Cheerful By Request by Edna Ferber

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"Maybe they're all right," said Donahue thoughtfully. "If it's just a
flirtation, why--anyway, watch 'em this evening. The day watch listened
in and says they've made some date for to-night."

He was off down the hall again with his light, quick step that still had
the appearance of leisureliness.

The telephone at Sadie's right buzzed warningly. Sadie picked up the
receiver and plunged into the busiest half hour of the evening. From
that moment until seven o'clock her nimble fingers and eyes and brain
and tongue directed the steps of her little world. She held the
telephone receiver at one ear and listened to the demands of incoming
and outgoing guests with the other. She jotted down reports, dealt out
mail and room-keys, kept her neuralgic eye on stairs and elevators and
halls, her sound orb on tube and pantry signals, while through and
between and above all she guided the stream of humanity that trickled
past her desk--bellhops, Polish chambermaids, messenger boys, guests,
waiters, parlour maids.

Just before seven there disembarked at floor two out of the
cream-and-gold elevator one of those visions that have helped to make
Fifth Avenue a street of the worst-dressed women in the world. The
vision was Two-eighteen, and her clothes were of the kind that prepared
you for the shock that you got when you looked at her face. Plume met
fur, and fur met silk, and silk met lace, and lace met gold--and the
whole met and ran into a riot of colour, and perfume--and little
jangling, swishing sounds. Just by glancing at Two-eighteen's feet in
their inadequate openwork silk and soft kid you knew that Two-eighteen's
lips would be carmined.

She came down the corridor and stopped at Sadie Corn's desk. Sadie Corn
had her key ready for her. Two-eighteen took it daintily between
white-gloved fingers.

"I'll want a maid in fifteen minutes," she said. "Tell them to send me
the one I had yesterday. The pretty one. She isn't so clumsy as some."

Sadie Corn jotted down a note without looking up.

"Oh, Julia? Sorry--Julia's busy," she lied.

Two-eighteen knew she lied, because at that moment there came round the
bend in the broad, marble stairway that led up from the parlour floor
the trim, slim figure of Julia herself.

Two-eighteen took a quick step forward. "Here, girl! I'll want you to
hook me in fifteen minutes," she said.

"Very well, ma'am," replied Julia softly.

There passed between Sadie Corn and Two-eighteen a--well, you could
hardly call it a look, it was so fleeting, so ephemeral; that electric,
pregnant, meaning something that flashes between two women who dislike
and understand each other. Then Two-eighteen was off down the hall to
her room.

Julia stood at the head of the stairway just next to Sadie's desk
and watched Two-eighteen until the bend in the corridor hid her.
Julia, of the lady's-maid staff, could never have qualified for the
position of floor clerk, even if she had chosen to bury herself in
lavender-and-white crocheted shawls to the tip of her marvellous little
Greek nose. In her frilly white cap, her trim black gown, her immaculate
collar and cuffs and apron, Julia looked distractingly like the young
person who, in the old days of the furniture-dusting drama, was wont to
inform you that it was two years since young master went away--all but
her feet. The feather-duster person was addicted to French-heeled,
beaded slippers. Not so Julia. Julia was on her feet for ten hours or so
a day. When you subject your feet to ten-hour tortures you are apt to
pass by French-heeled effects in favour of something flat-heeled, laced,
with an easy, comfortable crack here and there at the sides, and
stockings with white cotton soles.

Julia, at the head of the stairway, stood looking after Two-eighteen
until the tail of her silken draperies had whisked round the corner.
Then, still staring, Julia spoke resentfully:

"Life for her is just one darned pair of long white kid gloves after
another! Look at her! Why is it that kind of a face is always wearing
the sables and diamonds?"

"Sables and diamonds," replied Sadie Corn, sniffing essence of
peppermint, "seem a small enough reward for having to carry round a mug
like that!"

Julia came round to the front of Sadie Corn's desk. Her eyes were
brooding, her lips sullen.

"Oh, I don't know!" she said bitterly. "Being pretty don't get you
anything--just being pretty! When I first came I used to wonder at those
women that paint their faces and colour their hair, and wear skirts that
are too tight and waists that are too low. But--I don't know! This
town's so big and so--so kind of uninterested. When you see everybody
wearing clothes that are more gorgeous than yours, and diamonds bigger,
and limousines longer and blacker and quieter, it gives you a kind of
fever. You--you want to make people look at you too."

Sadie Corn leaned back in her chair. The peppermint bottle was held at
her nose. It may have been that which caused her eyes to narrow to mere
slits as she gazed at the drooping Julia. She said nothing. Suddenly
Julia seemed to feel the silence. She looked down at Sadie Corn. As by a
miracle all the harsh, sullen lines in the girl's face vanished, to be
replaced by a lovely compassion.

