from the
country, and she wants to make a hit.'

'Sure, that'll be all right. Here are the tickets. Yours is thirty-six,
hers is ten.' He lowered his voice. 'Don't go mixing them.'

I went back to the balcony. On the way I got hold of Charlie.

'We're dancing this together,' I said.

He grinned all across his face.

I found Mrs Charlie looking as if she had never shed a tear in her
life. She certainly had pluck, that kid.

'Come on,' I said. 'Stick to your ticket like wax and watch your step.'

I guess you've seen these sporting contests at Geisenheimer's. Or, if
you haven't seen them at Geisenheimer's, you've seen them somewhere
else. They're all the same.

When we began, the floor was so crowded that there was hardly
elbow-room. Don't tell me there aren't any optimists nowadays. Everyone
was looking as if they were wondering whether to have the Love-r-ly Cup
in the sitting-room or the bedroom. You never saw such a hopeful gang
in your life.

Presently Izzy gave tongue. The management expects him to be humorous
on these occasions, so he did his best.

'Num-bahs, seven, eleven, and twenty-one will kindly rejoin their
sorrowing friends.'

This gave us a little more elbow-room, and the band started again.

A few minutes later, Izzy once more: 'Num-bahs thirteen, sixteen, and
seventeen--good-bye.'

Off we went again.

'Num-bah twelve, we hate to part with you, but--back to your table!'

A plump girl in a red hat, who had been dancing with a kind smile, as
if she were doing it to amuse the children, left the floor.

'Num-bahs six, fifteen, and twenty, thumbs down!'

And pretty soon the only couples left were Charlie and me, Mrs Charlie
and the fellow I'd introduced her to, and a bald-headed man and a girl
in a white hat. He was one of your stick-at-it performers. He had been
dancing all the evening. I had noticed him from the balcony. He looked
like a hard-boiled egg from up there.

He was a trier all right, that fellow, and had things been otherwise,
so to speak, I'd have been glad to see him win. But it was not to be.
Ah, no!

'Num-bah nineteen, you're getting all flushed. Take a rest.'

So there it was, a straight contest between me and Charlie and Mrs
Charlie and her man. Every nerve in my system was tingling with
suspense and excitement, was it not? It was not.

Charlie, as I've already hinted, was not a dancer who took much of his
attention off his feet while in action. He was there to do h