The Sorrows of a Show Girl | Page 2

my life, and if you make a noise like a
dollar-bill anywhere between the two Flatirons you're liable to be the
center of a raging mob. I heard it breathed that all the theatrical
storehouses in town were playing to S.R.O.
"I got a chance to shake down a little change as prima donna with a
turkey show. What do you know about that? I played with one last
Thanksgiving, and--excuse these tears--it was a college town and the
show was on the blink. 'Nough said. The manager hasn't left there yet.
"Oh, Listerine, have you heard the news? Alia McGraw has turned
poetess. You know she always was peculiar. I was visiting her the other
evening in her dressing room when she declared that she was going to
give up her dramatic art and go to painting word pictures. Whatever
they are. You see it was this way: She had a boob on her staff who was
paying her his devoted attention. According to her statistics that's all he
ever did pay for. Well, he commenced doing advance work about a
present he was going to give her until he got poor Alla to thinking that
it was nothing less than an automobile, and she treated him accordingly.
One morning a messenger boy makes his entrance into the flat and
hands her a book. Can you beat that? The only thing that kept Alia

from foaming at the mouth was because she was combing her Dutch
braid. It--the book--was called a Rubaiyat by Omar Quinine, or
something like that. This Omar party never wrote a comic opera in his
life. But Alla wasn't discouraged, for she looked through every page in
hopes of finding a Clearing House certificate, but not a leaf stirred. All
she came across was a marked verse that went something like this:
"A book of verse underneath a bough, A Jug of wine, a loaf of bread
and thou Beside me sitting in the wilderness-- Oh, wilderness is
Paradise enow.
"Did you ever hear of such a short sport? Wanted to buy it by the keg
and go sit under a tree in Bronx Park. As soon as Alla run out of
language she sat down and in less than three hours doped out an answer.
I got it here on the back of her laundry list:
"A book of verse is not what I can use, But give me, if still my love is
thine, A wine list from which to pick and choose. Cut out the shady
bough for mine.
"Give your bough to some nice 'feller,' And if you would make my life
sublime Put me in some cool rathskeller And we'll forget the jug of
wine.
"Wine in a jug! What do I hear? Not with a loaf of bread and thou, A
cheese sandwich and a glass of beer, Unless you've changed your brand
ere now.
"This sitting in the wilderness may be fine For those who the realms of
nature seek, A restaurant is at least a paradise divine With payday on
the first of every week.
"I guess maybe that won't show him up! Ain't it just glorious? It's kinda
wabbly on its feet, but just think, it's her first attempt. She said there
were a lot more things she could say, but even her desire to be a poetess
wouldn't let her forget that she was a lady. Alla told me that the height
of her ambition was to write the words of a popular song and have
Harry Von Seltzer sing it in the College Inn. She can't ever make a hit

as a poem producer though 'cause she hasn't got high cheek bones and
teeth like a squirrel. Alla was pensive all through the first act, and
while she was making her change from a lady-in-waiting to a bathing
girl she remarked that she was going to write an ode--past tense of I O
U, I guess--entitled 'Thoughts on Hearing Ben Teal Conduct a Chorus
Rehearsal.' They won't let her publish it.
"What do you know about the new law about tanks having to have their
names on the barroom door? I see where the Metropole will lose money
unless they furnish disguises to their steady customers. Can you
imagine the suspense certain parties will feel when they rush into a
shop for their early morning 'thought mop' and have to cling to the bar
while Arthur looks up their past performances in Bingham's Bartenders'
Guide.
"A gentleman friend had the kindness to extend me courtesies to 'The
Witching Hour' the other evening, and listen to muh: There is some
class to that show. Ain't you seen it? It's a song and dance about this
mental telepathy gag. There is a gambling gentleman who can tell a