I wanted to dance the two-step
the band played the polka; if I wished the polka it played a waltz. Some
men can only dance the two-step--they don't know the waltz, the polka,
or the schottische. Now why can't the phonograph come to the rescue? In
almost any hotel in New York you can drop a nickel in a slot and hear
Sousa's band on the phonograph. Why not extend the principle and have a
phonograph for men who can dance nothing but the two-step, charged with
'The Washington Post March,' and supplied with four tubes with receivers
to put in the ears of the listeners? Make it small enough for a man to
carry in his pocket; then at a ball he could go up to a young lady, ask
her to dance, put two of the receivers in her ears, two in his, and trip
the light fantastic toe utterly independently of what other people were
dancing. It's possible. Mr. Edison could do it in five minutes, and
every one would be satisfied. It might be rather droll to see two people
dancing the two-step while eight others were fastened on to a lanciers
phonograph, and a dozen or more other couples were dancing respectively
the waltz, schottische, and Virginia reel, but we'd soon get used to
that, and no man need become a wall-flower because he couldn't dance the
dance that happened to be on. Furthermore, you'd be able to do away with
the musicians, who always cast a pall over dances because of their
superiority to the rest of the world in general and the dancers in
particular."

"How about your couple that prefer to sit out the dance on the stairs?"
said the Poet, who, in common with the Idiot, knew several things about
dances that Messrs. Pedagog and Whitechoker did not.

"It would be particularly attractive to them," said the Idiot. "They
could sit on the stairs and wax sentimental over any dreamy air the man
happened to have in his vest-pocket. He could arrange all that
beforehand--find out what song she thought divinest, and go loaded
accordingly. And as for the things that usually happen on stairs at
dances, as well as in conservatories at balls, with the aid of a
phonograph a man could propose to a girl in the presence of a thousand
people, and nobody but the maiden herself would be the wiser. I tell
you, gentlemen," the Idiot added, enthusiastically, as he rose to
depart, "if the phonograph people only knew their power they'd do great
things. The patent vest-pocket phonograph for music at balls and
proposals for bashful men alone would make their