The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-12-03
TURNING NIGHT INTO DAY
Bohemian Life New York
Cafe After Theatre Usual Reve.

, throw some suggestion of abandon
into her manner and her song. Her
tired eyes frightened, she shot side
long glances that might once have
been humorous at men she knew, and
still she continued to sing and sing,
for the simple reason that it was
her work. She drove her voice as
other women drive sewing machines
or typewriters. AS the song pro-
ceeded the singer moved about
among the audience, up and down,
here and there, through the lanes of
the supping and the supped, the re-
spectacle, the giggling, the leering,
the lascivious, the merely apathetic.
At the end they gave her applause
that was either conventional or be-
spoke more attention than one sus-
pected.
Her song ended, this vocal wisp of
straw drifted back to her place at
the table A moment later some
men hailed her at little distance
and she went to sit with them, to
talk listlessly, to twiddle a table
knife in her lady-like fingers, to look
about her-anywhere but at her i'm
mediate company. Her detachment
was complete.
1t was now the stout woman S
turn. She, too, stood among the
guests and drove her voice, or the
remains of it. Raucous, command
ing, she sang to 'beat the band, ;"
and beat it she did. Is it that Man
haitian Island is unmusical or does
cabaret singing not count? Is it
taken for granted like the ice wa
ter and the electric light, an inevita-
BILE accessory of supping-in-public
after this fashion?
But a greater, a more insistent, a
more strident voice was yet to be
heard. Up got a merry little Pun
chinello of a man with a queer, sad
ly whimsical face and the roar of a
bull of Bashan The twist of his
eyes and mouth alone wrought some
compelling magic on the crowd.
There was a sense of awakening. At
last some one had taken hold OF the
audience What he sang did not
matter. 1t was some stereotyped ex-
hortation to reveIry and a rosy view
Of life. This he acclaimed again and
again, crescendo, until he had the
house rocking. Up and down he NOV
ed, in and out, capering, gesticulat-
ing and ever repeating his blatant
chorus, until, like some fervent re-
vivalist, he had his flock singing
with him. Louder the piano thump-
ed, and louder this squat fugleman
bawled, triumphant always over the
general volume of sound. Even the
walters Joined in. The visitor asked
who this compelling performer might
be.
The lady did not know. 'They
call him Happy, she said, with
unconscious irony.
After that it was rag-time-rag-
time all the way. The next number
was concerted pieces by all the sing
ers. Still they avoided the stage.
1t was too cramped Tor their enthu-
siasm. In Indian file they threaded
the mazes of the gangways, dancing
in and out, out and in, between the
tables-the fair girl, the fat woman,
the thin young man, the sturdy
young man, and Happy" pirouet-
ting behind. And as they danced
their cakewalk measure they sang
and sang and sang, louder and even
louder, till the din grew insupporta-
BILE
Thus, determinedly, does one part
of New York life caper-until the
dawn, stealing up behind Liberty re-
minds License that tomorrow is also
day, in which dollars are to be had
for the making.