Kenneth McGaffey

“ This business of hunting employment has got to be so balmy that I snort and jump sideways every time anybody says 'job.'
"Now that the first of the year has kicked in, I thought everything would be as merry as a marriage bell, but as yet there hasn't been a ripple on the water. The only thing that acts as a star of hope to my miserable existence is a date with a Summer stock that opens the first of June, and there is a heap of smoke around that. I wish some one would tip me off to some way of earning an honest living without having to resort to a sock full of sand or a strong arm. ”

“ Why, its Wilbur! He sees me! Do I look all ri'? Here, Wilbur, here. Sit down and have a drink, dear, I have been looking for you everywhere. Forget that deal last night. So long fellows. Waiter give me the check; I don't care what becomes of my money now."
Sabrina gives an automobile party to several of her friends so that they may enjoy the country air, but after investigating the atmosphere carefully the opinion of the entire party is that the only healthful ozone is that that comes out of a champagne bottle. ”

“ Imagine going home every night without wondering if your room is locked and the landlady sitting on your trunks at the top landing. You can just flounce into your nest any old time and know that everything is right there, unless one crafty girl has bribed the chambermaid for the key. ”

“ Honest, the way some girls steal is something awful. Take it from me, it's nothing less than stealing to swipe a wardrobe. Of course, if the show is going to close it's all right, but from a successful production, never. Lifting a scarfpin from a soused party is all right, for he is supposed to do something to remunerate the lady for wasting her time by taking her to supper. ”

“ A couple of whisky sales gentlemen joined our little gathering and proposed a race. You know I do so love athletic sports. I don't mean prize fighters or ball players, but feats of strength. The whisky gentlemen had a little the best start, for they had been running trial heats. The way we staged that drinking number was a crime. How we ended up I care not, neither do I spin. I can merely state that Mamie and I slid for home in a sea-going taxicab, leaving Wilbur saying things to the head waiter that no lady would listen to. ”

“ Won't you have a little drink, officer? Just smile on the gent in the front seat; he's right there with the distillery. Wilbur, chase the roof off a jug of suds for the Lieutenant. I tell you, Captain, on my honor as a lady, we are not going more that six miles an hour. Must take us to the station! Why, you low-down, monkey-faced excuse for a sparrow cop, would you have the crust to stand up in front of a judge and tell him that we were going faster than ten miles an hour? If you want to get us to the station it's a cinch you will have to push the machine. Walk! ”

“ But I couldn't work those stunts on my Wilbur; he's too wise, and being in the business he's hep to all that kind of work.
He's a good, nice, honest fellow, as press agents go, and I think I can safely trust him with my innocent heart.
If he don't—well, you know me. If he don't think he run up against the business end of a cyclone it will be because I got throat trouble and can't talk.
Honest, my fair young brow is commencing to get wrinkled trying to dope out whether I want to become a bride or lead the free and easy life of a bachelor girl. ”

“ 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 assembled 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. ”

“ I can't bear any one's teeth but my own on my Dutch braid. You know some people are sensitive that a-way. After the hair dressing number I inhale about $4 worth of breakfast and then lounge about my little nest. I call it my little nest because it is finished in birdseye maple. I always have eggs for breakfast, and Estelle puts on the finishing touches with a feather duster and I boss the job, smoking a cigarette. I always was strong for having things harmonize. I suppose it is my artistic temperament. I always drink cordials the same color as my hat. ”

“ Did I tell you about Mamie de Vere becoming a bride again? She believes in marrying at leisure and divorcing in haste. The justice of the peace that always ties her nuptial knot told her that if she bought a ticket she could save 50 cents per wedding and he would hand it to the happy bridegroom as her dowry. Well, anyway they got maried after the show, so that she wouldn't loose her job. I was maid of honor. Honest I was. ”

“ How I ever fell for him certainly gets me. How anybody could love a press agent or an actor gets me for that matter. I have been crossed in love and am running no more chances.
"I shall never get married. Never! That statement is for publication. I shall live in peace and quiet near some good cafe and drown my old age in mixed drinks.
"You needn't think I am soused, but I am going to tell you this. Unless Wilbur and I make up the Friar Festival will have to get along without my services. ”

“ Waiter, you are forgetting your duties in part.
"I finally got to bed and then I pulled off the big cry. Booze, you understand, and not because I lost that hot-air shooting, lush-working, expense-account-grubbing wah of a Wilbur. I should say not. Don't think that I wear pink tights and can't get the best man that ever breathed.
"I am not a bit like that Glonesganes creature. Why, she actually throws herself at the head of every man she meets. Honest, you can't take her out to supper in a crowd before she's engaged to some two or three in the party. ”

“ A bunch of these near-sports will rush a girl into a feedshop, and they have no more than got seated at the table before he will commence talking about the big dinner he has just had, so that the poor thing feels like a burglar if she eats anything more than a couple of lobsters. But not this Percival, he frankly admitted that he hadn't had anything to eat for a week and scratched no entries.
"I wish these New Yorkers were that way—nothing personal dear—but they have become so callous to feeding the merry-merry that they have the big eat dodging stunt down to a science. ”

“ I am willing to sacrifice nearly anything for Art, but when it comes to leaving nineteen dollars' worth of puffs in a dressing room where you can't pick your company, not for little Sabrina.
I used to have trouble enough with my number eighteen and lip stick and the bunch of near-lady kleptomaniacs that the manager made a great mistake taking on the road in the last show I was with.
Well, to get back to vaudeville, I don't know whether to do a single turn or put on a big act with a dancing scene or a prizefight in it. Those things go big nowadays. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am trying to get the Chorus Girls' Union to get together and pass a law charging so much for our time, just like a taxicab. Don't you think that would be a good idea? Lots of times the supper ain't worth the time she wastes on the cluck. They could have a little indicator fastened to their Merry Widow hat and as they leave the stage door turn down the flag and not read the meter until he had kissed you good-by in the hall, and then collect. In that way the doll would have the price of breakfast, and maybe a new gag or something for her wardrobe. ”

