The girl was playing with the ring, turning it around her finger aimlessly, never once looking and saying no word. Bill drained his glass, put it down, and then looked at the stage.
“Do I get it now?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes, now.”
He held out his hand, palm upward, with a suggestive movement, and in just fifteen seconds it held an order on the Assay Office for the amount. It was as easy as going into a store and buying a blue flannel shirt. Thirty days later—a record for speed, by the way—the girl opened in San Francisco as the star in a farce comedy on which ten thousand dollars had been spent before the curtain went up. She had talent, but not enough to make good, and after a week’s losing run the play was shelved. She gained a lot of experience and had a suite of rooms at the best hotel in town, which was something for a girl who had previously been housed in an eight by ten. That was what gave her a running jump into the profession, so to speak. She landed on both feet now, but none of her friends would dare bring up the subject of the glorious West to her.
That were best forgotten.
WHEN FISTS WERE TRUMPS
There was no reason why they should have called the play “The Casino Girls” except that it might have sounded attractive to the out-of-town people, and the word Casino, in the mind of the average manager, is always good for the money. But it was a good show, nevertheless, with lots of nice girls in tights and spangles, and you could spend two hours there about as well as you could anywhere.
But this isn’t to be a story about a show in general, nor is it written with the object of handing a bouquet to the estimable gentleman who had the “Casino Girls” under his wing. He had troubles of his own, but he was paid for that. If some one would sit down beside me for an hour or so—that is, some one who knew—and tell me nice little stories about all of the girls—or shall I say ladies?—with that show, I am quite sure I would have enough material to last me for a good many weeks to come, and it wouldn’t be scandal, either. I should leave that for the religious papers and a few of the sanctimonious dailies.