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
"Did you hear about the bunch of us going yachting in Gym Bagley's yacht
The Hornet the other day? He calls it The Hornet because he got stung
when he bought it. The weather was all to the good the other afternoon,
so we hike up to Harlem and collar the ship, six of us, and, after
loading a bunch of bottled ballast on board, we started out. Gosh, the
water was lovely. Gym don't care what becomes of the blooming barge as
long as it doesn't get lost. You can even sink it, if you mark the spot.
We all leave our Merry Widow lids in the boathouse, 'cause the boat
wouldn't hold them, and sallied forth.
"Wilbur said he knew how to sail a boat. Come to find out later, it was
a stone boat he had been educated on.
"Well, we elected him the chauffeur and, after hoisting the sail, the
gallant craft with its merry-merry crew swung out into the stream. Yo
ho, my lads, yo, ho.
"The wind was blowing one way and we wanted to go the other, so after
nearly wrecking a couple of tugboats and a brick scow, we fixed the sail
so the wind would push the boat right along. Aye, aye, captain, a fish
sou'-sou' by east with the wind in his teeth! The sturdy vessel was just
tearing along. Honest, you could see it move--right along, just like a
clam, when Alla, who, you all know, is the human goat, in trying to
reach for a bottle of beer that didn't belong to her, fell overboard.
"It served her right and I told the gang to hit her on the nob with an
oar when she came-up. We dragged her in, however, and wrapped her up in
a bunch of coats and set her on the front stoop of the craft to dry.
"She got jerry to the fact that there was a bottle of jig juice in the
galley and at once threw a chill. Honest, to see that fluff do a stage
chill would have made a eel laugh, ha! ha! in that manner. She shook so
hard she nearly threw us all out of the scow, so that we finally had to
listen to her pleadings and pass her the booze.
"I was for letting her shake so if we wanted mixed drinks al we would
have to do was to put the glass in her mitt and say go to it, but some
of the gazabos in the mob got a sympathy streak and let her have it. I'd
a let her had it, all right, all right, the outside of the bottle right
on the marcel.
"The subterfuges these Janes will indulge in to accomplish their ends
makes my goat jump the barrier.
"Nothing else marred our pleasant little sail up the river except when
we opened the lunch box we found only one sandwich, and no one would eat
it. Everybody wanted to trade their interest in it for a bottle of beer,
and there was nearly a riot.
"It was finally settled by Wilbur, who is always the fair-haired boy
when it comes to emergencies. He took the sandwich and threw it
overboard and each and every member of the famished crew had another
eyedropper full of suds. If it hadn't been for him, we would be out
there yet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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