"Your neuralgy again, dearie?" she asked in pretty concern.

Sadie sniffed long and audibly at the peppermint bottle.

"If you ask me I think there's some imp inside of my head trying to push
my right eye out with his thumb. Anyway it feels like that."

"Poor old dear!" breathed Julia. "It's the weather. Have them send you
up a pot of black tea."

"When you've got neuralgy over your right eye," observed Sadie Corn
grimly, "there's just one thing helps--that is to crawl into bed in a
flannel nightgown, with the side of your face resting on the red rubber
bosom of a hot-water bottle. And I can't do it; so let's talk about
something cheerful. Seen Jo to-day?"

There crept into Julia's face a wave of colour--not the pink of
pleasure, but the dull red of pain. She looked away from Sadie's eyes
and down at her shabby boots. The sullen look was in her face once more.

"No; I ain't seen him," she said.

"What's the trouble?" Sadie asked.

"I've been busy," replied Julia airily. Then, with a forced vivacity:
"Though it's nothing to Auto Show Week last year. I remember that week I
hooked up until my fingers were stiff. You know the way the dresses
fastened last winter. Some of 'em ought to have had a map to go by, they
were that complicated. And now, just when I've got so's I can hook any
dress that was ever intended for the human form--"

"Wasn't it Jo who said they ought to give away an engineering blueprint
with every dress, when you told him about the way they hooked?" put in
Sadie. "What's the trouble between you and--"

Julia rattled on, unheeding:

"You wouldn't believe what a difference there's been since these new
peasant styles have come in! And the Oriental craze! Hook down the side,
most of 'em--and they can do 'em themselves if they ain't too fat."

"Remember Jo saying they ought to have a hydraulic press for some of
those skintight dames, when your fingers were sore from trying to
squeeze them into their casings? By the way, what's the trouble between
you and--"

"Makes an awful difference in my tips!" cut in Julia deftly. "I don't
believe I've hooked up six this evening, and two of them sprung the
haven't-anything-but-a-five-dollar-bill-see-you-to-morrow! Women are
devils! I wish--"

Sadie Corn leaned forward, placed her hand on Julia's arm, and turned
the girl about so that she faced her. Julia tried miserably to escape
her keen eyes and failed.

"What's the trouble between you and Jo?" she demanded for the fourth
time. "Out with it or I'll telephone down to the engine room and ask him
myself."

"Oh, well, if you want to know--" She paused, her eyelids drooping
again; then, with a rush: "Me and Jo have quarrelled again--for good,
this time. I'm through!"

"What about?"

"I s'pose you'll say I'm to blame. Jo's mother's sick again. She's got
to go to the hospital and have another operation. You know what that
means--putting off the wedding again until God knows when! I'm sick of
it--putting off and putting off! I told him we might as well quit and be
done with it. We'll never get married at this rate. Soon's Jo gets
enough put by to start us on, something happens. Last three times it's
been his ma. Pretty soon I'll be as old and wrinkled and homely as--"

"As me!" put in Sadie calmly. "Well, I don't know's that's the worst
thing that can happen to you. I'm happy. I had my plans, too, when I was
a girl like you--not that I was ever pretty; but I had my trials. Funny
how the thing that's easy and the thing that's right never seem to be
the same!"

"Oh, I'm fond of Jo's ma," said Julia, a little shamefacedly. "We get
along all right. She knows how it is, I guess; and feels--well, in the
way. But when Jo told me, I was tired I guess. We had words. I told him
there were plenty waiting for me if he was through. I told him I could
have gone out with a real swell only last Saturday if I'd wanted to.
What's a girl got her looks for if not to have a good time?"

"Who's this you were invited out by?" asked Sadie Corn.

"You must have noticed him," said Julia, dimpling. "He's as handsome as
an actor. Name's Venner. He's in two-twenty-three."

There came the look of steel into Sadie Corn's eyes.

"Look here, Julia! You've been here long enough to know that you're not
to listen to the talk of the men guests round here. Two-twenty-three
isn't your kind--and you know it! If I catch you talking to him again
I'll--"

The telephone at her elbow sounded sharply. She answered it absently,
her eyes, with their expression of pain and remonstrance, still
unshrinking before the onslaught of Julia's glare. Then her expression
changed. A look of consternation came into her face.

"Right away, madam!" she said, at the telephone. "Right away! You won't
have to wait another minute." She hung up the receiver and waved Julia
away with a gesture. "It's Two-eighteen. You promised to be there in
fifteen minutes. She's been waiting and her voice sounds like a saw.
Better be careful how you handle her."

