Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 3 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

302 farewells, she packed her small belongings and departed the vicinity that she had flat- tered by the name of home. Thenceforth Polly Morgan’s calendar was in terms of “openings of the season,” ‘““ jumps,” and “ stands.” CHAPTER. II. THE TOPMOST RUNG, HERE was no latent talent to be dis- covered in Polly. She did her chorus work diligently, mechanically, without orig- inality or ambition, with much faithfulness; and with her sisters was useful much as the scenery and stage settings were useful to give a brilliant background to the crude art of the show. 3 She made no attempts to improve her position in any way, and it is doubtful if she was ever jealous of a place of honor in the front row. She was apathetically content with the unusual independence of her new occupation and the freedom from restraint she now enjoyed. Polly was no more moral nor no less so than others of the girls with the show. The old code of expediency prevailed in her new life, as it had in the old. The same old battle of wits and passions, the same old conflict of the sexes, continued—unmoral and unfeeling. The luxury she had antici- pated found expression in late and lazy hours in the beds of cheap hotels, and late and lascivious hours at the tables of cheap cafés. Her desires for warmth and light and pleasure found easy gratification. She early learned the tricks that chorus girls know: how to gain from a John the maximum of profit at a minimum of ex- pense; how always to inject a third and pre- cautionary member into any dinner or drinking bout; how to parry and foil the wiles of designing males};.how to accept members of the ‘‘ profession ” on a different plane from others; how to be alertly sus- picious of every new acquaintance, and how to conserve her meager pay and invest it n “hock-shop”’ diamonds and other se- curities that might be negotiated in times of need quickly and without embarrass- ment. THE ARGOSY. Polly was a creature of the moment—as careless of the future as the ephemeral flies that take wing and live and perform their purpose in a brief span of fitful flight. She had learned that too much thought was dis- tressing, so she ceased to give it further consideration. Life must progress or retrogress—there is no such thing as stagnation. Nature had planned a course for Polly Morgan, and if her mind was indifferent to ambition, then other attributes must be the motive power to drive her up or down the natural scale. It was inescapable that she should not remain fixed. Sometimes Nature blesses her children with her endowment of physical beauties; sometimes she damns them with the same gift. Beauty may be an asset or a liability according as it finds environment. Polly was possessed of this equivocal gift of beauty. Hers was a sensuous pulchri- tude unassociated with graces of mind or manners. The lithe perfections of her body and the petulant prettiness of her face were attractions that compelled admiration— dangerous and menacing admiration. She regarded her charms merely as weapons with which she had been girded for the war- fare of self-preservation that she was con- tinually engaged in. | In the burlesque business such charms as Polly was possessed of are aids to fortune that serve instead of the talent or ability that drives to fame in other arts. The Paphian devotees of burlesque demand their beauty in the flesh or in fleshings. Their tastes have put a managerial premium on sensuality. Artistic deficiencies have leng since been overweighted by physical po- tency. So it came that despite Polly Morgan’s indifference to ambition, she was chosen for prominence, and at the end of her first season as a chorus girl had become one of those envied and erotic ornaments for which there was much spirited competition among the men who pick and choose the bodily stage settings for their shows. “You for the front row!” announced the show manager as he inspected Polly’s charms with bold eyes in the insecure pri- vacy of her dressing-room. Gol JOOKS (C@)