the fellows who buy wine and eat terrapin at their midnight lunches—i ought to say dinners—had found a new attraction, and for a brief while she was the idol of the hour. but the trouble with these idols is that they don’t last, and the finish as a rule is very disheartening, and in many cases pathetic.
of course, every once in a while a wise one will come to the front who will do a little bookkeeping with herself, and when the smoke of battle will have cleared away she finds she has enough to tell everybody to go to blazes if she cares to be rude.
but that is the exception rather than the rule. quick money, you know, is like a dream, in that it only lasts while you are asleep. you think you are in a mansion, and when the knock comes on the door you discover that you are in the same old hall bedroom, and realize that you have to get up just as you have been doing all your life, and work ten hours a day—or eight, as the case may be—in order to get enough money to pay what you owe.
the girl that all the bloods were buying dinners and flowers for came from the west not so very long ago, and she didn’t leave any of her good looks behind her, either. she hit the town with a dress suit case, a good complexion and a taking way with the boys, and that’s all the capital any skirt wearer needs in gotham if she is only introduced to the right crowd of spenders
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and keeps away from the pikers who have their bank rolls lashed to the mast or bottled up so tight that when they do release a bill it smells like an egyptian mummy which has been packed in a vault since the time of pharaoh.
she put herself up at auction and was promptly bid on
this lady hit the trail which led to the show houses. she had no idea that she was an adelina patti or a sarah bernhardt, but she knew she could carry a spear as good as any old-timer, and she was prepared to make good.
“got a job for me?” she asked the first stage manager she happened to run across.
he looked her over and then remarked casually:
“i don’t think so, for all the star parts are given out for the season, but you might go over and see frohman and ask him if you can’t understudy maude adams.”
“don’t strain your voice on my account,” she said, by way of a come-back. “i’m looking for about $18 a week in the line-up, and when it comes to tights, i guess there ain’t any of them who has anything on me. you had me flagged for a sis hopkins, but you want to throw some sand on the track because you’re sliding. i don’t sit up at night reading romeo and juliet, and where i come from they think shakespeare is a new kind of breakfast food. can you get busy now?”
“i guess i’ll have to if i want to get rid of you.”
“well, you’re learning, and that’s a good sign.”
so after he had looked her over again very carefully, he concluded she’d do for the chorus for a starter anyhow.
a stage manager who is used to hiring ladies whose talents lie in their legs has a system of his own in picking
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out good ones that don’t need padding, and he never makes a mistake any more than a red squirrel will stow away a bad nut for the winter. face, neck, hands and arms tell the story and they never fail, and so he knew she could wear the usual size, and if anything stretch them a bit.
that was the beginning.
one night four young men about town sat in a theatre box watching the merry maidens tropping on and telling in song how happy they were that the princess was going to be married to the poor but handsome gink whose father had a cobbler’s shop one block from the palace.
“get onto the curves of the girl with the black hair,” said one, and in a minute there were four pairs of eyes looking at one pair of silk tights.
“great,” said another, enthusiastically.
“who is she?” asked a third. “i never saw her before.”
“well, ben certainly has an eye for beauty. i wonder where he gets them? let’s see him and ask him to put us on, for she’s all right.”
incidentally, ben was the first name of the stage manager.
it isn’t necessary to go into details, for general results save a lot of time, but a couple of hours later four enthusiastic young fellows and a dimpled brunette sat at a round table in a sporty cafe, and when any of them wanted to address her they called her curves.
“what are you trying to do?” she asked, when it was first sprung, “give me a nickname?”
“no,” was the answer, “simply a trademark.”
and they all understood.
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so because of that she began her career with the world by the tail on a downhill pull.
not to know curves and have her call you by your first name when you met was to be the deadest kind of a dead one, and the witty stories she could tell over a quart of wine soon began to be circulated around town.
as is often the case, women were her enemies and men were her friends, and she slid along in a happy-go-lucky way, letting the morrow take care of itself.
there was no question but that her figure was the making of her, just as jennie joyce’s legs made her famous from one end of the country to the other when she was a reigning favorite at koster & bial’s old place on twenty-third street two decades ago.
the photographer who secured some good poses of curves in tights found himself busy printing them to supply the demand, and it was as easy to get her before a camera as it was to get a kid to a candy store. if she had received a dollar for every time she wrote across the bottom of one of her photographs “sincerely yours, curves,” she would have had a bank account that would have been broad, wide and deep. but she was simply a good fellow and she made no attempt to live by her wits. like many another poor devil, she probably thought she would always be young, good-looking and popular. she didn’t know that those whom the public applauds to-day it kills to-morrow, and that it takes but a week in new york to make a favorite less than a memory.
but there was one incident in her career that stands out in relief from anything of the kind that anyone had ever done before, and it is worth telling. it was
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characteristic of her to do a thing of this sort, and she was the one woman in a hundred who could have got away with it.
a soulful-eyed, chocolate-skinned brahmin priest had come to town to spread his faith, and because he talked in an exceedingly entertaining manner and told some curious and interesting stories he came to be a fad. it wasn’t that the people who went to see and hear him were interested in his religion, but it was because he was a novelty that he filled his lecture room every afternoon. two men and curves dropped in one afternoon at a time when this spreader of a new creed was telling about the money it would cost to do good in the world, and on that subject he was particularly eloquent.
