After that little digression I’ll show you this girl on the road singing choruses with the bunch, and just a bit swell-headed because she was in a position to call the manager by his first name. That didn’t help her with the rest of the crowd any, and they called her names when they were where she couldn’t hear them, while at the same time there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t have changed places with her in a holy minute.
She had one or two fights on her hands, but she always won out.
The manager found out she had a figure that would have been worth a place in the front row of the merry-merry of Weber and Fields when that firm was at its best. Here was a chance that a good, clever, astute fellow like him couldn’t very well overlook, and he proceeded to have her taught a few dances of the kind that are not sanctioned in polite society, or even on the stage, or which make any pretence to being legitimate. He was working on the principle that all is grist that comes to the mill, and he was also looking ahead.
There are, as a rule, a pretty gay lot of boys in those Southern towns, and they are not averse to paying a good bit of money for a show after the show, especially if it is the kind that is forbidden. If the sensuous dance of the Nautch girl can be imitated in all of its windings, twistings and quiverings by a shapely American girl whose disregard for clothing amounts to almost contempt—that is, on certain occasions—there is enough money to make it an object not only for the performer but the manager.
“I am going to put you up against a proposition that will make the hit of your life,” was the way he started it.
“That’s me,” she said; “what is it?”
“Why, do a stunt in the altogether for the sports.” Then he took a couple of extra puffs at his cigar to keep his nerve up.
“The altogether—what’s that?”
She had an idea what it was, but she wanted to get it straight.
“Oh, it’s all the rage down here—you dance without much clothes on. All the girls are wild to get some of the money, but there’s nothing doing with them, for your figure will make them look like a lot of kippered herrings that’s been smoked for a week. You see, we’re in this business for the coin, and we might as well get it and get it quick. If we don’t there’ll be a thousand others after it. It’s a case of take it or leave it and it’s up to you. How about it?”