pouting, ruddy mouth; while her neck, white and
statuesque, crowns the full bosom of a goddess. She said that she came
out evenings occasionally to make money, not for the purpose of
subsistence, but to meet debts that her extravagance had caused her to
contract. She said in substance: "You see my appetite is fastidious, and
I like good eating and drinking. I have the most expensive suppers
sometimes. I am engaged to be married to a young fellow who works on a
daily newspaper and who is busy at night. We shall be married some day,
I suppose. He does, not suspect me to be 'fast,' and you don't suppose I
am going to take the trouble to undeceive him. This is not a frequent
practice of mine; I only come out when I want money, and I always have
an appointment before I come out. I always dress well of course, and can
pick up a gentleman anywhere when I like. Yes, I know I have good feet,
and I know how to use them. I have hooked many a fifty dollars by
showing a couple of inches of my ankle. Of course, I hate being in the
store, but my fellow is rather jealous, and I keep going there as a
blind. Will I reform when I am married? Perhaps so--if he gives me heaps
of money. I am no worse than thousands of girls, single and married, who
put on airs of purity and church-going. I know plenty of ladies who pay
five hundred dollars at the store for silks and finery, which they
persuade their husbands they bought for one-fourth of the price. And,
for my part, I am going to eat well, dress well, and enjoy myself as
long as ever I can get the money, by hook or by crook."

CHAPTER V.

THE PRETTY WAITER GIRL.

_Concert Saloons and how they are Managed--How the Pretty Waitresses
Live and upon Whom, and how the Unwary are Fleeced and Beguiled--A
Midnight Visit to one of the Dives._

Readers of the works of Le Sage will recall the polite devil which the
ingenious novelist releases from his captivity in a vial, for the
purpose of disclosing to the world the true inwardness of society in
Spain. Something of the role of this communicative imp we purpose to
enact in this chapter, the subject matter of which, we may safely
venture to assert, is new to at least nine-tenths of the residents of
this great city. And if people, to the manner born, are unacquainted
with the form and manifestations of this particular phase of crime, how
much more ignorant must be those casual visitors, who only, at long
intervals, are called by business, or impell