ong silken hosiery, takes on a tone of spectacular unreality,
like some fantastic marine back drop devised by Mr. Dillingham or Mr.
Ziegfeld.

CHAPTER LV

A DAY IN MONTGOMERY

I have walk'd in Alabama
My morning walk....

--WALT WHITMAN.

As I have remarked before, it is a long haul from the peninsula of
Florida to New Orleans. There are two ways to go. The route by way of
Pensacola, following the Gulf Coast, looks shorter on the map but is, I
believe, in point of time consumed, the longer way. My companion and I
were advised to go by way of Montgomery, Alabama--a long way around it
looked--where we were to change trains, catching a New Orleans-bound
express from the North.

It was nearly midnight when, after a long tiresome journey, we arrived
in Alabama's capital, and after midnight when we reached the comfortable
if curiously called Hotel Gay-Teague, which is not named for an Indian
chief or a kissing game, but for two men who had to do with building it.

We had heard that Montgomery was a quiet, sleepy old town, and had
expected to go immediately to bed on our arrival. What then was our
amazement at hearing, echoing through the wide street in front of the
hotel, the sound of strident ragtime. Investigation disclosed a gaudily
striped tent of considerable size set up in the street and illuminated
by those flaring naphtha lamps they use in circuses. Going over to the
tent, we learned that there was dancing within, whereupon we paid our
fifteen cents apiece and entered. I have forgotten what produced the
music--it may have been a mechanical piano or a hurdy-gurdy--but there
was music, and it was loud, and there was a platform laid over the
cobble-stones of the street, and on that platform ten or more couples
were "ragging," their shoulders working like the walking beams of
side-wheelers. The men were of that nondescript type one would expect to
see in a fifteen-cent dancing place, but the women were of curious
appearance, for all were dressed alike, the costume being a fringed
khaki suit with knee-length skirt, a bandana at the neck, and a
sombrero. On inquiry I learned that this was called a "cowgirl" costume.
The dances were very brief, and in the intervals between them most of
the dancers went to a "bar" at the end of the tent where (Alabama being
a dry State) the beverage called "coca-cola"--a habit as much as a
drink--was being served in whisky glasses.

Unable to understand why th