“ He says that the object in life of an agent and a chorus girl is to plant everything they can get their fins into whenever they can, for it don't last long, and the good people ain't healthy. And goodness knows I sure do need my health. For though I appear to be a strong, robust creature I am a frail woman.
"Wilbur can moan and groan around with a hangover for a couple of days, but I have to be right on the job all the time with this smiling face and laughing eye thing, or he would seek some other place for sympathy. ”

“ CHAPTER SIXTEEN "Where you all going?" demanded a voice, and looking around we discovered Sabrina, the Show Girl, and two of her girl friends seated in a big red automobile that was drawn up to the curb. "Come on, jump in," she continued. "We are out to commune with nature for a few minutes and you might just as well be a commuter as the rest of us. Ain't this the one grand weather?
"No, you sit back here. We will make Wilbur sit up in front so that we can see he don't grub the eats. ”

“ If I'd saved all the money I have been given to purchase troosos with I would have a bunch that would make Gladys Vanderbilt's layout look like a gingham wrapper. Sure, ain't it worth money to those wops to have the pure love of a good, true girl? ”

“ Sit at home and make sofa pillows? Why, there is no greater sport in the world than riding out to Sheepshead or Jamaica in an auto and then borrowing money from your escort to bet on the patty-pats. It's a great system. If you lose the John gets nothing, and if you win you take everything, so it is fair for all parties.
"If they want to do something truly noble they should put those moving picture shows out of business. Pretty soon when they want the chorus to show up they will let down a sheet, throw on the picture and turn loose, 'Welcome, your highness, welcome' on the phonograph. ”

“ Wilbur says it will never go, because they only got block stands, and an agent ain't got no show without at least one kind of a litho. Wilbur said it hurt the artistic instinct of a billposter in these hick towns to put up all block stands, and you generally have to slip them a little something to be sure that they burn up all the extra stuff, so that the manager of the company wouldn't find it should he go snooping around the bill room when the show gets in town. He says if they get a good litho of a killing or a chorus they will go out of the way to stick them up just for art's sake. ”

“ Nothing's too good for her and walking is hard on the feet. The more money the wop spends the bigger sport he thinks he is, but a fellow professional has honorable intentions, sometimes, and it is considered wise not to show what you are accustomed to until after he has bought the ring or written some letters. I may go out with some fellow and order everything from soup to nuts just to show him that I can, but the way I won Wilbur's heart was by ordering a cheese sandwich the first time he invited me out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I wouldn't be a lush worker like that Alla McCune for another $10,000 legacy. She's just started the habit lately. She thinks it's stylish. Sure, every time she goes out with a crowd that drink anything stronger than beer she thinks she is in society. Every time she gets a snoot full she falls in love. Fact. My, such a scene as she caused in the hotel the other evening. She doped it out this way: She was all alone, a stormy night, a bottle of Scotch and a syphon. Why not light up? ”

“ What anybody can see in a tenor has got me guessing, for that matter. Wilbur says that's just the way with temperamental people, and he lost a job once just because he forgot to land pictures in the Sunday editions of all the newspapers in town of the manager's own particular guiding star, but planted a bunch of her dearest friend instead. He says there's no pleasing them, and the only way to have peace and harmony around the whole show shop is to print flashlights of the entire company. ”

“ But, on the other hand, Wilbur isn't there with a very big fresh air fund, and by perseverance I might cop out a Pittsburg millionaire and become famous.
Marriage is worse than a lottery; it's a strong second for the show business. You never can tell.
Wilbur sure does treat me nice—he's promised that I shall be a flower girl at the Friar Festival when it comes off in May. ”

“ 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 grass 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.
"There's going to be fifty sleeping rooms and ninety-six maids, so that if the poor skirt wakes up in the morning feeling far from a well woman all she has to do is to tickle the zing-zing and the maid is right there on the job. ”

“ The poor dear is nearly balmy in the crumpet from worry. You see, they have been married but four long weeks, and the last three nights he has been coming home sober, and she believes he is deceiving her, so she is trying to get enough money from him so that she can hire a private detective to have him shadowed.
"They tell me that Sam Harris has to punch a time clock. I know one thing, and that is when I am married Wilbur will not be one of the leading lights of the Knickerbocker, even if I have to prance down there and drag him out by the neck. ”

“ Honest, the way my car left her tied to the post was a crime. We both stopped drinking three hours before the race commenced, so that our nerves would be in good condition."
"She may be a good chorus girl, but she certainly is a bum racer. I beat her by two dogs, six chickens and a lamp post. I would have got a milk wagon, only Wilbur carelessly blew the horn and scared him up a side street. After the race the loser had to treat the winner to the big eats. I can't tell you what we had, but I can say this much. If she loses another race the Judge will have to go over to the corporations. Eat? ”

“ Jenkins, I never knocked a living soul, but I don't mind telling you as a friend that I personally would not degrade myself by speaking to her, and of course you know that the hair she wears is not her own. I haven't a thing in the world against the poor creature, but it has been breathed around the company that she is not all she should be. ”

“ Of course, if I get married and don't like it divorces are easy enough to get, and then being a widow saves a girl a whole lot of embarrassment, for she don't have to pretend to not understand some of the innuendoes that are now and then sprung during the modern conversations. ”