the girl from philadelphia wasn’t a beauty by any means, but she had a nice fetching way, good teeth, and a cheerful, contagious laugh which are three things that have beauty left at the post. beauty, you see, is only good for a short sprint at the best, and in a long race is liable to lag a bit toward the finish, but the other propositions are stayers nine times out of ten and generally manage to come under the wire in good shape.
thirty days in the big city, if spent in the right kind of company, usually mean about a year in quakertown, and force of circumstances had thrown the girl in pretty close contact with high-flyers. you see, it all came about this way:
she had been playing the soubrette part in some amateur theatricals, and everybody who saw her—except some girl friends who wanted to be soubrettes, too—said she was the real thing and that she had della fox in her palmy days beaten the length of chestnut street, and as for millie james, why there was nothing to it.
that started the theatrical bee buzzing in her conning-tower, so she immediately formed the habit of reading the theatrical papers instead of the society notes, and she got the matinee habit so bad that she didn’t miss one show a month. before that her fad
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had been gymnastics and she was the real thing on physical culture.
she was once the real thing on physical culture
now when a girl gets that way she needs either a husband and honeymoon to distract her attention or a hard-faced guardian—female, of course—to follow her wherever she goes.
so in view of the fact that this girl had neither, she studied the play bills and did pretty much as she liked. she was just ripe to sign with a traveling show or listen to the argument of any actor man who offered her the bait of a chance to do a stunt behind the footlights. she lived the way a soubrette ought to live—at least, she thought she did. in a locked drawer in her dressing case she kept a box of make-up, and when the rest of the family had retired she fixed her face up so she looked like a comic valentine. she figured upon this as a sort of preliminary training in case she should ever get a chance to break into the business; look like a twenty-dollar gold piece to the public, and feel like a plugged nickel when she was in her dollar-a-day room after the show. she might have been dreaming yet if a young fellow who once suped for mansfield hadn’t made her acquaintance. he called on her at her home, and they hadn’t been talking twenty minutes when she sprung the soubrette business, and told him that some day she hoped to get on the professional stage.
“the only way to get a chance is to go to new york,” he said. “there’s where all the good shows start from, as well as a good many of the bad ones, and if a girl has talent, an agent or a manager will grab her just the same as a hobo will grab a ham sandwich,
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no matter what his nationality is. why, i once knew a girl who went there from forked river, new jersey. she didn’t know anything, but she had ginger, and she’s been on the road for two seasons with the bon ton burlesquers. what do you think of that? philadelphia’s all right in a way, but i’ll bet if maude adams had been born here she’d be behind the ribbon counter in some big dry goods store instead of the swellest little actress that ever took a bunch of roses over the footlights.”
that is what started the trouble, and that night when the girl went up to her room she packed a dress-suit case, putting in her grease paints first, of course, and then she penned a neat little note of farewell forever to her parents, after which she waited until the house was quiet and then slipped out as quietly as a burglar. she had enough money to make the breakaway and keep her about thirty days, by the end of which time she figured she would have a job at about fifty per week, with traveling expenses and pullman car paid by the manager.
she had a roseate view of life, and she thought that as soon as she hit the big burg the managers would be falling over each other trying to get her to sign a contract. she didn’t know that making a hit in a little show given by the golden rod society for the supplying of vegetables to the cannibal tribes of africa was quite a different thing to going on the professional stage, and she imagined if she could do well in the part of betsey, the romp, in “who killed cock robin,” she could do equally well on the stage of any big theatre.
she had as much hope as a piece of swiss cheese has holes when she climbed aboard the sleeping car which
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was scheduled to leave for new york at 1 a. m., but when she landed in the cold, gray dawn a good part of it had gone and had left her a trifle weak in the knees, which, by the way, is a decided symptom of weakness.
it took her just two hours to find a boarding house, and until the next day to get her nerve back. it was only because of her youth that it came back at all. she got a list of the names of managers and started out to do business, but no one seemed to want any amateur soubrettes from philadelphia. by two o’clock there was nothing that looked like a job, but she had received eleven invitations to go out to lunch from eleven different genials who didn’t seem to want to talk business; who were inclined to be affectionate and who called her “my dear” in every other sentence.
that night she went to a vaudeville show, and she was so impressed with the ease with which the turns were pulled off that she concluded she would do an act of her own. that is how it happened that the day after she forsook the legitimate for the variety, and knocked at the office doors of a different species of managers. very busy fellows these were, too, and she got her dismissal in almost every case with startling rapidity.
here is a sample of the dialogue:
“where have you worked before?”
“i have never been on the professional stage, but i played the part of a soubrette in amateur shows in philadelphia, and all my friends told me that——”
“but have you an act of your own?”
“no, not yet, but——”
“well, you frame up some kind of an act, then come
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around and see me, and i may be able to get you a trial somewhere.”
and then twenty-three.
many a good fighter has quit when he found every rush he made was stopped with a tantalizing jab in the nose, and many a man has thrown up the sponge when he has walked the streets day in and day out and discovered that nobody wanted him.
at the end of a week the girl would have written a letter home or taken a train back if it had not been for her pride. she didn’t want to acknowledge defeat, but she was on the verge of it.
she was coming out of a theatre one night when she met the man.
there must be a man else there would be no story. he was about forty-five years old, had been through enough campaigns to give him self-possession, and he had been successful enough to be egotistic. two minutes later they were walking down broadway together, and she was rather glad that she had found someone who took an interest in her. one-half hour after that and they were seated at a table in a big restaurant; the order had been given and she was telling him all about herself while he was looking her over with an exceedingly critical eye and making up his mind that she showed up rather good under a strong light, especially when she smiled.
