Lady Macbeth:—"Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers; the sleeping, and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil."
Macbeth, Act II., Scene 2.
The theatre appears to possess loadstone qualities for the masher; it is as attractive to them as the flame of the candle is for the moth or the flower for the bee. I have already in a preceding chapter said a great deal about the "mashing" that is done in the audience by both male and female exponents of the disreputable art. I shall now confine myself to the "mashers" in the profession and those who try to "mash" the profession. Some young gentlemen with more money than brains imagine that actresses have nothing else to do but receive attentions from the opposite sex, and that there is no "wall of China" around the virtue of any woman on the stage. They therefore not only make bold to talk freely about actresses, but are valiant enough to try to ensnare them by letters abounding in hyperbole and odorescent of cologne-besprent idiocy. The variety actress is the ideal prize of this class, and they are in their greatest glory when within the frolicsome precincts of the wine-room. I have seen many a young man whose hair was parted in the middle crow lustily over the successful capture of a ballet girl, when he himself had been the capture. These girls know what their charms are worth and hold them at that price, when they see a victim well dressed and with an apparently healthy pocket-book. They, in expressive but slangy language, lay for him. They are not foolish enough to invite him to their side; they allow him to make an apparent conquest which guarantees them all the greater gain. The young gentleman of whom I speak was lured in this way; and as she sat with well-rounded limbs pulsating through silken tights and gracefully thrown upon an opposite chair, and he leant over her whispering soft words and looking fondly upon her painted face, while they clinked champagne glasses, she with downcast eyes was playing innocence, but all the while congratulating herself upon the arch manner in which she had won him.
Just as bad as the female "masher" on the stage is the female "masher" who has no claims on the profession. The latter has studied her art perfectly, that it may assist her in throwing her net about the unsophisticated. Females of this class in the East make it their business to frequent the matinees, where with the assistance of the ushers, whom they remunerate handsomely for their co-operation, they gather a granger in, and within twelve hours or so send him home whining at his idiocy in not having resisted the temptation that left him penniless. The gay sirens who are in this business generally go in pairs. The usher locates them next to their victim, and once there they've got him for all the cash he took out of the family sock before leaving Jerusha and his eight little ones.
WORKING A "GREENY" AT A MATINEE.
The blonde beauties of the leg drama, or the fair burlesquers, as some people call them, are considered legitimate prey by the "mashing" fraternity. Indeed it is often a case of diamond cut diamond, for the burlesquers are themselves notoriously liberal in making acquaintances, and the majority of them will accept a midnight drive or a morning supper as readily as they do the friendship of the gentleman who tenders them. The bewildering array of limbs and shapely forms, the golden hair and apparently fresh and handsome faces set the young swells wild, and the rush for orchestra chairs down front where a quiet flirtation can be carried on shows the great extent of rivalry that exists among their number. Any number of scented notes on rose-tinted paper find their way through the stage-door into the hands of the giddy throng behind the scenes, and as they glance through it they laugh at the foolishness of the writer but agree to "work him" to the full extent of his wealth. The comedian who knows that the girls have got "another sucker on a string" comes up and wants to see the last "letter from home." He gives the girls a funny bit of advice about retaining their innocence if they would be happy, but adds that if there is anything in the fellow, to "catch on" at once—which of course the girls have already made up their minds to do.
FROM ONE OF THE "MASHED."
A veteran in the business says: "Actresses have the most marked talents for wheedling the gilded youth out of money. Such 'guys' and 'gillies' fancy that if they are known as the patrons and friends of stage stars all the world is staring at them and envying their conquests. Poor idiots, their entire conquest consists in that they make over their own common sense! The silly ninny rejoicing in the showy and artful woman's favors counts himself a privileged mortal, but his chief privilege in regard to a cunning, scheming stage siren is the privilege of paying her bills. Of the men with money she makes fools. When she scents a full pocket-book she runs it low. Her affection, so far as she has any to bestow, is probably lavished on a big animal of a loafer from whom she gets no money, and who, perhaps, beats her and makes her support him. It is a paradox of feminine nature that the women who are unscrupulous and heartless in wheedling men of money seem so lavishly free in bestowing favors and bounty on loaferish lovers, from whom they can make nothing. An actress is psychically a study, always curious and unaccountable, however talented."