menu_book Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of But Gentleman Mary Burnett's by Anita Luce. Chapter 3 Well, when I finally became literary, I decided that I would not be the kind of an authoress who leaves the world no better off than it was in the first place by being destructive. But I would always try to teach some lesson that would make it even better.

And the best lesson I have ever come in contact with is the life of my girlfriend, Dorothy. So I decided to write about that. Only the life of Dorothy is not going to be so much for girls to resemble as it is to give them a warning what they should stop doing. I mean, in the first place, Dorothy was born in quite a low environment.

And a low environment is all very cute in the cinema, for Mary Pickford can be rescued out of even an ash can and still turn out refreshing at the finish by marrying some wealthy millionaire. But although Dorothy has improved her environment from quite a low one to the Ritz Hotel, even living at the Ritz has not improved Dorothy's ideals.

For she does nothing but fall madly in love with the kind of gentlemen who were born without money and have not made any since. Well, when I told Henry that I was going to write The Life of Dorothy, we had quite a little quarrel. Because Henry seemed to think that the world would only be the better off for not knowing

the life of a girl like Dorothy. I mean, Henry is quite broad-minded like all the great reformers have to be in order to look at both sides of the same thing at once. And he really does not mind what a girl has been through as long as she does not enjoy herself at the finish.

But Henry said that when girls like Dorothy do not pay, and pay, how are all the moral people going to get their satisfaction out of watching them suffer? And what would happen to Christianity? But I finally persuaded Henry to let me write it. For I said that he could read it all over and give it a sanction before it ever reached

the public. So, if it does reach the public, it means that the girls can know with safety before they begin to read that they are going to learn something to their advantage. Well, the first thing that Dorothy remembers about her life was when she was a small child, and she and her father belonged to what was known as the Greater Pacific Street Fair and

Carnival Company on the Pacific Coast. Because it seems that whenever the Knights of Pythias, or the Lithuanian Church in some small-sized town, wish to hold a carnival for the benefit of something, they communicate with companies that make a profession of doing nothing but travel around and hold carnivals. And these companies are only supposed to supply the merry-go-rounds and freaks and cute-y dolls,

but I think their real profession lies in deceiving the public. Because Dorothy says that after the benefit was over, the Knights of Pythias or the Lithuanian Church would be in such a crippled financial condition that they could not afford another benefit for years and years. Well, it seems that in every carnival company, there is some gentleman who does something

free to amuse or instruct the public, like wearing pink spangled tights, for instance, and jumping off the post office roof into a tank full of water. And the one who did that in their carnival company was nobody less than Dorothy's father, Mr. Shaw. So I had to ask Dorothy if her father never came to grief doing such an operation.

And it seems that one time he did have quite a little accident, because he was always in a chronic state of being intoxicated, and he made a mistake in the hour and jumped off the post office roof before they had filled the tank yet. But Dorothy says it didn't hurt him much, because it was just a case of tank-meet-tank, and her father had had enough in him to make up for the other one being empty.

Well, it seems that while Dorothy's father was jumping off roofs, Dorothy's mother spent her time in quite an expensive flat at San Francisco. But she was so un-domestic that she could hardly stand anything in the way of a husband, although every once in a while she would suddenly get quite maternal and send for Dorothy. So then Dorothy's father would put her on the train to San Francisco in the charge of

some railroad conductor. And Dorothy's mother would meet her at the station with a wealthy gentleman acquaintance of hers, who seemed to be inseparable. And they would be all enthusiasm over Dorothy, and buy her delightful clothes, and take her out to the races and road houses, and show her off to everybody, and drink her health

in champagne. But in the midst of some party, Dorothy's mother and her gentleman friend would gradually begin to lose all of their maternal instincts. And they would finally end up by sending Dorothy back to the flat in charge of a messenger boy.

And then Dorothy's mother would neglect coming home herself, and Dorothy would be left alone for days in the flat with a Chinaman cook who did nothing but mark Chinese lottery tickets that might just as well have been Greek to a small child of Dorothy's age. So Dorothy would be more than delighted when her mother finally remembered to come home and send her back to the carnival company.

Well, when Dorothy was about 12 years of age, her father received a telegram that his wife had suddenly passed away when the grandstand collapsed at the Tijuana race track. And Dorothy says the only bet her father ever won on the races was when he bet that a prominent San Francisco millionaire was also among the casualty. Because it turned out that he was.

And that was the end of Dorothy's mother. But I do not think that Dorothy's mother was all that she should be, or she would not have allowed the kitchen help to indulge in lotteries. Well, by the time Dorothy was 14, she could always go around here and there in the fairgrounds and lend a helping hand.

Because they had what is called concessions, which means people would throw rings at a lot of knives, for instance, and the one who really did it won the knife. So Dorothy would mix up with the crowd and be the one that won the knife. And then she would go around to the rear and give the knife back to the gentleman who ran the concession.

