Nar, I wa’n’t no singer myself, though I ’ad piped occysional, to me mytes on shipboard, but I thought if I couldn’t do as well as them as ’ad myde us suffer, I ought to be jolly well ashymed o’ meself. Wot was more to the point, I didn’t ’ave the price of a pot o’ beer to bless myself with, an’ thinks I, this might be a charnst to pinch a bit of a ’aul. So I ups an’ walks darn to the styge, gives the bloke at the pianner a tip on the chune, an’ starts off on old “Ben Bobstye.” They was shellbacks in the audience quite numerous as I seen, an’ it done me good to ’ear ’em parnd their mugs after I’d gort through. W’en I picked up the abalone shell like the rest of ’em done, an’ parssed through the ’all, wot with dimes an’ two-bit pieces I ’ad considerable, an’ I was natchurly prard o’ me luck.
Old Bottle Myer come up an’ says, “’Ow much did you myke, me friend? Five fifteen, eh? Well, me charge will be on’y a dollar this time, but if yer want to come rarnd to-morrow night, yer can. If yer do all right, I’ll tyke yer on reg’lar.”
Well, I joined the comp’ny sure enough, an’ sung every night, pickin’ up a feerly decent livin’ at the gyme, for it was boom times then, an’ money was easier to come by. I had me grub with all the other hartists in a room they called the “Cabin,” darn below the styge, connected to a side dressin’-room by a narrer styre. Nar, one o’ the lydies in the comp’ny was the feature o’ the show, an’ she were a bit out o’ the ord’n’ry, I give you my word!
She was a reg’lar whyle of a great big trouncin’ Jew woman as ever I see. Twenty stone if she were an arnce, an’ all o’ six foot two, with legs like a bloomin’ grand pianner w’en she put on a short petticoat to do a comic song. She was billed as “Big Becky,” an’ by thet time she was pretty well known abart tarn.
She ’ad started in business in San Francisco at the hextreme top o’ the ’Ebrew haristocracy of the Western Addition, ’avin ’parssed ’erself off for a member o’ one o’ the swellest families o’ St. Louis, an’ she did cut a jolly wide swath here, an’ no dart abart thet! She was myde puffickly at ’ome everyw’eres, an’ flashed ’er sparklers an’ ’er silk garns with the best o’ ’em. Lord, it must ’ave took yards o’ cloth to cover ’er body! Well, she gort all the nobs into line, an’ ’ad everythink ’er own wye for abart two months, as a reg’lar full-blowed society favoryte. Day an’ night she ’ad a string o’ men after ’er, or ’er money, w’ich was quite two things, seein’ she ’ad to graft for every penny she bloomin’ well ’ad.
W’ile she were at the top notch of the social w’irl, as you might sye, along come another Jewess from the East, reckernized ’er, an’ spoils Big Becky’s gyme, like a kiddie pricks a ’ole in a pink balloon. She was showed up for a hadventuress, story-book style, wot ’ad ’oodwinked all St. Louis a year back, an’ then ’er swell pals dropped awye from ’er like she was a pest-’ouse. Them wot ’ad accepted ’er invites, an’ ’ad ’er to dinner an’ the theatre an’ wot-not, didn’t myke no bones abart it—they just natchully broke an’ run. Then all sorts o’ stories come art, ’ow she borrowed money ’ere, there an’ everyw’ere, put ’er nyme to bad checks, an’ fleeced abart every bloomin’ ’Ebrew in tarn. She’d a bin plyin’ it on the grand, an’ on the little bit too grand.
She was on trial for abart two dyes, an’ the city pypers was so full o’ the scandal that the swells she ’oodwinked ’ad to leave tarn till it blew over, an’ San Francisco quit larfin at ’em. I give yer me word the reporters did give art some precious rycy tyles, an’ every ’Ebrew wot ’ad ’ad Big Becky at a five o’clock tea didn’t dyre go art o’ doors dye-times.
Well, for the syke o’ ’ushin’ matters up, her cyse were compromised an’ the prosecution withdrawed, she bein’ arsked in return to git art o’ tarn. Instead o’ thet, not ’avin’ any money, she went an’ accepted an offer from a dime museum here, an’ begun fer to exhibit of ’erself in short skirts every afternoon an’ evenink reg’lar, to the gryte an’ grand delight of every chappie who ’adn’t been fooled ’imself. After that she done “Mazeppa” at the Bella Union Theatre in a costume wot was positively ’orrid. It was so rude that the police interfered, an’ thet was back ten year ago, w’en they wa’n’t so partickler on the Barbary Coast as they be naradyes. Then she dropped darn to Bottle Myer’s an’ did serios in tights. She was as funny as a bloomin’ helephant on stilts, if so yer didn’t see the plyntive side of it, an’ we turned men awye from the door every night.
I don’t expect Becky ever ’ad more’n a spoonful o’ conscience. But with all ’er roguery, she was as big a baby inside as she were a giant outside, w’en yer onct knew ’ow to tyke ’er, was Big Becky. ’Ard as brarss she was w’en yer guyed ’er, but soft as butter w’en yer took ’er part, w’ich were somethink as she weren’t much used to, for most treated ’er brutle. Some’ow I couldn’t help likin’ ’er a bit, in spite o’ meself. I put in a good deal o’ talk with ’er, one wye an’ another, till I ’ad ’er confidence, an’ could get most anythink art of ’er I wanted. She told me ’er whole story, bit by bit, an’ it were a reg’lar shillin’ shocker, I give yer my word!
Amongst other things, she told me that a Johnnie in tarn nymed Ikey Behn ’ad gort precious balmy over ’er, before she was showed up, an’ ’ad went so far as to tyke art a marriage license in ’opes, when she seen ’e meant biz, she’d marry ’im. ’E’d even been bloomin’ arss enough to give it to ’er, and she ’ad it yet, an’ was ’oldin’ it over ’is ’ed for blackmyle, if wust come to wust. She proposed for to ’ave a parson’s nyme forged into the marriage certificate that comes printed on the other side from the license.