mps. They want to learn to dance. I'll turn them right
over to you. When does your class begin?"

Miss Hall glanced at a toy watch on the tiny wrist. Instinctively and
helplessly Moran and Tyler focused their gaze on the dials that bound
their red wrists. "Starting right now," said Miss Hall, crisply. She
eyed the two men with calm appraising gaze. "I'm sure you'll both make
wonderful dancers. Follow me."

She turned. There was something confident, dauntless, irresistible about
the straight little back. The two men stared at it. Then at each other.
Panic was writ large on the face of each. Panic, and mutiny. Flight was
in the mind of both. Miss Hall turned, smiled, held out a small white
hand. "Come on," she said. "Follow me."

And the two, as though hypnotised, followed.

A fair-sized room, with a piano in one corner and groups of fidgeting
jackies in every other corner. Moran and Tyler sighed with relief at
sight of them. At least they were not to be alone in their agony.

Miss Hall wasted no time. Slim ankles close together, head held high,
she stood in the centre of the room. "Now then, form a circle please!"

Twenty six-foot, well-built specimens of manhood suddenly became
shambling hulks. They clumped forward, breathing hard, and smiling
mirthlessly, with an assumption of ease that deceived no one, least of
all, themselves. "A little lively, please. Don't look so scared. I'm not
a bit vicious. Now then, Miss Weeks! A fox trot."

Miss Weeks, at the piano, broke into spirited strains. The first
faltering steps in the social career of Gunner Moran and Tyler Kamps had
begun.

To an onlooker, it might have been mirth-provoking if it hadn't been,
somehow, tear-compelling. The thing that little Miss Hall was doing
might have seemed trivial to one who did not know that it was
magnificent. It wasn't dancing merely that she was teaching these
awkward, serious, frightened boys. She was handing them a key that would
unlock the social graces. She was presenting them with a magic something
that would later act as an open sesame to a hundred legitimate delights.

She was strictly business, was Miss Hall. No nonsense about her.
"One-two-three-four! And a _one_-two _three_-four. One-two-three-four!
And a _turn_-two, _turn_-four. Now then, all together. Just four
straight steps as if you were walking down the street. That's it!
One-two-three-four! Don't look at me. Look at my feet. And a _one_-two
_three_-four."

Red-fa