Because Dorothy says, after all, the knives cost nearly $2 a gross, so what was the use of wasting them? But I told Dorothy that that is what I would call cheating the public. But Dorothy says it wasn't cheating them so much, because the blades of the knife were only made of tin foil anyway and would do nobody any good who was interested in cutting.

Well finally, when Dorothy became about the age of 15, her father came to grief. I mean, Mr. Shaw had to get married again. And it is quite an interesting story that seemed to occur because of the main attraction of the carnival company that was called the lover's leap. Well this lover's leap consisted of a track which was in the shape of a large loop-the-loop

with a small automobile that ran on it. So after the automobile had looped the loop, it took quite a long jump in the air and landed on quite a high landing at quite a long distance. But what really intrigued the public was the blonde girl in a linen duster that sat in it.

For this girl was supposed to be looping the loop in order to meet her lover. And her lover was nobody else but Mr. Shaw in his pink spangled tights who stood waiting in a pose on the landing and showed her down the steps with gallantry. While the applause would be deafening. But Dorothy says she never did find out whether they were applauding the lover's leap of

the girl or the fact that her father managed to reach the bottom of the steps in his condition. Well, in order to get blonde girls to ride in the lover's leap, the carnival company make use of a stage-struck waitress with a blonde wig on. But they had quite a lot of difficulty keeping in waitresses because after a waitress had made a few lover's leaps, her backbone would start in to collapse.

So then it would become necessary for the manager of the carnival company to start associating with fresh waitresses in order to pick up another. Well finally in the hotel at a town called Modesto, the manager picked up a waitress who did not tell him that her mother was the landlady of the hotel because it seems that this waitress was afraid that he would not give her the engagement if he knew that she

had quite a violent mother who was opposed to a career. So this waitress, who was called Hazel, ran away with the carnival company without notifying her mother. And to make things even worse, it seems that some of the carnival company left the hotel without notifying the clerk to make out their bill.

Well, the landlady arrived on the scene at the next town and Dorothy says that when she showed up, she had blood in her eye. But as fate would have it, she reached Main Street just as Dorothy's father was jumping off the Masonic temple in his pink spangled tights. And although the landlady had never paid Mr. Shaw any attention when he was stopping at

her own hotel in civilian clothes, it seemed that the moment she saw him dashing off a roof and tights, she fell madly in love. Well, it finally became necessary for the management to hold conferences with Hazel's mother. And from the very first, it soon became apparent that nothing would appease her but to marry

Mr. Shaw, while Dorothy's father had to do it to save the carnival company from the charge of abducting a waitress and non-paying of hotel bills. So they were married by the Lutheran minister and had quite a novel wedding in a lion's cage. And that was the way Dorothy came to have a stepmother.

Well, the first thing that Dorothy's stepmother did was to make Hazel go back home to look out for the hotel in Modesto because she considered that life in a carnival company would be hard on Hazel's morals. But Dorothy says that Hazel's morals had had wear and tear enough right in Modesto to take the novelty out of anything she could learn in a carnival company.

But Dorothy's stepmother stayed with the carnival company and turned out to be nothing but a ptermigant. I mean, she never allowed Mr. Shaw to jump off any more roofs, and he began to lose all of his personality. And it finally reached the point where all Mr. Shaw could do to amuse or instruct the

public was to take out a marriage license in every town they went to and be married in a balloon or a cage full of tigers to Mrs. Shaw by the local minister. So Dorothy says if I ever hear anybody make any cracks about her having a father who was not a marrying man, to just tell them that her father held the record of the entire Pacific coast for the number of times he was legally married.

But things finally went from bad to worse, because even though Mrs. Shaw was constantly a bride, her actions failed to show it. And she did nothing but disapprove of the bridegroom even at the altar, so that sometimes the crowd at the wedding would really wonder what Mr. Shaw saw in her. For Dorothy says that hardly anybody wants to pay a quarter to see somebody get married

to a pessimistic bride who is nearly the age of 50. But I do not really blame Mrs. Shaw for becoming discouraged, because, after all, Dorothy's father was never an ideal husband. I mean, he seemed to think it was an accomplishment to become intoxicated even before prohibition was dreamed of.

So Mrs. Shaw began to get very fed up with the life of a carnival company and began to yearn for her own hotel, especially when she got the news that it was beginning to have a bad name, because it seems that hardly any commercial traveler who had pretensions to any good looks ever paid Hazel his bill. And when Dorothy's stepmother heard that Hazel had changed the breakfast hour from

6.30 to 8.00, she decided that things had gone far enough, so she made Mr. Shaw renounce his whole career in order to be taken back and kept at the mansion house in Modesto. Well Dorothy's stepmother offered to take Dorothy with them, but Dorothy thought it over and decided not to go, because Dorothy says that she might have been able to stand either Hazel or her stepmother or Modesto separately, but a combination of all three

was beyond human endurance. Well of course, now Dorothy had to begin to earn her own living, so the carnival company took up a collection and bought her a nickel-plated waffle machine, and the manager told Dorothy that she need not pay for the concession of running it until it was on a paying basis. So then it was arranged that Dorothy would live under the chaperonage of Mr. and Mrs.

