and pass the bill to the gentleman. Now, she's eleven hundred dollars behind in her rent, and eviction seems inevitable. Martha, a former Miss Watermelon, Miss Cotton Blossom and Miss Southern Comfort, came to New York from Mississippi to conquer the world. But, somehow, the world remained unconquered. In a hilarious account of a one-woman nightclub sketch she has written to break into show business, she tells Charlie she was and would again be a Shoo-In if permitted to perform her bewildering mish-mash of "pop" and classical vocal styles, ballet and hoofing, rudimentary musical comedy and cliché-ridden grand opera. Moved to sympathy for a fellow "artist" Charlie gives her his last five dollars to pay for the chow mein she has ordered. Accepting what he considers a professional challenge, he voluntarily undertakes to liquidate all her remaining debts as well. From a subway station phone booth, Angie reports her progress to the magazine. When Tom joins her on the station platform, he and a group of seasoned, chattering commuters give Angie intricate New York Subway Directions. As they lyrically 'Ride Through the Night', Tom shows Angie the excitement and danger of subway sleeping. Tom does have one steady job: walking a vacationing couple's dog for a dollar and a half a day. Spent frugally, this is enough to supply him with his life's simple wants. Separately, Angie and Tom muse on their growing fondness for each other in a romantic ballad. In the Egyptian Wing of the Metropolitan Museum, Tom demonstrates the gentle art of sleeping in an unoccupied mummy's sarcophagus. He tells Angie that until a few years ago he was a wonder boy financial genius. He financed highways, supermarkets, housing projects on credit and checks alone. One day, a check bounced, landing him in jail. Now, he finds a life of minimum comforts safer and more fun. Charlie and Martha, at opposite ends of the stage, lyrically discuss, via telephone, the problem of her rent money. By this time, the hotel has turned off Marta's heat, hoping to freeze her out. Her sole concession: she has deigned to don black gloves. On a street filled with harried holiday shoppers, Angie confesses to herself that Tom has come to mean much more to her than a subject for a magazine article. In Times Square, Tom, dressed as a Community Chest Santa Claus, attempts to kindle enthusiasm in the hearts of fellow charity Santas. Modeling his pep talk on King Henry V's speech to his soldiers before the Battle of Agincourt in the Shakespeare play, he commands each one to 'Be a Santa' and thus manages to work them into a frenzy of goodwill and holiday spirit. A joyous, spectacular Cossack-like dance follows. At Rockerfeller Plaza, Tom and Angie stand beside a pasteboard chimney, collecting money from passersby. A magazine photographer strolls by, recognises Angie and compliments her on her recent article. Understandably, Tom's Christmas benevolence evaporates instantly. Angie has no choice but to confess that he has unwittingly been supplying material for her new article. As Act II opens, Angie is sitting on a subway platform bench, alone and disconsolate. Charlie enters and sits beside her. He recognises her from a picture in the paper which had announced her now-cancelled trip. She tells him her story and adds that she is not going to follow through with her article on Tom nor return to the magazine. When Angie tells Charlie that her employers have offered a substantial reward for information regarding her whereabouts, Charlie begins to see how he might raise the money for Martha's rent. Under the pretext of finding a place for her to spend the night, he phones the magazine. His reward? Just enough to pay Martha's hotel bill. Tom and the other Community Chest Santas are turning in their collections. Tom has forgiven Angie and wants to find her. In Martha's hotel room, Charlie tells the towel-clad Martha that he has found a way to pay her rent, and now can show her off to the outside world. But when he and Martha find out that Tom and Angie love each other, they forego the reward money and Martha resigns herself to the towel once more. Reunited, Tom and Angie explore the elaborate French Wing of the Metropolitan Museum. Tom has been told by the apartment house doorman that the dog he walks daily has "packed up his Yummies" and gone to Florida to join his lonesome owners. Thus his basic dollar and a half income is gone. But Charlie reminds Tom that he can always pick up tips by taking coffee orders - in fact, he can open up a full-scale coffee service of his own. In a parking lot where the "subway sleepers" meet in jubilant free assembly, friends improvise an imposing coffee-making machine from odd scraps of plumbing, housed in a bathtub. Martha comes into the parking lot - in clothes! When Charlie expresses his delighted disbelief, she
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