But she’s not drinking so hard now, opium is her god, and she spends most of her time with her pipe and her lamp. Her downward course has been a very rapid one, and her name has almost been forgotten.
The man at the next table is whispering to his friends:
“She was the greatest singer I ever heard, and many a time I’ve gone to the same show three times in one week just to hear her, and when a woman’s voice gets me like that you can bet it’s got to be good.”
“Get her to sing now; I’d like to hear her.”
“Sing now? Why, she couldn’t sound a note if her life depended on it. She’s got all she can do to talk plain. She looks like a piece of leather, doesn’t she? Yet she made the prettiest picture on the stage I ever saw.”
Her voice interrupted here.
It was harsh and strident in tone—there was little of the woman in it.
“Well, if you won’t buy me a drink I’ll buy one for myself; give me a whiskey, Jack, and don’t be all night about it, either.”
“Why don’t you get that Chinky of yours to buy you a drink?” remarks some one from the other side of the room.
“Why don’t you mind your own business? He’d buy me all the drinks I wanted if I would ask him, and that’s more than you would do. If anybody asks you just tell them that the Chinks are all right, see, and don’t be so new.”