He turned east along Fourteenth street, where cheap vaudevilles are
strung together as glass-pearls on the throat of a wanton. Gaudy
bill-boards, drenched in clamorous red, proclaimed the tawdry
attractions within. Much to the surprise of the doorkeeper at a
particularly evil-looking music hall, Reginald Clarke lingered in the
lobby, and finally even bought a ticket that entitled him to enter this
sordid wilderness of decollete art. Street-snipes, a few workingmen,
dilapidated sportsmen, and women whose ruined youth thick layers of
powder and paint, even in this artificial light, could not restore,
constituted the bulk of the audience. Reginald Clarke, apparently
unconscious of the curiosity, surprise and envy that his appearance
excited, seated himself at a table near the stage, ordering from the
solicitous waiter only a cocktail and a programme. The drink he left
untouched, while his eyes greedily ran down the lines of the
announcement. When he had found what he sought, he lit a cigar, paying
no attention to the boards, but studying the audience with cursory
interest until the appearance of Betsy, the Hyacinth Girl.
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