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SHOWMAN
too drunk to have some idea of seeing a show, and a horseshoe of twenty-five or thirty boxes to which came citizens who were so drunk they didn't know whether they were seeing a show or a funeral in order to get drunker. Drinks were served everywhere in the house. Big drinks of bad liquor.
From eight to midnight, while the house filled up and the noise got going, the stage was occupied with a variety show— a show full of dancing girls, singing girls, purely ornamental and useless girls, which was the ancestor of the modern burlesque layout. At midnight the girls left the stage and came out front to ' 'hustle drinks" in the boxes. They worked on commission— no salary— existing on a percentage of what they could persuade the customers to spend, and the methods of persuasion they used were just about what are still used in separating suckers from their bankrolls the world over. From midnight on the dramatic company took over the stage and played melodrama— "The Long Strike," "The Boy Detective," my old friend "Sweeney Todd, the Maniac Barber," lots and lots of Indian plays— so long as business held up, which might well mean five o'clock in the morning. It didn't matter what we played, so long as it was noisy and full of action. We could have played "Oedipus Rex" on horseback and the house wouldn't have known the difference so long as the curtain stayed up to give the customers the idea they were getting some entertainment.
The curtain was lowered only when the rough-and
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