that last boom of eleven the Stuyvesant Theater swung its doors
outward as the portals of a cuckoo clock fly open on the hour, and women
in fur-collared, brocaded coats, which wrapped them to the ankles, and
carefully curved smiles that Watteau knew so well and Thackeray knew too
well, streamed out into the radium-white flare of Broadway, their
delicate fingers resting lightly on the tired arms of tired business
men, whose faces were like wood-carving and whose wide white
shirt-fronts covered their hearts like slabs.

Almost before the last limousine door had slammed, and the last tired
business man had felt the light compelling pressure of the delicate
finger-tips on his arm and turned his tired eyes from the white lights
to the whiter lights of cafes and gold-leaf hotels, the interior of the
Stuyvesant Theater, warm and perfumed as the interior of a jewel-box,
blinked into soft darkness. Small figures, stealthy _espions_ of the
night, padded down thick-carpeted aisles flashing their pocket
searchlights now here, now there, folding rows of velvet seats against
velvet backs, reaching for discarded programs and seat-checks, gathering
up the dainty debris of petals fallen from too-blown roses, an
occasional webby handkerchief, an odd glove, a ribbon.

Then the dull-red eyes above the fire-exits blinked out, the sea of
twilight deepened, and the small searchlights flashed brighter and
whiter, glow-worms in a pit of night.

"For Pete's sakes! Tell Ed to give back them lights; my lamp's burnt
out."

"Oh, hurry up, Essie! You girls up there in the balcony would kick if
you was walkin' a tight rope stretched between the top stories of two
Flatiron Buildings."

"It's easy enough for you to talk down there in the orchestra, Lulu
Pope. Carriage shoes don't muss up the place like Subway shoes."

"Gimme the balcony in preference to the orchestra every time."

"What about us girls 'way up here in the chutes? Whatta you say about
us, Lulu Pope--playin' handmaids to the gallery gods?"

"Chutes the same. I used to be in the chutes over at the Olympic, and
six nights out of the week I carried water up the aisles without a
stop. Lookin' each row in the eye, too!"

"Like fun!"

"Sure's my name's Lulu Pope! Me an' a girl named Della Bradenwald used
to play Animal or Vegetable Kingdom every entr'acte with the fireman."

"Oh-h-h! Say, Loo, you oughtta see what I found up here in Box E!"

"Leave it to Essie Birdsong for a find!