"EVERYBODY'S GIRL"
SYNOPSIS
Florence is a shop girl, of the quiet, sweet, clean type. She finds it hard to make ends meet. Her more practical, more worldly-wise friend, Ella, the shoe-store cashier, suggests that they share her present quarters in "Brickdust Row"—a decaying tenement block. By this division of expense they can both save "enough to buy an extra pickle for lunch once in a while."
When Florence sees "Brickdust Row" she is depressed by its dull aspect, its dreary environment. But she accepts Ella's proposal, and the two girls begin their sharing of the tiny room as cheerfully as possible.
Through a terrifying experience with a male flirt Florence comes to learn that Ella has long been used to accepting attentions and escort from men outside the home atmosphere. Ella explains that since the owner of "Brickdust Row" is so avaricious that he allows the parlors to be rented out, no place is provided where the girls may entertain men properly, and so the society of the opposite sex must be sought and enjoyed "here, there and everywhere."
The idea is repugnant to Florence, who is unusually fine in her ideas of propriety; but she comes to see that Ella's way is the only outlet for youth and the desire for companionship, brightness, life.
She is very choice in her selection of escorts, and never permits any young man she meets to discover even where she lives.
The owner of the tenements is a bored, money-spoiled young man—Alexander Blinker. His lawyer tries to make him take enough interest in his tenements to change the leases so that the girls can have a place to meet gentlemen with the shield of propriety. Blinker is too anxious to get to a golf tournament even to listen.
Florence grows used to her rôle of "Everybody's Girl," and while she is decidedly decorous, she learns the arts and affectations of the "street meeting."
Blinker has to come to his lawyer in order to sign some important documents; they are not prepared. He must stay in the city over Sunday. The idea fills him with disgust; he longs for the hunting trip he has planned. In sheer desperation he decides to do that which his butler considers equivalent to jumping from the window, in view of his social status—Blinker determines to go to Coney Island.