Suchandsuch;
how are things in Pittsburg?'
"At last it got so bad that I decided to go back to work and earn my
little twenty per, so that I could keep my automobile and wear good
clothes without the slightest taint of suspicion on my character. With
that noble end in view I started on the still hunt. Nothing doing with
that traveling thing.
"I tucked my little scrapbook under my arm and sat in the waiting-room.
After hanging around in there for about half an hour I would be
permitted to glide into the big boss. I had a nice little monologue
framed up as to my virtues--no, that's the wrong word--ability.
"None of the managers asked me what I had done, but what did I GET.
"When I called on the gentlemen by whom I am now employed he said:
'Talent? Oh, piffle! Can you wear tights?' He said that to me.
"I merely mentioned that I used to work for Mr. Ziegfeld and he hired me
at once. I didn't even have to show him my picture taken as Aphrodite in
a classical art study.
"I went over to rehearsal, and of all the frowsy dames I ever piped--far
be it from me to knock, but they looked like a bunch of pie-trammers
that had just rushed over from Child's. The stage manager was a friend
of mine, and I asked him when he had started an old ladies' home, and he
told me--mind you, this is the strictest confidence--that the divorce
courts and the cheap rates from Pittsburg was raising Cain with the crop
of merry-merries.
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