Julia's head, with its sleek, satiny coils of black hair that waved away
so bewitchingly from the cream of her skin, came up with a jerk.

"I'm tired of being careful of other people's feelings. Let somebody be
careful of mine for a change." She walked off down the hall, the little
head still held high. A half dozen paces and she turned. "What was it
you said you'd do to me if you caught me talking to him again?" she
sneered.

A miserable twinge of pain shot through Sadie Corn's eye, to be followed
by a wave of nausea that swept over her. They alone were responsible for
her answer.

"I'll report you!" she snapped, and was sorry at once.

Julia turned again, walked down the corridor and round the corner in the
direction of two-eighteen.

Long after Julia had disappeared Sadie Corn stared after
her--miserable, regretful.

Julia knocked once at the door of two-eighteen and turned the knob
before a high, shrill voice cried:

"Come!"

Two-eighteen was standing in the centre of the floor in scant satin
knickerbockers and tight brassiere. The blazing folds of a cerise satin
gown held in her hands made a great, crude patch of colour in the
neutral-tinted bedroom. The air was heavy with scent. Hair, teeth, eyes,
fingernails--Two-eighteen glowed and glistened. Chairs and bed held odds
and ends.

"Where've you been, girl?" shrilled Two-eighteen. "I've been waiting
like a fool! I told you to be here in fifteen minutes."

"My stop-watch isn't working right," replied Julia impudently and took
the cerise satin gown in her two hands.

She made a ring of the gown's opening, and through that cerise frame her
eyes met those of Two-eighteen.

"Careful of my hair!" Two-eighteen warned her, and ducked her head to
the practised movement of Julia's arms. The cerise gown dropped to her
shoulders without grazing a hair. Two-eighteen breathed a sigh of
relief. She turned to face the mirror.

"It starts at the left, three hooks; then to the centre; then back
four--under the arm and down the middle again. That chiffon comes over
like a drape."

She picked up a buffer from the litter of ivory and silver on the
dresser and began to polish her already glittering nails, turning her
head this way and that, preening her neck, biting her scarlet lips to
deepen their crimson, opening her eyes wide and half closing them
languorously. Julia, down on her knees in combat with the trickiest of
the hooks, glanced up and saw. Two-eighteen caught the glance in the
mirror. She stopped her idle polishing and preening to study the glowing
and lovely little face that looked up at her. A certain queer expression
grew in her eyes--a speculative, eager look.

"Tell me, little girl," she said, "What do you do round here?"

Julia turned from the mirror to the last of the hooks, her fingers
working nimbly.

"Me? My regular job is working. Don't jerk, please. I've fastened this
one three times."

"Working!" laughed Two-eighteen, fingering the diamonds at her throat.
"What does a pretty girl like you want to do that for?"

"Hook off here," said Julia. "Shall I sew it?"

"Pin it!" snapped Two-eighteen.

Julia's tidy nature revolted.

"It'll take just a minute to catch it with thread--"

Two-eighteen whirled about in one of the sudden hot rages of her kind:

"Pin it, you fool! Pin it! I told you I was late!"

Julia paused a moment, the red surging into her face. Then in silence
she knelt and wove a pin deftly in and out. When she rose from her
knees her face was quite white.

"There, that's the girl!" said Two-eighteen blithely, her rage
forgotten. "Just pat this over my shoulders."

She handed a powder-puff to Julia and turned her back to the broad
mirror, holding a hand-glass high as she watched the powder-laden puff
leaving a snowy coat on the neck and shoulders and back so generously
displayed in the cherry-coloured gown. Julia's face was set and hard.

"Oh, now, don't sulk!" coaxed Two-eighteen good-naturedly, all of a
sudden. "I hate sulky girls. I like people to be cheerful round me."

"I'm not used to being yelled at," Julia said resentfully.

Two-eighteen patted her cheek lightly. "You come out with me to-morrow
and I'll buy you something pretty. Don't you like pretty clothes?"

"Yes; but--"

"Of course you do. Every girl does--especially pretty ones like you. How
do you like this dress? Don't you think it smart?"

She turned squarely to face Julia, trying on her the tricks she had
practised in the mirror. A little cruel look came into Julia's face.

"Last year's, isn't it?" she asked coolly.

"This!" cried Two-eighteen, stiffening. "Last year's! I got it yesterday
on Fifth Avenue, and paid two hundred and fifty for it. What do you--"

"Oh, I believe you," drawled Julia. "They can tell a New Yorker from an
out-of-towner every time. You know the really new thing is the Bulgarian
effect!"

