"Oh, we can get the wardrobe mistress for a chaperone, but why talk shop; and besides she gets a bun on and goes to sleep in a hamper, and we girls have to pack our own bundles, and if she got soused while chaperoning the mob it would take away the otherwise proper air of refinement and leave us open to the gibes and scoffs of those who were not so fortunate as to be invited to our houseboat.

"Say, I don't want to indulge in brag or ostentation, but the gown I am going to wear to the Friar festival they are going to pull off in May is going to have some cla.s.s to it.

"Wilbur--that's my betrothed--is going to be one of the main guys, and when it comes his day to get the showing keep your eye on muh.

"I think Mr. Klaw and Mr. Erlanger are just the nicest men to give the Friars the New York Theatre for the big doings.

"You want to go. All our set will be there with their hair in a braid.

"Oh, yes; Wilbur and I are getting along just splendid. We have been engaged now for nearly two weeks and have only broken it off three times.

"I went to see 'Miss Hook of Holland' the other night and Wilbur got jealous and told me that if his show wasn't good enough for me to see without having to go to others to just come across with his ring and he would cancel the engagement.

"I, being a girl of some spirit and pride, just naturally yanked Mr.

Ring off and threw it at him.

"That made him hedge and before long we were cooing over a bottle of wine like a couple of turtle doves.

"You can't take any too much off these men. Keep 'em guessing; thats my system. And then they will walk sideways, so as to not overlook any bets.

"Take that Alla McSweeney for example. She falls in love and is always on the job, like Faithful Fido. Sits around the flat and gazes at his photo all day and from quitting time on she is there with her ear to the ground waiting to hear him get out of the elevator.

"That aint little Sabrina's graft.

"Nix. Wilbur calls up and I tell him to wait a minute and let him cool his heels downstairs for a while, and then when I do send for him to come up he is more glad to see me and manages to amuse himself in hunting for a stray glove or a handkerchief.

"And then sometimes when he calls up I am out, just to let him know that he is not the only star performer.

"That stunt keeps them at heel all the time and so busy trying to keep track of you that they don't have time to look for any other dame. So that it works both ways for the dealer, and a couple of tears will always copper any wrong play you make.

"This Beatrice Fairfax dope may be all right in the simple country maiden, but it don't go in the show business worth a whoop. You've got to be on your toes in this game and play no steady system.

"My, how I run on! Here I will be late for rehearsal and will have to give the stage manager an excuse and he will fall for it until some time I have got good reason for being late, and then he will call me.

"Say, is it considered au fait for a bride-about-to-be to do a little plugging for wedding presents this early in the game? Well, so long."

Sabrina in this chapter attends a beefsteak party and becomes involved in an argument with a certain party who was formerly her roommate but whom she left quietly and by night.

CHAPTER TEN

"Don't I look like a tea store chromo?" inquired Sabrina as Estelle, her maid, opened the door. "Oh, such a time I had! Never again will I go to see that Alla McSweeney. Pipe my dial! Get onto the scratch! There are some wounds that even powder cannot hide. It all started this way. The girls down at Wilbur's show decided to give a beefsteak in honor of the prima donna getting the can. Believe me, if they had let a hanging piece fall on her she would have got but half what was coming to her. Cat!

Well, I should say so, dear. She spoiled the whole effect of that 'I'd Rather Be a Lemon Than a Quince' number just because she wouldn't let the pony girls share the spot in the picture. Honest, she caused more troubles than Louis Nethersole's English actors ever imagined they had.

"I met her socially several times, and she certainly was perfectly lovely to me. But when she got back on the stage, why, she even had the stagehands stepping sideways, and you know them. And the manager couldn't call his soul his own until he had loaded her into a cab and on her way. Wilbur told me that while on the road that between watching the panners in the box offices and keeping her from throwing a fit on the stage he got gray-headed. As for her maid, I can only say, 'Help that poor creature.' One time the maid pinched her foot while b.u.t.toning her shoe and what does the prima donna do but bounce her whole makeup box on the top of the maid's defenseless n.o.b. And the way she looks on the street compared to what she does on the stage, that makeup box must certainly have been of some size. Of course I am not roasting the poor creature, for it may be temperament instead of temper, but I am merely stating what I have heard.

"But to get back to the big eat. The prima donna got too gay and when they struck New York the home office got wise and she wouldn't stand a cut in her salary, so they just naturally decorated her with the festive bug and told her to take a whirl at vaudeville or something else real mean. Say, when the news got out that she was to leave everybody was so happy that even the chorus men went out and bought each other a beer.

What do you think of that? Well, anyway the mob got together after the performance and decided to celebrate the event in fitting and proper style by getting soused, and Alla kindly donated her new flat. Yes, the Judge caught a sleeper on Wall Street and she was in strong with the cop on the beat and the people on the floor below her had moved on account of the noise. Selfish people. They didn't want to do anything all night but sleep, and Alla complained that they were wearing out the steam pipe by pounding on it.

"After the show the whole outfit cleaned all the makeup off except behind the ears and took it on the lope for Alla's domicile. Me being the guest of honor, I naturally kicked in late. Gee! everybody of any importance was there, even some of the princ.i.p.als, and every other show in town sent at least one representative. Say, the drum was so crowded that some of the couples had to turn the fire escape into a conservatory. They would crawl out there and bombard the neighborhood with empty bottles, until the cop on the corner would rap and then for some two or three minutes the block would be as silent as a tomb.

"Wilbur of course was there in his official capacity as press agent, to not only add tone to the gathering, but to make sure that it reached the night desk of all the papers, for if these society guys get a column and a half they ought to be willing to slip us poor chorus dolls a couple of sticks and keep it from under police news.

"I was there to see that Wilbur did not, under the influence of the charming company, make any remarks that might be misconstrued by any of the a.s.sembled gathering as a declaration of love. For them dolls are always on the job and the only time they don't catch a live one is when their hands are tied. Jealous? What! Me? Not so you can notice it, but I ain't going to have anybody have anything on me, and while I caused no scenes, I left the impression that I had Wilbur trained so that he would roll over and play dead at the word of command. While these 'keep off the gra.s.s' signs don't do much good, still they run a horrible bluff.

Did Wilbur get wise to this move on my part? Not on your life! If he found out that I was, figuratively speaking, riding herd on him, he would get chesty and all swelled up until it would be my painful duty to lance him. I don't know yet whether Wilbur is a rhinestone Billie or a Whisky amber Billie with a dash of bitters Billie, but I am On the Job Betty, all right, all right.

"Well, to get back to the beefsteak. After all the guests had a.s.sembled, which was maybe some 2 a.m., they started in. It was merely the ordinary stunt of beer and beefsteak and beefsteak and beer, but the hours were enlivened by the vaudeville performances of the guests. This was before the precinct sergeant knocked on the door. One old frump that must have been tramming a mace in the Roman Hanging Gardens got a yen that was doing imitations she had Elsie Janis and Gertrude Hoffman looking like a couple of false starts. Another took the hooks out of her ma.r.s.el wave and did that time-worn stunt of 'Laska.' Then one of the chorus men gave an imitation of George Cohan, as usual. But that don't explain the scratches; does it?

"To go back sometime, there was a certain skirt that I used to room with in Chicago when we were both broke, but one night she went out with a bunch of siss-boom-ah! boys and came home with a large and juicy snoot full and spent the early morning hours in leaning out of the window of the apartment and whistling through her fingers to the milkmen, as well as staging a disrobing number in the middle of the room with the curtains up to such an extent that the inhabitants of the outlying districts had to wait sometime for their morning milk.

"This, naturally grated on my refined sensibilities, so the next morning while she was yet beating the hay, I packed my little suitcase and took it on the run away from there, leaving her, you might say, on the pan. I went into the pony ballet of a La Salle Theatre show--can you see me as a pony?--and I heard that she was advancing Art with a stock burlesque in South Chicago. That evening she was among those present at the aforementioned social function. And while we kissed and embraced each other with the affection of long lost sisters, still I could detect above the odor of c.o.c.ktails an underlying current of soreness. So we clinched, but I took particular pains to see that we went clean in the breakaway.

"A young gentleman from Pittsburg was one of the guests and this creature naturally put herself forward to make him have a real nice time and, while I am true to Wilbur, still I think it my duty to be kind to every one. This Chicago party got the hunch that I was trying to beat her to this Pittsburg wop and she managed to get him in a corner and I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was making a strenuous effort to reveal some of my past, and, while I have never done anything that would cast a breath of suspicion on my spotless character, still I knew that this party would not hesitate for a minute to do some romancing, so I naturally edged over toward that particular corner as if I was not noticing myself do it, and overheard her inform the gent, that while I had the outward appearance of an innocent young babe, I was a viper at heart, and had beat it out of Chicago with some ten or twelve thousand dollars' worth of her personal jewelry.

"Shucks! All the jewelry she ever had was a diamond stickpin she bit out of a gentleman's scarf when they were going home in a cab, and all she had left of that was the p.a.w.n ticket.

"Naturally hearing the libelous remarks, I was compelled to defend myself, so I quietly interrupted her conversation by remarking lightly over her shoulder, 'Ah! I see, Laura, that you are still a member of the Arm and Hammer band, and I wish to mention in pa.s.sing that the only ten or twelve thousand dollars' worth of jewelry you ever had you returned to the property man every night after the ballroom scene.'

"As for me eloping with your belongings all you ever had was a dirty handkerchief kimona, a Fluffy Ruffles skirt and a near-seal jacket, and you had to throw a chill when you entered a cafe so as not to have to take that off. If you had you would have been disgraced for life."

After those kind remarks Laura's goat naturally make a quick exit. She jumped to her feet, and with one of those 'Parted on Her Bridal Tour'

expressions, said: 'It's you, is it, Sabrina; you were always noted as the b.u.t.ting-in Kid. But now if you have got all of that humorous monologue of yours out of your system you can toddle right along and sell your matches, as this kind gentleman and I are discussing a few words in private and do not wish them to get all over town.'

"'Can that chatter,' said I, 'and don't forget the happy days you spent at Sid Euson's.' Right there is where I got that scratch. But I being pretty nifty with my fins gave her a cuff on the chops that she won't have to put down in her diary to remember. I was just fishing for an opening to land when Wilbur stayed my upraised arm, and I could only give her a kick on the limb with my French heel. Naturally the noise and the words attracted some attention even from that bunch; that is, it could be heard above the usual hum of conversation. The dame, knowing that I was in the right, tried to tuck the Pittsburg party under her arm and duck the dump, but Pittsburg being a game guy, stuck for the big show, and Laura loped for the 'L' alone.

"Wilbur was naturally surprised and grieved at my actions, and for a moment allowed the green-eyed monster to take up standing room in his heart, thinking that I had succ.u.mbed to the wealth of the coal dealer, but my ready outburst of maidenly tears quickly set me to rights. That was the only thing that marred the evening, except one of the girls spoke kindly to a chorus man, and he, poor fellow, threw a fainting fit and we had to force the only jig juice in the crowd between his clinched teeth before he could be revived.

"Yes, I am still on the stage, but I have got the stage manager trained so that I only have to slip him a five spot any night I fail to appear.

No, there isn't much doing except that some of the girls are rehearsing for the soul kiss contest, but I personally do not have to advertise.

"What! Going? Say, on your way down tell the barhop to mix me up a life preserver in a rose gla.s.s."

Sabrina touches on the advantages of having a hotel for chorus girls and makes several comments on the dramatic possibilities of "The Mangled Doughnut," with which she is rehearsing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Say," remarked Sabrina, as we met her in front of her favorite cafe, "say, loosen up, cough, give down, come to, kick in. You've got to donate for a couple of tickets to the annual benefit of the Unemployed or Otherwise Disabled Chorus Girls' Home, and the quicker you come across the quicker your suffering will be over. Sure we are going to have a benefit that will make even the Friar Festival get up and hump itself. And you know that's going to be some show. The Chorus Girls'

Mutual Knocking Society is going to build a home so that the poor doll who comes in from the high gra.s.s in her normal condition, broke, can have some place to go and rest and refresh herself without having to hock a couple of wedding rings before she can have her hotel trunk sent up.