dly.

"What is it, Dearie?" she asked.

"Just got something off my chest, that's all."

The words suggested something to Skinner; whenever his exasperation at
his folly was too great for him to bear, he'd go upstairs and take it
out on the dress suit. And the idea comforted him not a little!

So the Skinners put themselves in charge of a first-class dancing
instructor just off Fifth Avenue. For two solid weeks, every day Honey
met Dearie after office hours and they practiced trotting the fox trot,
stepping the one-step, and negotiating the tango and the hesitation.
Skinner was thorough in his dancing, as in everything else. He was
quick to learn, light on his feet, and soon was an expert and graceful
dancer.

At the end of the brief term Skinner wrote down in his little book:--

_Dress-Suit Account_

_Debit_ _Credit_

Instruction in dancing A certain stimulation
for two, since the dress- due to dancing which
suit engine of conquest quickens the mental
needs two to run it ... $60.00 forces and makes one
happier and more alert
at his work.

The two weeks' loyal devotion to the art of Terpsichore made Skinner at
the Crawford dance no less conspicuous as a dancer than as a man of
distinguished presence. He found himself greatly in demand, and he
made the quick calculation that this new enhancement of his value was
due to his dancing--which, in turn, was due to--the dress suit!

Early in the evening Mrs. Crawford, the hostess, introduced Skinner to
Mrs. Stephen Colby, the magnate's wife, and Skinner asked for a dance.
And as he led that lady to the ballroom, he formulated the following
entry in his notebook to be jotted down at the first opportunity:
"Credit, dress-suit account, one dance with the wife of a
multi-millionaire--a social arbiter. An event undreamed of, even in my
most ambitious moments! What next, I wonder?"

Mrs. Colby had a way of commenting upon other persons present with a
certain cynical frankness--as became a social arbiter--that amused
Skinner, and he took a genuine fancy to her. The wine of the dance got
into his blood, and when the music ceased, he begged for another dance.

"Certainly," said Mrs. Colby, "two, if you like. That's all I've got
left. Anything to get rid of that devilish bore, Jimmy Brewster. He's
c