"Well, of all the nerve!" began Two-eighteen, turning to the mirror in a
sort of fright. "Of all the--"

What she saw there seemed to reassure. She raised one hand to push the
gown a little more off the left shoulder.

"Will there be anything else?" inquired Julia, standing aloof.

Two-eighteen turned reluctantly from the mirror and picked up a jewelled
gold-mesh bag that lay on the bed. From it she extracted a coin and held
it out to Julia. It was a generous coin. Julia looked at it. Her
smouldering wrath burst into flame.

"Keep it!" she said savagely, and was out of the room and down the hall.

Sadie Corn, at her desk, looked up quickly as Julia turned the corner.
Julia, her head held high, kept her eyes resolutely away from Sadie.

"Oh, Julia, I want to talk to you!" said Sadie Corn as Julia reached the
stairway. Julia began to descend the stairs, unheeding. Sadie Corn rose
and leaned over the railing, her face puckered with anxiety. "Now,
Julia, girl, don't hold that up against me! I didn't mean it. You know
that. You wouldn't be mad at a poor old woman that's half crazy with
neuralgy!" Julia hesitated, one foot poised to take the next step. "Come
on up," coaxed Sadie Corn, "and tell me what Two-eighteen's wearing
this evening. I'm that lonesome, with nothing to do but sit here and
watch the letter-ghosts go flippering down the mailchute! Come on!"

"What made you say you'd report me?" demanded Julia bitterly.

"I'd have said the same thing to my own daughter if I had one. You know
yourself I'd bite my tongue out first!"

"Well!" said Julia slowly, and relented. She came up the stairs almost
shyly. "Neuralgy any better?"

"Worse!" said Sadie Corn cheerfully.

Julia leaned against the desk sociably and glanced down the hall.

"Would you believe it," she snickered, "she's wearing red! With that
hair! She asked me if I didn't think she looked too pale. I wanted to
tell her that if she had any more colour, with that dress, they'd be
likely to use the chemical sprinklers on her when she struck the Alley."

"Sh-sh-sh!" breathed Sadie in warning. Two-eighteen, in her shimmering,
flame-coloured costume, was coming down the hall toward the elevators.
She walked with the absurd and stumbling step that her scant skirt
necessitated. With each pace the slashed silken skirt parted to reveal a
shameless glimpse of cerise silk stocking. In her wake came Venner, of
Two-twenty-three--a strange contrast in his black and white.

Sadie and Julia watched them from the corner nook. Opposite the desk
Two-eighteen stopped and turned to Julia.

"Just run into my room and pick things up and hang them away, will you?"
she said. "I didn't have time--and I hate things all about when I come
in dead tired."

The little formula of service rose automatically to Julia's lips.

"Very well, madam," she said.

Her eyes and Sadie's followed the two figures until they had stepped
into the cream-and-gold elevator and had vanished. Sadie, peppermint
bottle at nose, spoke first:

"She makes one of those sandwich men with a bell, on Sixth Avenue, look
like a shrinking violet!"

Julia's lower lip was caught between her teeth. The scent that had
enveloped Two-eighteen as she passed was still in the air. Julia's
nostrils dilated as she sniffed it. Her breath came a little quickly.
Sadie Corn sat very still, watching her.

"Look at her!" said Julia, her voice vibrant. "Look at her! Old and
homely, and all made up! I powdered her neck. Her skin's like tripe.

"Now Julia--" remonstrated Sadie Corn soothingly.

"I don't care," went on Julia with a rush. "I'm young. And I'm pretty
too. And I like pretty things. It ain't fair! That was one reason why I
broke with Jo. It wasn't only his mother. I told him he couldn't ever
give me the things I want anyway. You can't help wanting 'em--seeing
them all round every day on women that aren't half as good-looking as
you are! I want low-cut dresses too. My neck's like milk. I want silk
underneath, and fur coming up on my coat collar to make my cheeks look
pink. I'm sick of hooking other women up. I want to stand in front of a
mirror, looking at myself, polishing my pink nails with a silver thing
and having somebody else hook me up!"

In Sadie Corn's eyes there was a mist that could not be traced to
neuralgia or peppermint.

"Julia, girl," said Sadie Corn, "ever since the world began there's been
hookers and hooked. And there always will be. I was born a hooker. So
were you. Time was when I used to cry out against it too. But shucks! I
know better now. I wouldn't change places. Being a hooker gives you such
an all-round experience like of mankind. The hooked only get a front
view. They only see faces and arms and chests. But the hookers--they see
the necks and shoulderblades of this world, as well as faces. It's
mighty broadening--being a hooker. It's the hookers that keep this world
together, Julia, and fastened up right. It wouldn't amount to much if it
had to depend on such as that!" She nodded her head in the direction the
cerise figure had taken. "The height of her ambition is to get the
cuticle of her nails trained back so perfectly that it won't have to be
cut; and she don't feel decently dressed to be seen in public unless
she's wearing one of those breastplates of orchids. Envy her! Why,
Julia, don't you know that as you were standing here in your black dress
as she passed she was envying you!"