a broiled lobster, a quart of claret, then a couple of birds and a quart of wine are enough to change the ideas and opinions of a lot of people, especially if such a bill of fare is unusual, and so it happened that when the red began to come to the girl’s cheeks, the things the man were saying to her didn’t seem so much out
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of the way after all. besides, that hall bedroom in the musty old boarding house was rapidly becoming a nightmare. between you and me, if she had never smiled this thing would never have happened.
the man lighted a cigar, and as he blew the first puff of blue smoke toward the ceiling he observed:
“my dear, marriage is nothing more nor less than a useless and barbaric rite, and when it is all summed up it amounts to nothing in the end. why should you be legally bound to any man in this world? it would be all right as long as you loved him, then you wouldn’t care, but suppose your feelings changed, what then? in order to get a divorce from him you would have to catch him committing a crime for which the law would grant you a divorce, or get good evidence, which amounts to the same thing. you might separate from him if he was cruel to you or didn’t support you, but suppose he was kind and gave you all the money you wanted, then you would still have to live with him as his wife. now, on the other hand, if you were not married to him, you would have a perfect right, as soon as your feelings changed, to leave him without a moment’s notice. you would be under no obligations to him under any circumstances, and he, knowing that you were free to go and come as you pleased, would, in order to keep you, treat you with greater consideration than if you were his wife. you can believe me or not, just as you wish, but an understanding between a man and a woman is all that is necessary to happiness in this world. don’t be old-fashioned, but let us make an agreement of some kind between ourselves. you will be perfectly independent, free to go and come as you like, and do as you wish.”
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there was a certain amount of logic in this argument, especially when the reverse of the picture is a cheap room in a cheap boarding house. so the end of the first chapter was that the landlady wondered why her lodger never came back, even to get her case and the few belongings it contained. it was all mysterious to her, but as she was paid in advance, she said nothing, and at the end of the week rented the room to an old fellow with asthma who was living on an allowance.
so far as the stage was concerned, that bright bubble had burst, and instead of haunting the offices of managers, the girl took to breakfasting at 10, lunching at 2 and dining at 8. the theatres to her were merely places of amusement—good to fill in time which could be used in no other way, and her ambition to shine as a footlight favorite went when she found that she could live without being annoyed by any of the responsibilities of life. she gradually grew to know that the name of the man was a very familiar one in the big cities and at times the newspapers printed his picture. she had assumed that name—it was in the compact, although there were few who knew it. several times, when he called on her, he brought some of his friends to dinner, but these occasions were not frequent, by any means, and she knew she wasn’t a part of his intimate life.
now see how time makes puppets of both men and women, for this story has one merit in that it is true.
the man took sick in chicago, and the first she knew of it was when she read it in the newspapers. every stage of his disease was chronicled until he died, and when she read that the paper dropped from her
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hands and she felt again that weakness of the knees which took her on that first morning in new york. for four days she lived in a dream, vaguely wondering what was to become of her, and then a brisk, alert, dapper little man—a lawyer—called. there was nothing sentimental about him. he was business from the drop of the hat.
“i represent the family of the man,” he announced, abruptly. “there is a codicil in his will which bequeaths you $250,000. of course, we can break that and not half try, but the widow and children don’t want any unpleasant notoriety, and they are willing to settle for $50,000, which i can pay to you at once. you will accept, if you are wise, for $50,000 is a nice little sum and it will leave you free and clear to do as you please and will dispose of a very unpleasant situation.”
the death of the man had given her a shock from which she hadn’t yet recovered, and she asked for time to think.
“come to-morrow or the day after,” she said, “and i will talk to you. i can’t think now.”
he wanted to finish it up at once, but every time she gave him the same answer, so there was nothing for him to do but to go.
and then that night there came another lawyer, one whom she had known because the man had brought him on one of his visits. his argument was different:
“there is $250,000 coming to you; get it. it is a clean-cut, legal will and they can’t break it, besides there is enough there for everybody and to spare. let me manage it for you and don’t worry. if they want to contest let them go ahead and i’ll beat them.”
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and because he said “don’t worry; leave it all to me,” she consented. that was the woman of it.
they did fight, and the newspapers printed columns about it, for it was a great story, but they didn’t print the part i am telling here, for that they didn’t know. with the articles appeared her portraits, and she became as well known as the man had been, in a way.
before the finish had been reached the heirs concluded there had better be a settlement, and so, rather than stand the delay of appeals in case she won, which it was reasonably sure she would do, she accepted $150,000 in cash.
the next day her maid brought her a card. it read:
“alfred d. cohen,
theatrical promoter.”
“i’ll see him,” she said.
she had learned a thing or two since she had left philadelphia, so she knew what was coming and was prepared for it when the polite, suave mr. cohen walked into the room.
“i have come,” he said, by way of introduction, “to make you an offer to go on the stage.”
“yes?” she queried, calmly.
“all you will have to do is to sing two or three songs twice a day—once in the afternoon and once in the evening—and i am authorized to offer you $750 a week.”
“and suppose i can’t sing?” she said, smiling, thinking of the last time she had talked with a manager.
“that would make no difference; we would have you coached and can give you ten weeks straight.” he fumbled at his coat nervously, for she was really an important personage now. “i have the contracts
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here.” he produced them and handed them over. she read them over carefully, debated mentally as to the policy of signing at once or waiting until another day, finally decided on the side of deliberation, and then said:
“come and see me to-morrow at 2 and i will let you know then.”
he knew intuitively she would accept, so he bowed himself out without further argument.
so that is how she at last went on the stage, and if your memory serves you well enough to take you back a year or so you will know that she made a hit as the singer of songs of long ago.
p. s.—she told her folks in philadelphia that she had been studying voice culture all the time.
