come and listen to the siren song of the new york girl, and perhaps it may interest you for awhile. there is no question about it unless you are a bronze statue standing on a gray stone pedestal in some park, or a cigar store indian with an hebraic nose and a wooden tomahawk. in the first place the new york girl has been conceded to be a wonder and about the best in the world in looks as well as in figure. she has a fine complexion when she gives it a chance to show itself, and, like the little girl in the story book, when she’s good she’s very, very good, and when she’s bad she’s a peach. the thing is to pick out the right one, and your chances for that are just as good as drawing to a pair in poker. some say it’s luck, while others favor the science idea.
with that for an overture, let’s ring the bell for the curtain to go up on the charming little two-act play, entitled “the redemption of a sport.”
the old sport has been up against every proposition the sun ever shone on, and there was nothing he wasn’t fly to. he had paid board for blondes and brunettes as well as a few leslie carters, to say nothing of an albino he once took a fancy to. he was an early and late bird, and he was known up and down the line by his first name, which is a distinction that it usually takes a lot of money or a number of years, and
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sometimes both, to acquire, and even then it’s not a lead pipe cinch that you’ll land it right.
a light flashed out on the landing and revealed the figure of a beautiful woman
this fellow was good to the girls, and could be relied on for a five-case note on a hurry touch at any time, for he had no buttons on his pockets, and he knew that safe deposit vaults in heaven are only used for the storing of golden crowns in hot weather.
“if i can’t take my money with me,” he said once, “then i’ll spend it here, for if there’s anything in the world that i hate it is to think that there’s going to be a lot of hungry relatives picking over the bones of my estate before i get comfortably settled in the six feet of real estate that no one can beat me out of. the money’s got to be spent some time, and i’m going to be the one to get the credit for it because it’s mine.”
but there came a time in his life when he felt that he wanted to get away from the mob. he had been stung by the bee of domesticity and didn’t know it. what he did know was that he wanted a place with a real woman in it, where he could hang his hat and that he could call his own. if he had wanted to put his brains at work he would have known that it was nothing more nor less than the law of nature which had him fast—that same law which makes a bird build a nest in a tree, or a wild animal pre-empt a bed of moss under the roots of a certain tree.
it was the home instinct.
so he began to cast his eye around for a side partner whom he could have and hold, even if he had to coax her up to the altar with a marriage license printed in red and gold and lasso her with a wedding ring. from that time on he was always on the alert for the right one to come along, and every time he heard a sound
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like a skirt he made an investigation. in about ten days he turned down all the dollies and mauds of the line, for he couldn’t see where they would have a look-in if the cook happened to leave in a hurry and he arrived home with a backwoods appetite. you see he wanted a gas-stove performer who could in an emergency tell the difference between a roast and a ragout in the raw state, and who could juggle with a lot of cold grub in the ice box, and turn out a square meal that was not only hot but nourishing. he was tired of restaurant hash, anyhow, and he was longing for the kind of biscuits that mother used to make.
he figured for awhile on a girl named elsie, who could make a cocktail to beat the band, and who could also drink more and get away with it than any of the rest. she was a good looker, too, and she had trotted in double harness before, but he found out that she was a bit promiscuous in her tastes, and he didn’t care to feel that he had to stay at home all the time in order to keep her from entertaining any stranger in a pair of trousers who happened along. so he put a red cross, which means “danger, keep off,” opposite her name, and began looking in another direction.
he changed his tactics completely.
“i’m on now,” he said to himself. “i’ll hunt up some nice little innocent girl who doesn’t know anything of the world, and who has taken a course in a cooking school. i want the kind whose ambition in life is to be boss of a nice three-story house, and who doesn’t care any more for broadway than a hobo does for a hot bath. i’ll just hunt up some mother’s girl who has her hair hanging down her back in a big, thick braid, and
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i’ll sing her a song that’ll make her think i’m the real thing on wheels.”
so with that very laudable and commendable idea he started out. he didn’t figure that a tough old nut like he was had any right to go up against a game like that, and that his play was to mix with people of his own class. but you’ll find in nine cases out of ten that the worse a man is or has been the more innocence and purity he wants when he is figuring on giving a sky pilot a chance to make a dollar or two.
but having made up his mind the kind of a field he was going to hunt, the next question was how to break in. all the girls he knew were, without exception, of the brand which are at their best when the lights are turned on, who rent flats for business purposes, and who change quarters when an intimation is made by the captain of a police precinct that the change will do them good. to save his life he couldn’t figure out this new proposition, and he was like the man who bought a new double-barreled shotgun and then found out he couldn’t get a permit to hunt the birds the old farmer owned.
and now right here, at the critical moment, in steps fate, luck, or destiny, it doesn’t matter which, for they are all the same, and shuffles the cards for a new deal.
an automobile on broadway bumped hard enough into the rear end of a hansom cab to almost throw the driver from his seat and to make him swear a blue streak of profane eloquence. the usual crowd collected, and in the bunch caught there by the sudden rush of curious and morbid humanity was the old sport. he pushed with both elbows to free himself and then stepped back testily. a girl behind him cried out with
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pain, and he turned suddenly around to find himself face to face with as choice a little blonde as ever carried books home from school, and, furthermore, she had a braid down her back.
“i beg your pardon, did i hurt you?” he asked.
“i’m afraid you did; you stepped on my foot.”
