The great see-saw of life is as interesting as a poker game if you only have a mind to watch it, but, like the poker game, it must be thoroughly understood and closely studied to appreciate the fine points. In the beginning we all take cards, we all draw to fill; the winning hands slip easily through life, while the four flushes try to bluff it out, and there’s many a four flush in New York to-day who is getting away with it.
Many a girl who wears a sailor hat never saw a yacht, and many a man who wears a diamond pin couldn’t pay fifty cents on the dollar if it came to a show down.
But that isn’t the story by any means.
I call this little recital of facts the beginning and the end; you’ll see why later as the plot thickens.
New York with the lid on is New York just the same, no matter what the police say. It’s all there, only it is covered up a bit.
The shades are pulled closer, but the lights and everything else are behind them.
The wild revelry of the masked ball is toned down not one jot, and the perfect ladies in tights who help to make life endurable for the sports on these occasions do not add, so far as can be seen, even so much as one piece of jewelry to their scant costumes.
You may never have seen the kind of room I’m going to introduce to you, but if you haven’t it’s your
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 fault, for they are common enough, not only in New York, but in many other cities.
There’s space enough for dancing here, and the floor is polished like glass. Around the sides are round tables for the drinkers, and they are the most important feature, for if you don’t drink, or at least order drinks, you had better skiddoo, for you’ll not have a very pleasant time.
At one end of the room is an orchestra, consisting of a piano and a violin. I don’t need to call your attention to the fact that the fellow who is playing the violin knows his business. You can tell that by the way he handles his instrument. He never learned that touch out of a book, nor did he acquire that technique at the rate of ten lessons for a dollar, cash in advance. A few years before he was playing nocturnes and sonatas before fashionable audiences for big money, but he hit the slide and now he’s at the bottom—a dollar a night and drinks for ragtime.
The hands on the clock which mark the flight of time show exactly midnight, and business is at high tide. It’s a case of get the money between now and three o’clock and then slow down, and every aggressive waiter in the place is hustling as if his life depended on it.
A girl is standing at the piano as the orchestra strikes the introduction of a song. Not a bad-looking girl if you observe her closely. Rather a strong face, good, honest blue eyes, set well apart, and a chin in which there is some hint of determination and self-reliance. She has a trim little figure, not voluptuous, but good to look at—the kind of a figure that seems to
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 belong in an evening gown, and which men turn around to look at.
The only thing that stamps her as an habitue of the place is her dress. Its gaudiness was made for the night. It is a street beacon which proclaims at every step, “follow me.” The picture hat, with the sweeping red feather, heightens the effect. It is all very stagey, and would look as garish as spangles in the honest light of day.
But this is not a daylight scene, so we’ll let that pass.
“Ha, there, you noisy guys, cut out that chinnin’; Little Melba’s goin’ ter sing. Cheese it.”
It is the strident voice of a waiter that admonishes a noisy party at one of the tables, and it has an immediate effect.
It’s just as well, you know, to pay a little attention to the advice of a waiter in a place like this.
And so she sings her song.
It is a refrain with a swing to it, and it tells the story of a man and a woman in a rather affecting way, and for her loyalty to him, the man calls the woman his pal.
But the words don’t count here; it’s the voice, and you’ll see why they call her Little Melba. Every note is true and clear, and there is never a falter at the high ones.
It doesn’t need a waiter to command order now; the first line of that song, as sung by her, did more than all the waiters in the world could do.
It commanded the respectful attention of that mixed mob.
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At the finish of the first chorus, a sailor in the exuberance of his admiration, and feeling that he must give voice to his sentiments in some tangible manner, roared out:
“You’re all right, old pal; you’re all right.”
She smiled at the compliment, nodded at him in a friendly way, and then she continued.
Every night she sang there—ten songs—and she was paid exactly the same as the waiters—one dollar, but she received in addition certain privileges, the details of which need not be entered into here, because they have nothing to do with the story.
One of the waiters—the one who had called out for order—was her man. She called him another name, and he was known to the world by still another. As a matter of fact, although he didn’t know it, he belonged to her—although he thought she belonged to him—for the clothes that he wore were bought with her money, the food that he ate she paid for, and it was she who rented the place which he called home. She was the bread winner, she bore the burden of life, and she took the blows. The police kept their eyes on her, but paid no attention to the man—the real criminal.
As the last notes of her song forced their way through the clouds of tobacco smoke, three men in evening dress came in. They were of the usual kind of visitors from which the waiters always expect a wine order. They wore evening clothes like men who had been used to them all their lives, and it didn’t need the sharp eyes of a waiter in a tough resort like this to detect that air of prosperity which invariably forms an invisible halo about money.
The square-jawed, square-shouldered young fellow
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 who took the order was not disappointed. It was wine, and as he uncorked the bottle, full of a sense of his own importance, one of them asked, casually:
“Who is the lady who was singing as we came in?”
“Little Melba; she’s there with de goods, all right, ain’t she?”
“Tell her to come over here and have a drink.”
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