The Sorrows of a Show Girl | Page 9

pants and red coats. I'm lying there on the bed, taking it all in, when up rides a dinky little officer on a horse. He salutes me and I salute him, just to let them know that there wasn't any hard feeling. Then he says, "I am glad to state that you have but one life to lose for your country; therefore we are going to shoot you." Well, you know me, Dearie. I jumped out of the window. The next time I come out of it here is this guy doing snake charming stunts on my stomach.'
"Can you beat that for a pipe? I look after this party with all the loving care of a sister, and thanks to the doctor and a pump we pulled him through. When he was able to be shipped home I went down to the train to see him off and as he kissed me goodby he said, 'Don't you worry, kid, I won't forget this.' I didn't pay any attention to his chatter, thinking it nothing but balloon juice. But this letter says that he died about a week ago and left ten thousand to me in such a way that it won't do his wife no good to yelp. Ten thousand! Gee, ain't that an awful huge lot of money for one poor little merry-merry to be burdened with! The lawyers sent that first hundred along to show that they are not pikers, and said that the rest would be along in a few days. Gosh! I won't know what to do with it. I can't get that much in my little lisle thread bank without spoiling the contour of that new gown effect I am going to be poured into. Clothes, well I should hope so, dear. When the true meaning of that effusion soaked into my system, the way I grabbed my hat and took it on the run for the dressmaker's was a caution to cab horses.
"I'm going to get a bunch of clothes and then slide for home. You know my father was mayor of Emporia for nearly a whole term, and I can go right back into society. That is a great burg; if anybody wears anything but a Mother Hubbard on week days they are doped out as a actress. Sure! That's the way they know that there's a show in town, that and the band. That town will have nothing but the best. If a show isn't good enough to hare a band it might as well cancel. It's a great show town, all right; sometimes they have two shows there the same week, 'East Lynne' and something else. The Boston Store has the 'Pilgrim's Progress' on the recent fiction counter.
"Well, I must rush right along. I've got to go over to some place and get a mile or two of those puff gags, mine are all moth eaten. I've got some more things to buy and then I am going around and make faces at all these theatrical agents. Bye bye."

In which Sabrina receives the balance of the fortune, says farewell to the hall bed-room, secures more imposing quarters, a French maid, an automobile and other accessories as befitting her station.

CHAPTER FOUR
"I've got Adversity laying on her back and purring with Contentment," remarked Sabrina the Show Girl, as she stepped out of a taxicab in front of a cafe, "and I guess she'll stand hitched for a few minutes. Tell my driver to wait and then come in and have a little liquid nourishment. This is the only place I can find where one can get any kind of service. My, ain't I getting fussy? Here 'two weeks ago coffee and butter-cakes were a banquet. But why dig up the past, and I reiterate the remark, 'Let the dead bury its dead.' If anybody mentions Mink's to me I am liable to throw a foaming fit and fall in it. Every time I pass a bread line I am filled with sorrow for the poor unfortunates, while heretofore I got sore because they had beaten me to it.
"Sure, the lawyer guy kicked in with the balance of the ten thousand, and I am now busily engaged in putting it where it will do the most good. Moved? Well, I should hope so, dear. Instead of existing in a two-by-four hallroom, with an airshaft exposure, where you have to open the door to think, I am now residing in a real suite. Maybe you think I don't keep Estelle--that's my maid--on the job. She's the busy proposition about that dump. As soon as I come out of my beauty sleep in the morning I ring the bell and in capers Estelle with a dipperful of chocolate, which I sip while reclining on my couch,