Page:Sawdust & Spangles.djvu/284

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246
SAWDUST AND SPANGLES

enhance her value as a feature in the eyes of the countrymen she wore a gorgeous crown set with cheap but flashy stones. The crier would tell the people that the crown had been presented to the woman by the Prince of Wales and that it cost, in England, 5,000 pounds. Then the people would go in, examine it, and exclaim: "See the green diamonds and the blue diamonds and the red diamonds!" Once, when I was in a hotel in Wisconsin, I heard two waitresses talking about the show. One said she did not believe the crown cost such an amount. The other said:

"Well; we can't tell, of course; we only know what we hear but—wasn't it beautiful!"