Free MRS1 The Under Dogs by Hulbert Footner Page A

end of the Park and turned around. When I came back I saw them again. They had stopped to listen to the music and I passed behind them. The young men had evidently been admitted to a footing of acquaintanceship; the two girls still clung together, arm-in-arm, but they now had a youth on each side. Obliged to keep in step with the slowly-moving crowd, I heard some snatches of their talk as I passed, but I could make nothing of it. It was just a lively noise.
    One young man wore a straw hat with a very tall crown, and no brim to speak of. He said vaguely: "I'll tell the world..."
    To which the tall girl replied: "There'll be no wash in Heaven."
    And they shouted with laughter.
    The other young man wore an alleged Panama hat, which was most unnaturally ironed into the shape of a Fedoro, with a little hollow in each side of the crown. With a killing side-glance at the little girl, he warbled: "Oh, Min! Oh, Min! Come down to your child!"
    Whereat she replied with hauteur: "Somebody oughta give that buyd a wuym."
    Then the tall girl announced once more: "There'll be no wash in Heaven."
    And they redoubled their laughter.
    The next time our paths crossed they were walking. It never occurred to me that one like myself could attract the attention of this giddy quartet, and I looked at them with frank curiosity as we passed. Imagine my feelings when the tall girl suddenly turned her head, and said close in my face in sepulchral tones:
    "There'll be no wash in Heaven, kid!"
    Her companions roared. As for me, I walked on a little dizzily, for in that flamboyant girl I had suddenly recognised my mistress. I recognised her, yet I couldn't believe in the evidence of my own senses. Mme. Storey, the elegant, the exquisite, the admired of New York and Paris, and that great, showy flower of the East Side! Yet they were one and the same! I don't know what I had expected to find; certainly not that. Arm in arm with a girl of Avenue A and flirting with two of its fellows! Was it any wonder that I felt as if I had flown apart, and was unable to collect the pieces?
    But in due course my composure returned, and with it the deepest and richest feeling of amusement. What a marvellous piece of acting I was privileged to witness. Surely such acting had never been seen on any stage. What art, what humour, what humanity were in that impersonation; and it was all for me, so to speak; at least I was the only one in a position to appreciate it.
    I turned back, eager to see all I could. The four had now seated themselves in a row on the grass, facing the sidewalk, and by taking fairly short turns to and fro, I was able to pass them frequently. They paid no further attention to me. It was chiefly that blonde bush of hair which had created such a change in my mistress's outward seeming. I saw that it was not a wig. She had bobbed her hair, and dyed it with peroxide to that peculiarly crass shade. She had frizzed it till it stood out perpendicularly from her head. The hair, and the heavy make-up, of course, entirely destroyed her usual expression.
    But she did not depend on outward seeming. She had got under the very skin of her part. She portrayed a nature the exact opposite of her own. I could not sufficiently admire the subtle touches; the slightly thickened voice; the ungainly movements of her long body, which nevertheless expressed a natural grace; the crude gesticulation which suggested a powerful personality, but ignorant and unformed. It was a treat to see the way she made play with her hands in her fuzzy hair. She was studying her own effects, too, and enjoying them; one could tell it from the slightly withdrawn expression of her eyes. For conversation, that one phrase seemed to do her pretty well, on which she rang a hundred changes like a charming clown.
    "There'll be no wash in Heaven!"
    When the band put away its instruments, the crowd scattered, and I lost my quartet. I could not, in any case, have followed them. I went home, hugging the recollection