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people crawl there when they're down, like poisoned animals toward water? . . .

"Of course I had no money, to begin with. I lived in a little black hole of a room in a boarding house just off Broadway, and worked. Sold magazines at a stand in the Grand Central station—that was my first job. Then I was a model in a cheap wholesale house for awhile. I suppose you've never been in one of those places, have you, Jock Hamill? The models sit around in little pink silk slips, and fat greasy buyers have a perfect right to paw them over like the merchandise . . . and do it. . . . Later I got into the misses' department of one of the big stores as a dress model, but I didn't stay. That sort of thing wasn't what I wanted.

"Then I worked in a cabaret. Carrying a tray tied around my neck with a ribbon, and crying, 'Cigars! Cigarettes!' all night long, and smiling at the men so they'd tip me well. . . . Finally the manager found out I could sing, and I did a couple of solos every night. You know, going from table to table. I tooka new last name then—Mountford—the Yvonne is my own.

"There were several different jobs after that, each one of them a little step up. Cabaret singer at Huber's, and later at the Café Mandalay. And all the time, things were happening to me. Sordid things. I needn't tell you, they weren't important. Then—do you remember the Sedgewyke divorce case? The papers were full of it at the time. I was co-respondent. . . . That gave mea lot of notoriety, and got me a new place. On the stage. You guessed right about that, though I wasn't really what you could call an actress. Just sort of a glorified chorus girl in 'Pretty Baby' for a year on Broadway. I wore clothes, and walked