Jim, I'm not swelling this a bit.
On the level, it happened just as I write it. All of a sudden
some one seemed to win. They broke away, and ran wildly to the
front of the stage with their arms outstretched, yelling to beat
three of a kind. The band cut loose something fierce. The leader
tore out about $9.00 worth of hair, and acted generally as though
he had bats in his belfry. I thought sure the place would be
pinched. It reminded me of Thirsty Thornton's dance-hall out in
Merrill, Wisconsin, when the Silent Swede used to start a general
survival of the fittest every time Mamie the Mink danced twice
in succession with the young fellow from Albany, whose father
owned the big mill up Rough River. Of course, this audience was
perfectly orderly, and showed no intention whatever of cutting in,
and there were no chairs or glasses in the air, but I am forced to
admit that the opera had Thornton's faded for noise. I asked Bud
what the trouble was, and he answered that I could search him.
The audience apparently went wild. Everybody said "Simply sublime!"
"Isn't it grand?" "Perfectly superb!" "Bravo!" etc., not because
they really enjoyed it, but merely because they thought it was the
proper thing to do. After that for three solid hours Rough House
Mike and Shifty Sadie seemed to be apologizing to the audience
for their disgraceful street brawl, which was honestly the only
good thing in the show.
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