Ah Lovino, who owned a concession called the Temple of Art, which was a tent where Mr. Lovino sang illustrated songs and threw illustrated song slides on his wife in white tights with long sleeves like a butterfly. And the home life of Mr. and Mrs. Lovino was ideal, because they did not go to a hotel like the rest of the carnival company, but they kept house right in their own tent, on

account of being domestically inclined. And Dorothy says that she wishes sometimes that some banquet at the colony restaurant would be delicious enough to make her forget the memory of Mrs. Lovino's stew. And the only trouble with the Lovino's was that after 17 years of married life, they still talked baby talk to each other, and sooner or later it was bound to get on Dorothy's

Well, after Dorothy was settled, she and her father said goodbye, and he was taken off to be nag-dacked in Modesto. And he is out there yet, living with Mrs. Shaw at the mansion house and drowning his feelings as best he can in the days of prohibition. And the greatest comfort he has is Hazel's husband, because Hazel turned out quite well

and got married, and Dorothy says the only trouble with Hazel was that she was ahead of her time. I mean, nowadays all the other flappers have caught up with Hazel, and it only goes to show that she was nothing but a premature debutante after all. And she married the catch of Modesto, who runs a newspaper office, and all of his farmers

pay Hazel's husband their bills in either grapes or bohemian hops. So Mr. Shaw and Hazel's husband love to mess about with them in the back room of the printing office and see what they can get. And only last month, on his birthday, Dorothy sent her father the finest copper still that money could buy.

Well, when the waffle machine arrived at the carnival company, it had a little pamphlet inside saying that even a child could operate it, and that gave Dorothy an idea. So she used to turn the waffle machine over to some small-sized local boy of the town who was always more than delighted. But the result was that the waffle machine was generally laid away for repairs or the

small boy ate up all the profits. Well, finally, at a town called San Diego, trouble overtook the carnival company, and it was all on account of a member who was called Doc. And Doc sold a thing that was called Miracle Spot Eradicator, which was made by buying a cake of laundry soap for five cents at the corner grocery store and cutting it up in

small-sized pieces and selling it to the public for 25 cents each wrapped up in tin foil. But it seems that Doc was practically always doing wrong, and he had left a trail of disturbed husbands clear across the state of California. And what finally got him into trouble at last was that he not only sold a grocer's wife in San Diego four dollars worth of Miracle Spot Eradicator that he had just bought from

her own husband for a nickel, but he took advantage of her in addition and stole the grocer's watch off the bedroom chiffonier. And the watch was worth $75, so it made the grocer angry, and he reported Doc to the authorities. Well, a deputy sheriff of San Diego started on the trail and caught up with the carnival company at a town called Santa Barbara.

And it seems that this deputy sheriff was quite a famous character because he not only came from quite a wealthy old family, but he also took a very great public interest in the morals of young girls who were on the verge of womanhood. And he was very prominent on the board of directors of the detention home, and the main reason that he was interested in the case of the grocer's wife was because she

was a graduate from there and the low state of her morals always seemed to intrigue him. Well the deputy sheriff arrived at the fairgrounds in Santa Barbara quite early in the morning before any of the crowd was there and noted Dorothy sitting under the front flap of the the Lavino's tent watching Mrs. Lavino crochet a boudoir cap. Well he came up to Mrs. Lavino to inquire about Doc, but his gaze seemed to wander more

toward Dorothy. And practically from that moment, it soon became apparent that while his official position might be hounding Doc to justice, in a personal way, his mind was running more on Dorothy. And as time went on, he practically blinked his eyes at Doc, and Doc really got so bold that he became more and more of a ladies man and flaunted his eradicator right and left,

while the deputy sheriff's principal idea seemed to be to get Dorothy off in some corner and tell her that she had reached the point where it was time for somebody moral, like him, to help her get from girlhood into womanhood. And it really does seem remarkable that Dorothy had reached the age of 16 in a carnival company without the subject of life being brought to her notice.

Because when I was only 13, I sang in our church choir, and practically every boy in our choir had at least mentioned the subject, and some of them had even done more. But it seems that the environment of a carnival company is not so much like a church choir, because in a carnival company, nothing is sacred, and they all went out of their way to make jokes about love in front of Dorothy so that Dorothy would laugh it off.

But love is so sacred in a church choir that they never even mention it above a whisper, and it becomes more of a mystery. And when a thing is a mystery, it is always more intriguing. So there was quite a lot more love going on in our church choir than there was in Dorothy's carnival company, where nothing was sacred.

So Dorothy's whole attitude about the subject was quite irreverent, at a time when she should have been worrying about the problems of a young girl and thinking about life and wondering. End of chapter 3