“you americans,” he said, “don’t know what it is to make a sacrifice; you don’t know what it is to deny yourselves any of the good things of life. your men would not forego their cigars or wine even if the spiritual salvation of the world depended upon it, and your women would not permit themselves one particle of physical discomfort nor cheaper wearing apparel even though a hundred souls were the price. the whole world is selfish and wrapped up in itself, and religion is either a fad or a jest. the man with a million gives a few thousands and thinks he has done well, but he denies himself nothing. the woman with a check book doles out dimes and fancies herself a philanthropist, but will she make any sacrifice for the general good?”
“here’s one who will.”
two-thirds of the people in the room turned around
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and looked at curves, and one of the fellows with her took her arm and whispered:
“what is the matter, are you dotty?”
the ox-like eyes of the religious enthusiast seemed to blaze up a bit.
“you will make a sacrifice?” he asked. “what can you give?”
“i’ll give myself,” she answered, and she stood up defiantly.
people who tell this story, as well as a few who were there, say that curves had a most elegant tide on at the time and didn’t know what she was saying, but that doesn’t alter the story, because this is simply a recital of facts which can be verified by a whole lot of the fellows, and the sequel can be found on record among the marriages in the bureau of vital statistics by anyone who is interested enough to look it up.
“it is very praiseworthy,” continued the priest, “but how do you propose to put your gift to a practical use? you say you will give yourself. do you mean by that that you will devote your time to this work which i am trying to carry on?”
“not that way so you can notice it, but i have a lot of men friends here and each one of them has asked me to marry him more than once. i like them all and as marriage is a lottery anyhow, they can bid for me, and you get the money.”
as she spoke she was climbing up on the table in the center of the room. “i am ready for the first offer and i don’t care who makes it, for i’m taking as many chances as anybody else.”
now here was a situation that reads like a romance, and here was the one in a thousand to get away with
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it. the women were shocked, of course; the men were interested, and as for the priest he didn’t know whether to take it seriously or not, until finally what might have been an awkward situation was relieved by a man who said:
“well, if she’s game enough to have herself auctioned off, i’m game enough to make a bid, so i’ll say $500, with the proviso that the cause of religion, which our revered friend represents, shall get half, the other half to go to the lady who shows such a praiseworthy spirit.”
then three gaunt females over forty arose in the majesty of their outraged womanhood and stalked from the room, while a dozen others moved uneasily in their seats.
the brahmin was still figuring.
“am i worth no more than $500?” put in curves.
“i’ll make it $750,” said one of the men who had accompanied her.
“you paid twice as much for a horse last week, billy,” she retorted.
“i didn’t think of that. let it go at $1,500, for there’s going to be competition.”
the priest’s hand was nervously fingering a silk handkerchief.
“two thousand,” the first bidder’s voice came like a bullet from a gun, and billy laughed nervously.
“go ahead, billy, it’s up to you again,” and curves nodded at him encouragingly.
“she’s worth it, bill,” whispered his friend. “your panhard cost you $11,000 and it takes $100 a week to keep it going. curves can be very economical when she tries,” and he laughed at his joke.
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“twenty-five hundred,” bid billy.
“sold,” cried curves, “although i’m worth more.”
“very extraordinary,” said the priest, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “this could happen in no other country in the world.”
“write him a check, billy, for what you owe him,” said curves, “and then we’ll go out and get married. and don’t you think it would be nice to have him to dinner with us?”
“sure thing, and we’ll have the other fellow who bid along, too. by the way, who is he? i don’t ever remember to have seen him before. do you know him?”
now what a chance here for a climax, for a real whipping finish, as it were. it might be arranged so that the girl would say sadly:
“yes, he holds the mortgage on the farm and has threatened to foreclose it if i don’t marry him. oh, billy, you must save me.”
then billy would pull out his check book, pay the villain off to the penny and the man would go tearing out of the door shouting:
“foiled again, c-u-u-rses on you, but i’ll have revenge,” with the accent on revenge.
but no such thing happened, because you see curves never had an interest in a farm, and it is very much to be doubted if she knew anything about a father or mother. the result was that she said:
“oh, i suppose he’s some guy that’s been to the show and got stuck on my shape.”
the honeymoon lasted six months, which was enough for billy, and he beat it to new orleans, while his friends told curves that they thought he had committed suicide.
