side he may be misunderstood.

Chug was a natural born dancer. There are young men who, after the music
has struck up, can start out incredibly enough by saying: "What is this,
anyway--waltz or fox trot?" This was inconceivable to Chug. He had never
had a dancing lesson in his life, but he had a sense of rhythm that was
infallible. He could no more have danced out of time than he could have
started a car on high, or confused a flivver with a Twelve. He didn't
look particularly swanlike as he danced, having large, sensible feet,
but they were expert at not being where someone else's feet happened to
be, and he could time a beat to the fraction of a second.

When you have practically spent your entire day sprawled under a balky
car, with a piece of dirty mat between you and the cement floor, your
view limited to crank-case, transmission, universal, fly-wheel,
differential, pan, and brake-rods you can do with a bit of colour in the
evening. And just here was where Chippewa failed Chug.

He had a grave problem confronting him in his search for an evening's
amusement. Chippewa, Wisconsin, was proud of its paved streets, its
thirty thousand population, its lighting system, and the Greek temple
that was the new First National Bank. It boasted of its interurban
lines, its neat houses set well back among old elms, its paper mills,
its plough works, and its prosperity. If you had told Chippewa that it
was criminally ignoring Chug's crying need it would have put you down as
mad.

Boiled down, Chug Scaritt's crying need was girls. At twenty-two or
three you must have girls in your life if you're normal. Chug was, but
Chippewa wasn't. It had too many millionaires at one end and too many
labourers at the other for a town of thirty thousand. Its millionaires
had their golf club, their high-powered cars, their smart social
functions. They were always running down to Chicago to hear Galli-Curci;
and when it came to costume--diamond bracelet, daring decolletage, large
feather fans, and brilliant-buckled slippers--you couldn't tell their
women from the city dwellers. There is much money in paper mills and
plough works.

The mill hands and their families were well-paid, thrifty, clannish
Swedes, most of them, with a liberal sprinkling of Belgians and Slavs.
They belonged to all sorts of societies and lodges to which they paid
infinitesimal dues and swore lifelong allegiance.

Chug Scaritt and boys of his kind were left high and dry.