But the words don’t count here; it’s the voice, and you’ll see why they call her Little Melba. Every note is true and clear, and there is never a falter at the high ones.
It doesn’t need a waiter to command order now; the first line of that song, as sung by her, did more than all the waiters in the world could do.
It commanded the respectful attention of that mixed mob.
At the finish of the first chorus, a sailor in the exuberance of his admiration, and feeling that he must give voice to his sentiments in some tangible manner, roared out:
“You’re all right, old pal; you’re all right.”
She smiled at the compliment, nodded at him in a friendly way, and then she continued.
Every night she sang there—ten songs—and she was paid exactly the same as the waiters—one dollar, but she received in addition certain privileges, the details of which need not be entered into here, because they have nothing to do with the story.
One of the waiters—the one who had called out for order—was her man. She called him another name, and he was known to the world by still another. As a matter of fact, although he didn’t know it, he belonged to her—although he thought she belonged to him—for the clothes that he wore were bought with her money, the food that he ate she paid for, and it was she who rented the place which he called home. She was the bread winner, she bore the burden of life, and she took the blows. The police kept their eyes on her, but paid no attention to the man—the real criminal.
As the last notes of her song forced their way through the clouds of tobacco smoke, three men in evening dress came in. They were of the usual kind of visitors from which the waiters always expect a wine order. They wore evening clothes like men who had been used to them all their lives, and it didn’t need the sharp eyes of a waiter in a tough resort like this to detect that air of prosperity which invariably forms an invisible halo about money.
The square-jawed, square-shouldered young fellow who took the order was not disappointed. It was wine, and as he uncorked the bottle, full of a sense of his own importance, one of them asked, casually: