The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great "White Way"McGaffey, Kenneth
General
The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great "White Way"
McGaffey, Kenneth
Theater -- Fiction
You know Wilbur is of Spanish descent even though he was born in
Canarsie, and he has a very jealous disposition; so the night after I
had promised to be his own little star of hope he discovered me in a
certain cafe with another party. This other party was a dramatic critic
and I was touting Wilbur's show, but Wilbur didn't know that, so when he
saw me sitting there having the time of my young life he lost his nanny
and caused a scene, forgetting this other party was a critic in his
passion.
The head waiter threw them both out, and the critic, seeing the police
coming, said: "This is an actor trying to lick me," and naturally the
cops nearly beat poor Wilbur to a pulp.
I went down to the station house and tried to get Wilbur out, but the
police were so rude that I had to tell them where to get off, and they
threatened to jug me, so I slid.
Wilbur got out the next day, though, and told me over the 'phone that he
loved me all the more for trying to come to his rescue. I wish they
would import the Emporia police force here. I can lick him myself.
My! is it that late? Wilbur will be waiting to take me over to Childs'.
So long!
Sabrina returns to the chorus so that she can keep an apartment,
a maid and an automobile without causing comment. She also talks
of getting a house-boat for the summer with some girl friends
and discourses on the advisability of having the wardrobe
mistress for a chaperone.
CHAPTER NINE
"Virtue has its own reward and that's all it ever gets," remarked
Sabrina, the Show Girl, as we met her on the street. "I am once again a
wage-earner. This floating around town as one of the idle rich is all to
the peaches for a while, but as a continuous performance it makes a poor
showing. You know when I first became an heiress I had a call-board put
up in my boudoir and a little notice pinned on it that read, 'Rehearsal,
10 o'clock to-morrow, everybody,' and then I would lay in bed all morning
and make faces at it.
"Everybody had a large bunch of fun kidding me about my inheritance till
I was nearly bug. Why, would you believe it? I couldn't go to dinner or
riding with a gentleman friend, but some humorous dame sitting at
another table would arch her eyebrows and then, if I introduced them to
the gent, they would say, 'I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Suchandsuch;
how are things in Pittsburg?'
"At last it got so bad that I decided to go back to work and earn my
little twenty per, so that I could keep my automobile and wear good
clothes without the slightest taint of suspicion on my character. With
that noble end in view I started on the still hunt. Nothing doing with
that traveling thing.
"I tucked my little scrapbook under my arm and sat in the waiting-room.
After hanging around in there for about half an hour I would be
permitted to glide into the big boss. I had a nice little monologue
framed up as to my virtues--no, that's the wrong word--ability.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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