concluding speech
evidently still rankled. "She gives me a pain in the gizthard!"
"Hasn't she got a limousine?" asked Jill.
"Of course she hasn't. She's engaged to be married to a demonstrator
in the Speedwell Auto Company, and he thneaks off when he can get away
and gives her joy-rides. That's all the limouthine she's got. It beats
me why girls in the show business are alwayth tho crazy to make
themselves out vamps with a dozen millionaires on a string. If Mae
wouldn't four-flush and act like the Belle of the Moulin Rouge, she'd
be the nithest girl you ever met. She's mad about the fellow she's
engaged to, and wouldn't look at all the millionaires in New York if
you brought 'em to her on a tray. She's going to marry him as thoon as
he's thaved enough to buy the furniture, and then she'll thettle down
in Harlem thomewhere and cook and mind the baby and regularly be one
of the lower middle classes. All that's wrong with Mae ith that she's
read Gingery Stories and thinkth that's the way a girl has to act when
she'th in the chorus."
"That's funny," said Jill. "I should never have thought it. I
swallowed the limousine whole."
The cherub looked at her curiously. Jill puzzled her. Jill had,
indeed, been the subject of much private speculation among her
colleagues.
"This is your first show, ithn't it?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Thay, what are you doing in the chorus, anyway?"
"Getting scolded by Mr. Miller mostly, it seems to me.
"Thcolded by Mr. Miller! Why didn't you say 'bawled out by Johnny'?
That'th what any of the retht of us would have said."
"Well, I've lived most of my life in England. You can't expect me to
talk the language yet."
"I thought you were English. You've got an acthent like the fellow who
plays the dude in thith show. Thay, why did you ever get into the show
business?"
"Well ... well, why did you? Why does anybody?"
"Why did I? Oh, I belong there. I'm a regular Broadway rat. I wouldn't
be happy anywhere elthe. I was born in the show business. I've got two
thithters in the two-a-day and a brother in thtock in California and
dad's one of the betht comedians on the burlethque wheel. But any one
can thee you're different. There's no reathon why you should be
sticking around in the chorus."
"But there is. I've no money, and I can't do anything to make it."
"Honetht?"
"Honest."
"That's tough." The cherub pondered, her round eyes searching Jill's
face. "Why don't you get married
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