knocked on the door to get in, Mabel said, 'Is that you, Charles?' And now she can't get him out of the house nights. You see, her husband's name is Arthur. So long."
Sabrina now falls in love with a press agent with the hectic chatter. He proposes and is accepted, and Sabrina shows her love and devotion by going his bail when he is arrested for permitting his jealousy to get the better of him in a restaurant.