lackwell's.

"He has never been over there except to take flowers to the Poillon
sisters. They love nature so. Charlotte says it makes her homesick every
time she sees a Joy Line boat go by.

"The benefit season will soon open and any person that has a couple of
thousand dollars to pay for a theater can git a benefit for himself and
maybe draw down a couple of hundred more. The benefit for the chorus,
girls has gone up in the air, for none of them would acknowledge that
they were chorus girls.

"They were either show girls or pony dancers, and that let them out.
Anyway, each girl wanted to bring her maid, and the dressing rooms would
have been so full of maids that there would have been no room for the
dolls. I had it all framed up, too. I had six wine agents and a whisky
salesman who guaranteed to appear, and that alone would have made the
thing a financial success. But what could I do?

"Our bunch has been rehearsing five weeks without salaries, and with the
excessive taxicab rates we got no money to spend on clothes to wear to
the ball, and the wardrobe mistress keeps an awful tab on the costume
hampers.

"A certain friend of mine, who, by the way, I wouldn't trust any further
than I can throw an elephant by the tail, had the nerve to take me up in
her apartment the other day and show me her new bathing suit she had
just imported from Paris. It was a swell thing all right, but sewed in
the waistband was a piece of cloth that said 'Burgomaster 2' on it, so
you can draw your own conclusions.

"Honest, the way some girls steal is something awful. Take it from me,
it's nothing less than stealing to swipe a wardrobe. Of course, if the
show is going to close it's all right, but from a successful production,
never. Lifting a scarfpin from a soused party is all right, for he is
supposed to do something to remunerate the lady for wasting her time by
taking her to supper.

"Spring has sure come and I do just glory in nature. I suppose that is
because I was brought up in the country. We never have anything but
nature in Emporia.

"Oh, I heard from the folks the other day, and they tell me that Emporia
is now growing to be some town. The bank is putting up a four-story
brick building, which is going to be looked on as the village
skyscraper.

"The town council has already passed resolutions restricting the height
of the buildings to six stories. They ain't going to take the chance
that New York does, and have some of