“A chorus-girl got from ten to twenty dollars a week,” said Toodles; and that was hardly enough to pay for her clothes.  Her work was very uncertain—­she would spend weeks at rehearsal, and then if the play failed, she would get nothing.  It was a dog’s life; and the keys of freedom and opportunity were in the keeping of rich men, who haunted the theatres and laid siege to the girls.  They would send in notes to them, or fling bouquets to them, with cards, or perhaps money, hidden in them.  There were millionaire artists and bohemians who kept a standing order for seats in the front rows at opening performances; they had accounts with florists and liverymen and confectioners, and gave carte blanche to scores of girls who lent themselves to their purposes.  Sometimes they were in league with the managers, and a girl who held back would find her chances imperilled; sometimes these men would even finance shows to give a chance to some favourite.

Afterward Toodles turned to listen to Oliver and his companion; and Montague sat back and gazed about the room.  Next to him was a long table with a dozen, people at it; and he watched the buckets of champagne and the endless succession of fantastic-looking dishes of food, and the revellers, with their flushed faces and feverish eyes and loud laughter.  Above all the tumult was the voice of the orchestra, calling, calling, like the storm wind upon the mountains; the music was wild and chaotic, and produced an indescribable sense of pain and confusion.  When one realized that this same thing was going on in thousands of places in this district it seemed that here was a flood of dissipation that out-rivalled even that of Society.

It was said that the hotels of New York, placed end to end, would reach all the way to London; and they took care of a couple of hundred thousand people a day—­a horde which had come from all over the world in search of pleasure and excitement.  There were sight-seers and “country customers” from forty-five states; ranchers from Texas, and lumber kings from Maine, and mining men from Nevada.  At home they had reputations, and perhaps families to consider; but once plunged into the whirlpool of the Tenderloin, they were hidden from all>the world.  They came with their pockets full of money; and hotels and restaurants, gambling-places and pool-rooms and brothels—­all were lying in wait for them!  So eager had the competition become that there was a tailoring establishment and a bank that were never closed the year round, except on Sunday.

Everywhere about one’s feet the nets of vice were spread.  The head waiter in one’s hotel was a “steerer” for a “dive,” and the house detective was “touting” for a gambling-place.  The handsome woman who smiled at one in “Peacock Alley” was a “madame”; the pleasant-faced young man who spoke to one at the bar was on the look-out for customers for a brokerage-house next door.  Three times in a single day in another of these great caravanserais