"Envying me!" said Julia, and laughed a short laugh that had little of
mirth in it. "You don't understand, Sadie!"

Sadie Corn smiled a rather sad little smile.

"Oh, yes, I do understand. Don't think because a woman's homely, and
always has been, that she doesn't have the same heartaches that a pretty
woman has. She's built just the same inside."

Julia turned her head to stare at her wide-eyed. It was a long and
trying stare, as though she now saw Sadie Corn for the first time.

Sadie, smiling up at the girl, stood it bravely. Then, with a sudden
little gesture, Julia patted the wrinkled, sallow cheek and was off down
the hall and round the corner to two-eighteen.

The lights still blazed in the bedroom. Julia closed the door and stood
with her back to it, looking about the disordered chamber. In that
marvellous way a room has of reflecting the very personality of its
absent owner, room two-eighteen bore silent testimony to the manner of
woman who had just left it. The air was close and overpoweringly sweet
with perfume--sachet, powder--the scent of a bedroom after a vain and
selfish woman has left it. The litter of toilet articles lay scattered
about on the dresser. Chairs and bed held garments of lace and silk. A
bewildering negligee hung limply over a couch; and next it stood a
patent-leather slipper, its mate on the floor.

Julia saw these things in one accustomed glance. Then she advanced to
the middle of the room and stooped to pick up a pink wadded bedroom
slipper from where it lay under the bed. And her hand touched a coat of
velvet and fur that had been flung across the counterpane--touched it
and rested there.

The coat was of stamped velvet and fur. Great cuffs of fur there were,
and a sumptuous collar that rolled from neck to waist. There was a
lining of vivid orange. Julia straightened up and stood regarding the
garment, her hands on her hips.

"I wonder if it's draped in the back," she said to herself, and picked
it up. It was draped in the back--bewitchingly. She held it at arm's
length, turning it this way and that. Then, as though obeying some
powerful force she could not resist, Julia plunged her arms into the
satin of the sleeves and brought the great soft revers up about her
throat. The great, gorgeous, shimmering thing completely hid her grubby
little black gown. She stepped to the mirror and stood surveying herself
in a sort of ecstasy. Her cheeks glowed rose-pink against the dark fur,
as she had known they would. Her lovely little head, with its coils of
black hair, rose flowerlike from the clinging garment. She was still
standing there, lips parted, eyes wide with delight, when the door
opened and closed--and Venner, of two-twenty-three, strode into the
room.

"You little beauty!" exclaimed Two-twenty-three.

Julia had wheeled about. She stood staring at him, eyes and lips wide
with fright now. One hand clutched the fur at her breast.

"Why, what--" she gasped.

Two-twenty-three laughed.

"I knew I'd find you here. I made an excuse to come up. Old Nutcracker
Face in the hall thinks I went to my own room." He took two quick steps
forward. "You raving little Cinderella beauty, you!"--And he gathered
Julia, coat and all, into his arms.

"Let me go!" panted Julia, fighting with all the strength of her young
arms. "Let me go!"

"You'll have coats like this," Two-twenty-three was saying in her
ear--"a dozen of them! And dresses too; and laces and furs! You'll be
ten times the beauty you are now! And that's saying something. Listen!
You meet me to-morrow--"

There came a ring--sudden and startling--from the telephone on the wall
near the door. The man uttered something and turned. Julia pushed him
away, loosened the coat with fingers that shook and dropped it to the
floor. It lay in a shimmering circle about the tired feet in their worn,
cracked boots. And one foot was raised suddenly and kicked the silken
garment into a heap.

The telephone bell sounded again. Venner, of two-twenty-three, plunged
his hand into his pocket, took out something and pressed it in Julia's
palm, shutting her fingers over it. Julia did not need to open them and
look to see--she knew by the feel of the crumpled paper, stiff and
crackling. He was making for the door, with some last instructions that
she did not hear, before she spoke. The telephone bell had stopped its
insistent ringing.

Julia raised her arm and hurled at him with all her might the
yellow-backed paper he had thrust in her hand.

"I'll--I'll get my man to whip you for this!" she panted. "Jo'll pull
those eyelashes of yours out and use 'em for couplings. You miserable
little--"

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