"
Blix clapped her hands with a little cry of delight, and Condy
smote a knee, exclaiming:
"By Jove! that's as good as Loudon Dodds' opium ship! Why, Cap.,
you're a treasure in yourself for a fellow looking for stories."
Then after the notes were taken and the story talked over, Captain
Jack, especially if the day happened to be Sunday, would insist
upon their staying to dinner--boiled beef and cabbage. smoking
coffee and pickles--that K. D. B. served in the little, brick-
paved kitchen in the back of the station. The crew messed in
their quarters overhead.
K. D. B. herself was not uninteresting. Her respectability
incased her like armor plate, and she never laughed without
putting three fingers to her lips. She told them that she had at
one time been a "costume reader."
"A costume reader?"
"Yes; reading extracts from celebrated authors in the appropriate
costume of the character. It used to pay very well, and it was
very refined. I used to do 'In a Balcony,' by Mister Browning,
and 'Laska,' the same evening! and it always made a hit. I'd do
'In a Balcony' first, and I'd put on a Louis-Quinze-the-fifteenth
gown and wig-to-match over a female cowboy outfit. When I'd
finished 'In a Balcony,' I'd do an exit, and shunt the gown and
wig-to-match, and come on as 'Laska,' with thunder noises off. It
was one of the strongest effects in my repertoire, and it always
got me a curtain call."
And Captain Jack would wag his head and murmur:
"Extraordinary! extraordinary!"
Blix and Condy soon noted that upon the occasion of each one of
their visits, K.
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