WEDDING RINGS AND FOOTLIGHTS
There are several titles which would cover this story with equal aptness, and one of them is The Siren Song of the Burlesque Lady. Another one that would sound well is the Corralling of the Willie Boy. In fact they would do well together—a great deal better than the lady and the boy did. I call him boy in this story, but he is really a man so far as years and stature go, that is all, and he is learning a lot every day, so much so that if he keeps on he will some day be a man in everything.
The burlesque show with which this perfect lady was a spear carrier, as well as a few other things, hit the Bowery early in the season, and opened up with a roar that could be heard many blocks. It was the same old thing only a little more so, and the line-up was composed of a bunch of husky dames who ought to have been carrying the hod instead of giving an exhibition of beef on the hoof. The roster is a very familiar one, with the beef-eaters sometimes in the background like scenery, and then again in the foreground to give the boys a good look at the tights, two or three ginger girls, who had a small amount of talent with a great amount of nerve, who did stunts in the olio, and the usual collection of Irish and Hebrew comedians, of which the least said the better. The names on the roster would look like a collection of heroines from the Waverly novels, with Pearl, Pansy and Myrtle in the lead by a couple of good lengths. It was put together according to the recipe of a well-known manager, which was this:
They had a hot time in Minneapolis when the show hit town
“The people who pay their money for these kind of shows, my boy, don’t want beauty, or brains or talent. They’d go to sleep with Sarah Bernhardt doing the death scene in ‘Camille,’ and they’d call Booth in ‘Richard the Third’ a frost. What they want is legs—good, big husky legs that can take all the wrinkles out of the biggest size of pink tights on the market. They want quantity, not quality. Give them that and you’ll get their ten, twenty and thirty every time.”
He wore big diamonds, had a bank roll the size of a Hamburger steak, and so he must have been in right. Besides he always had a bottle of wine with his meals, and he didn’t care what kind of wine it was, so long as the label was attractive; which goes to show that his money was coming in so fast that his palate couldn’t keep up with it.
On the night the Fair Maids of Gotham opened, the Willie Boy, very fly up to a certain point, but with a soft sucker part about as big as a Derby hat, planted himself in one of the front seats. He had been mixing up with sports all of his life, and as a result the corners on him were as hard as flint. His roll was divided in four parts and stowed away in four separate places for safety’s sake, and when it came to a hurry touch he was prepared to dig down into his change pocket and produce a few pennies with verdigris on them as the extent of his capital. He had a block and a counter for every proposition that came his way and when anything came off he always managed to land his percentage and ride, even though everybody else walked.
The orchestra had crushed through its preliminary canter, the lights went down, the buzz of talk let up for a moment, and as he settled himself back in his seat with a big cigar in his mouth the curtain slid up for the opening chorus. The grenadiers in front swung their legs coquettishly, and pranced about like two-legged pachyderms as they delivered the goods in the shape of a song, which stated in very wobbly and uncertain rhyme that they were very jolly, very entertaining, and that they were out for a lark and were willing to take chances. It was all very affecting, and it might have been going on yet if the star of the show, known professionally as the principal boy, hadn’t butted in like a football player when the cue, “Here comes the Prince,” was given by a perfect lady with a forty-six-inch bust. She was so thoroughly upholstered with rhinestones that she looked like some new kind of an electric light proposition on legs. Willie sized her up with the eye of a connoisseur, and he fell to wondering whether or not among all that paving of cut glass there might not be a true gem.