“It really doesn’t matter much after all,” I replied, hoping to close the conversation.  “You all were not sent here to establish the location of the different parts of my anatomy, anyway.”

The man appeared not to have heard me.  “I’d swear,” he murmured musingly, standing back and regarding me with tilted head, “I’d swear it was his neck if it warn’t for his arms.”  He suddenly discontinued his dreamy observations and became all business.

“Well, sir,” he began briskly, “now that we’ve settled that what do you want me to do to it?”

“Why, shave it, of course,” I replied bitterly.  “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?  All us Show Girls have got to have our chests shaved.”

“An’ after I’ve shaved your chest, dear,” he asked in a soothing voice, “what do you want me to do with it?”

“With what?” I replied, enraged, “with my chest?”

“No,” he answered easily, “not your chest, but that one poor little pitiful hair that adorns it.  Do you want me to send it home to your ma, all tied around with a pink ribbon?”

I saw no reason to reply to this insult, but stood uneasily and tried to maintain my dignity while he lathered me with undue elaboration.  When it was time for him to produce his razor he faltered.

“I can’t do it,” he said brokenly, “I haven’t the heart to cut it down in its prime.  It looks so lonely and helpless there by itself.”  He swept his razor around several times with a free-handed, blood-curdling swoop of his arm.  “Well, here goes,” he said, shutting his eyes and approaching me.  Tony turned away as if unable to witness the scene.  I was unnerved, but I stood my ground.  The deed was done and I was at last free to depart.  “That’s a terrible chest for a Show Girl,” I heard him to say to Tony as I did so.

May 29th. The world has come clattering down around my ears and I am buried, crushed and bruised beneath the debris.  There was a dress rehearsal to-day, and I, from the whole company, was singled out for the wrath of the gods.

“Who is that chorus girl on the end acting frantic?” cried out one of the directors in the middle of a number.  My name was shouted across the stage until it echoed and resounded and came bounding back in my face from every corner of the shadow-plunged theater.  I knew I was in for it and drew myself up majestically although I turned pale under my war paint.

“Well, tell him he isn’t walking on stilts,” continued the director, and although it was perfectly unnecessary, I was told that and several other things with brutal candor.  The dance went on but I knew the eyes of the director were on me.  My legs seemed to lose all proper coordination.  My arms became unmanageable.  I lost step and could not pick it up again, yet, as in a nightmare, I struggled on desperately.  Suddenly the director clapped his hands.  The music ceased, and I slowed down to an uneasy shuffle.