"I did all a human being could do to bring her to—rubbed her hands and slapped her face; but even then she was in no fit condition to appear. Go on she would, in spite of my prayers, and what does she do when she comes tripping on, blithe and gay as a school girl, but stumble and do a slide on her profile half way across the O.P. side, just as the tenor was starting the chorus to his song, 'Bevey in Little Children.' He being a nervous party springs a blue note that got the musical director hysterical and he forgot to give the bass drum man his cue and the whole thing went to blazes.
"It was lucky that the stage manager was making a date on the dressing room stairs, or what she would have got would have been a-plenty.
"You know Laura O'Toole who was married a few weeks ago? Well, she is again a widow. Her husband got a job with a road show. She was thinking of wearing mourning, but her husband staked her to the price of a new spring suit and she said that conventionalities could go hang, as she had a shape and was going to show it. I don't blame her. Why let grief put it on style?
"Gee, it won't be long before summer, and then we will get our salaries reduced. That's the trouble with the people I work for. Every time they get a success here in town they start to reduce salaries. If the company would stand for it we would be owing them money every week before the end of the season. They think a girl hasn't nothing to do but ride around in an automobile and look sweet.
"Well, me to get on the war paint. Say, have you offered your services for the Friar Festival yet? Well, you had better get on the job if you want to consider yourself classy. So long! Oh, you know the ushers will hand flowers over the footlights if you just tell him who they are for. Bye-bye."
The show opens on Broadway and Sabrina shows surprise at the number of harsh words in the English language. She discloses the methods of the Lease Breakers Association and mentions the events that transpired at a little informal gathering.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"My, did you see what the critics said about our show?" exclaimed Sabrina, Show Girl, as her maid opened the door. "Wasn't it awful? I didn't know there were so many mean words in the book. And the nerve of them to pan me after meeting several of them socially. One of them said that I looked so good standing up that it was a crime to have me sit down, but when I spoke for goodness sake get the muffler. The mut! I should go down and horsewhip him. But no, that's what us people that figure in public are bound to get. They never say a good word until after the minister says, 'Dust thou art to dust returneth,' and then some cluck is liable to come along and dig up a bunch of letters.
"I am thinking seriously of taking a flat until summer. I don't like this hotel, one has to keep so many conventionalities. Why, the other day my 'phone was out of order and I ran down to the desk in my kimona to telephone and the clerk had the nerve to call me for it. Can you surpass that? I told him to open his ears and let his head cool off.
"I was looking at a nice flat the other day, but they want me to sign a lease. What do I know about a lease? There ain't no half salary clause in it. If I did sign the lease and want to beat it all I would do would be to call in the Lease Breakers' Association and I could leave the next day. That mob responds to a call like the crowd in the Cadillac when some one says, I'll buy,' and you can take it from me that's going some.