At one end of the room is an orchestra, consisting of a piano and a violin. I don’t need to call your attention to the fact that the fellow who is playing the violin knows his business. You can tell that by the way he handles his instrument. He never learned that touch out of a book, nor did he acquire that technique at the rate of ten lessons for a dollar, cash in advance. A few years before he was playing nocturnes and sonatas before fashionable audiences for big money, but he hit the slide and now he’s at the bottom—a dollar a night and drinks for ragtime.
The hands on the clock which mark the flight of time show exactly midnight, and business is at high tide. It’s a case of get the money between now and three o’clock and then slow down, and every aggressive waiter in the place is hustling as if his life depended on it.
A girl is standing at the piano as the orchestra strikes the introduction of a song. Not a bad-looking girl if you observe her closely. Rather a strong face, good, honest blue eyes, set well apart, and a chin in which there is some hint of determination and self-reliance. She has a trim little figure, not voluptuous, but good to look at—the kind of a figure that seems to belong in an evening gown, and which men turn around to look at.
The only thing that stamps her as an habitue of the place is her dress. Its gaudiness was made for the night. It is a street beacon which proclaims at every step, “follow me.” The picture hat, with the sweeping red feather, heightens the effect. It is all very stagey, and would look as garish as spangles in the honest light of day.
But this is not a daylight scene, so we’ll let that pass.
“Ha, there, you noisy guys, cut out that chinnin’; Little Melba’s goin’ ter sing. Cheese it.”
It is the strident voice of a waiter that admonishes a noisy party at one of the tables, and it has an immediate effect.
It’s just as well, you know, to pay a little attention to the advice of a waiter in a place like this.
And so she sings her song.
It is a refrain with a swing to it, and it tells the story of a man and a woman in a rather affecting way, and for her loyalty to him, the man calls the woman his pal.