When the week was done the company started—the company in this case being a couple of miners, who were in hard luck and who went ahead of the show; Bill and the girl.
I saw her the other night in a famous eating place on Broadway putting away a chop and a small bottle, and I wondered then if she remembered San Bernardino that June morning when everything she had in the world was held in one small bag which Bill carried.
The plan of procedure was simple. She was to get a date in a town, Bill was to go around and boom her as the best that ever hit the Coast, and tell of the hit she made in ’Frisco. Then when she came on the stage to do her dance the two hobos were to start the cheering. Toward the finish of the act one of them was to walk down the aisle to the footlights and toss up a handful of gold coins, and then the other was to follow suit. That would start the crowd giving up; for after all, people are like sheep, they will always follow a leader.
It was a good stunt, and there wasn’t any chance for a failure.
It worked out just as Bill figured it would, and it kept him busy enough looking after the money end of the game.
It was the turn in the tide for her so far as her fortunes and popularity were concerned, and she simply created a furore wherever she appeared. In those days she wore a twenty-dollar gold piece around her neck. It was held by a string which ran through a hole she had bored herself with a great deal of labor. It was the first piece of money she had ever received over the footlights and she said it was her mascot, and declared she would always keep it. It might have been her mascot, but I’ll bet a hundred to one that she hasn’t it now.
Put a good looking girl on the stage, have her make a hit so that she is talked about, and she’ll attract more men than a leg show in Paris. There’s an irresistible fascination about the stage that makes even bald-headed old papas fall. It’s a hard thing to figure out, but it’s a fact, nevertheless.
In this particular case they flocked around her like sheep for a shelter when a storm is in the air, and the girl took to wearing good clothes, ordered from ’Frisco, and using to their full capacity the services of a maid.
And then there came upon the scene the other man. He had hit the Coast from Colorado, and his mine was turning out the yellow stuff so fast that he had more than he could do to spend it. He was busily engaged in the exciting pastime of buying everything he saw when he met the girl that Bill was leading along the golden road to wealth. There was nothing half-way about his methods, so he promptly went out and bought the biggest diamond he could find, put it in an envelope upon which he wrote in lead pencil:
“The best stone for the nicest girl; come and have a bottle of wine with me after the show.”