me down for any more change you had better drop in your penny and get next to yourselves.  Nix, not.  I’ve already coughed up more than the rest of the entire population, and you are not going to lance me for any more just because I’ve got a bundle.  You’re good people, you’ve got big feet, and I would like to see you run fast.  Now beat it.  I’m going to blow the burg on the next caboose, and while I don’t wish you any bad luck I hope the town hall burns down.  Now take it on the run or I will give you all a good scolding and send you to bed.’  And the funny thing about it is, they slid.  I tell the folks that my light is hid under a bushel in Emporia, grab the bus, and here I am and nothing short of an explosion will make me leave.  Put this on your ‘call board,’ the only good thing about these hick hamlets is they remind you of New York because they are so different.  So long.  Don’t fall down the elevator shaft.”

    In which Sabrina attends a ball given by the Chorus Girls’ Union
    and frivols extensively in the vineyard and later does a
    specialty with ice skates and a bottle of arnica.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“All work and no play makes Jack a dead one,” remarked Sabrina, the Show Girl, as we met her at the appointed place.  “Don’t I look like the wreck of the Hesperus?  Honest to goodness, I feel like nine dollars’ worth of dog meat hanging out of a hospital window.  Was you at the ball, also?  I mean did you attend last night’s festivities?  Ah, me!  The joy and laughter of yesterday is sure the hangover of today.  I thought I would caper down to the ball last night and just see how the other half lived, and instead of being a mere obtrusive observer I developed into what you might term the main event of the evening.  You see it was this way.  The Chorus Girls’ Union, of which I am now a member, gave a ball in commemoration of the event of the Mayor vetoing Tim Sullivan’s bill about women smoking in public.  It was instigated by the ’Knight for a Day’ girls, because when they went to plead before the Aldermen the newspapers forgot to mention the show they were from, so that the long talk didn’t do the press agent any material good, as it were.  The hall was tastily decorated with pictures of the Aldermen embellished with cigarette butts and champagne corks.

“By the way, if you see smoke coming from the Knickerbocker Theatre Building, don’t turn in a fire alarm, for it is just the Friars showing their good feeling by trying to smoke up all the Friar cigars and cigarettes in town.

“All of our set was there, and numerous telegrams of regret were read from the road companies.  As I say, I was seated quietly in a rathskeller listening to the noise, when one of the young ladies inadvertently remarked that there was to be big doings at a nearby hall, and suggested that as she was selling tickets, it would be a good plan to buy some and go and look the affair over, not to mingle with the throng, but merely to add tone to the event.  That listened very well indeed, and we all climbed into a cabbage and vamped over.