“well, just take my arm and let me help you out of this crowd.”
easy if you only know how and the chance comes your way.
the old sport wasn’t really old—not over forty—and he was there with the looks, and the little lady rather liked the way he framed up, as anyone could see by the way she cuddled up to him as she limped along. his heart was beating it like a yeggman coming east on a brake beam, and already he was figuring on how to handle this new proposition.
if it had been one of those other girls he would have said:
“you just send your trunk up to my place, and we’ll go around and have a talk to a minister; how about it?”
but he couldn’t say that to this girl with the pink in her cheeks and the fluffy hair that had never been up against the peroxide.
“foot pretty bad, kid?” was the way he broke the ice.
“oh, no, thank you, it’s all right now, but it hurt me a lot at first.”
“live far from here?” he came back again.
“no, not very far; only fifty-third street.”
there was only ten blocks to go, and when they got to the last one he knew all about her. he knew that
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she was living with her aunt, and that she was taking music lessons because some day she hoped to be able to teach. as they paused for a moment on the corner, he said:
“if you should happen along on forty-second street to-morrow about 2, i’ll be glad to see you.”
it was a bit crude, but it went all right and the date was made. when she walked away he stood looking after her, and he noticed that she had a nice trim figure, a dainty little foot and that she stepped out like a thoroughbred.
“you for me,” he remarked, and then he hustled back to find some one he could treat, so great was his joy.
so there’s the picture, to use a theatrical term, and the curtain goes down on it for the end of the first act.
now, you and i and some of the rest of the thirsty crowd will go out and have a drink between acts, but it’s a warm night and instead of one drink there’s half a dozen. time flies when you’re in good company and the old sport was taking no chances. ten interviews with the girl—ten good, square, honest talks at the rate of a talk a day—and she consented to take a chance with him and tell the folks afterward. he was on the level, though, and when she went home a couple of days later she had the little certificate with her, and after a few tears auntie was invited around to visit her new nephew and look over the new house.
as for the sport, he settled down as comfortably as an old buff cochin-china hen on a dozen eggs, and he made up his mind that he had been missing a good many years of real dyed-in-the-wool happiness while
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he was traveling the line with the bunch and throwing all kinds of booze under his belt.
but when the weeks began to add themselves into months he grew a bit restless of nights and it came pretty hard when any of the boys asked him to come along and help them crack a bottle. he took the mrs. to the show once in a while, but it was always a case of hurry home as soon as the orchestra began to play “my country, ’tis of thee.” he didn’t want to take a chance of being caught by any of the merry-merrys who were out for the rent and guyed for “marrying decent.” once or twice he thought he had made a mistake and that the change was too great or too sudden for him, but an hour later when he had his slippers on and was planted in the big armchair in the corner, he knew he wouldn’t make any kind of a change for the world, and he felt that he had lost a good many years out of his life in not getting into this kind of a game sooner. like an old fire horse, he was all right as long as he didn’t smell fire. but the time was coming, and it was as sure as rent, taxes or death.
it came when he went out one night to be gone not more than a half hour, and when he tried his key in the lock it was 2 a. m., and the girl, her eyes red from crying with the desertion and the loneliness of it all, had fallen asleep, fully dressed, across the foot of the bed. he was very sorry and penitent, but for all that he went out the next night just the same, and after that he was never in. he was back on the old trail, mixing once more, to the great delight of the crowd. the novelty of home had worn off, and when his wife waited up for him she usually found him too drunk to understand what she was saying to him. from one
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step it is easy to take another, or, as the chinese say, the creeper always walks in the end. he took to bringing friends home with him at all hours, especially between three and six in the morning, and their arrival was always made apparent by the wild time they had scrambling up the stairs.
now, in this story—as in real life—always keep your eye on the lady. it doesn’t make any difference where she comes from, whether it’s new york city or lower squankum, new jersey, she is either one of two things, very clever or very dull. there is no medium, for what may seem to you like a medium is only a counterfeit and not the real article. for every ninety-nine dull women there is one clever woman; for every ninety-nine clever women there is one ace who tops the rest as easily as mont blanc tops an ant hill. the wife in this case was not one of the dullards, that’s a cinch. if she had been she would have made an idiot of herself and acted the way the rest of them do—which is a great nuisance and annoying to any man. she was a genius, and i ask you to take off your hat to her—as i do.
“i notice,” she remarked to old sport one morning, “that you never bring more than one friend home with you when you arrive. why don’t you bring half a dozen, or three, anyhow? it would be much more companionable.”
he was a bit on his guard at first, but she convinced him that she was serious about it, and then he began to congratulate himself that he had his wife well in hand.
two nights later he arrived with half a dozen of the hottest hooters that ever held an all-night session in a furnished flat. he let them in with his key, and as
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they paused at the foot of the stairs, a clock from somewhere chimed out a silvery “three.”
“come on, boys; open house here; everything goes,” said old sport. “my wife says my friends are good enough for her if they’re good enough for me. come on.”
he, with another, made the start up the stairs, but they hadn’t gone more than a few steps when a brilliant light from the landing somewhere fairly dazzled them.
directly in front of them, apparently in the act of stepping out of a huge picture frame, was the symmetrical figure of an almost nude woman. the light struck her just right and brought out every detail.
“great,” shouted someone from the foot of the stairs.
“shut up, you fool, it’s my wife,” answered the sport. “put out that light up there, do you hear? put it out.”
but it blazed away as steadily as ever, and there was no movement on the part of the figure, except that the full bosom rose and fell with the regularity of her breathing.
the sport turned around on the stairs.
“come out of here, you fellows; this is going too far. come on, skiddoo, all of you.”
and when the last one had gone out he slammed the door behind them. what happened inside is none of your business, nor mine, either, because i don’t believe in scandal, but any evening the old sport is wanted he will be found at his home address with his wife and a kid who looks like him.
as for the lady; she has a genius that she is just beginning to appreciate.
