“My, did you see what the critics said about our show?” exclaimed Sabrina, Show Girl, as her maid opened the door.  “Wasn’t it awful?  I didn’t know there were so many mean words in the book.  And the nerve of them to pan me after meeting several of them socially.  One of them said that I looked so good standing up that it was a crime to have me sit down, but when I spoke for goodness sake get the muffler.  The mut!  I should go down and horsewhip him.  But no, that’s what us people that figure in public are bound to get.  They never say a good word until after the minister says, ‘Dust thou art to dust returneth,’ and then some cluck is liable to come along and dig up a bunch of letters.

“I am thinking seriously of taking a flat until summer.  I don’t like this hotel, one has to keep so many conventionalities.  Why, the other day my ’phone was out of order and I ran down to the desk in my kimona to telephone and the clerk had the nerve to call me for it.  Can you surpass that?  I told him to open his ears and let his head cool off.

“I was looking at a nice flat the other day, but they want me to sign a lease.  What do I know about a lease?  There ain’t no half salary clause in it.  If I did sign the lease and want to beat it all I would do would be to call in the Lease Breakers’ Association and I could leave the next day.  That mob responds to a call like the crowd in the Cadillac when some one says, I’ll buy,’ and you can take it from me that’s going some.

“Sure, haven’t you heard of the Lease Breakers’ Association?  They guarantee to break any lease in less than a week.  It is composed of a mob of select ladies and gentlemen who can make the most noise.  A person wishing to leave their abode and handicapped with a lease has but to blow the whistle for this gang and furnish plenty of refreshments and there is nothing to it.  I attended one the other evening and we all had the one grand time.

“A friend of mine has ceased being married and naturally has no more use for a whole flat, so she approached the cruel landlord and asked for a release.  Did she get it?  Not.  He told her that she would have to stick or stand the consequences.  Does she tear out a bunch of hair and rave all over the room?  Not her.  She gets the members of the Lease Breakers on the ’phone and that night they hold the big celebration and the next morning four tenants kicked to the landlord.  The morning after that the whole building kicked in a body and the janitor had to repair two ceilings.  Then the guv asked her to move and she refused until he gave up her month’s rent.  She was foolish like one of those birds they call a fox.  I guess, yes.  These landlords have to go some if they want to get ahead of the simple Bohemians.  What they want rent for beats me.  They own the houses and that ought to satisfy them.

“If I do get this flat, take it from me, we will pull off the grand one time.  I intend to hold a reception every evening after the show until I get a request to move.