Page:Heart of the West (1907).djvu/104

 tour’s flat on Forty-third Street. I knew her well. She was a chorus-girl in a Broadway musical comedy.

“‘Jane,’ says I when I found her, ‘I’ve got a friend from Texas here. He’s all right, but—well, he carries weight. I’d like to give him a little whirl after the show this evening—bubbles, you know, and a buzz out to a casino for the whitebait and pickled walnuts. Is it a go?’

“‘Can he sing?’ asks Lolabelle.

“‘You know,’ says I, ‘that I wouldn’t take him away from home unless his notes were good. He’s got pots of money—bean-pots full of it.’

“‘Bring him around after the second act,’ says Lolabelle, ‘and I’ll examine his credentials and securities.’

“So about ten o’clock that evening I led Solly to Miss Delatour’s dressing-room, and her maid let us in. In ten minutes in comes Lolabelle, fresh from the stage, looking stunning in the costume she wears when she steps from the ranks of the lady grenadiers and says to the king, ‘Welcome to our May-day revels.’ And you can bet it wasn’t the way she spoke the lines that got her the part.

“As soon as Solly saw her he got up and walked straight out through the stage entrance into the street. I followed him. Lolabelle wasn’t paying my salary. I wondered whether anybody was.

“‘Luke,’ says Solly, outside, ‘that was an awful mistake. We must have got into the lady’s private