* * * * *

I had, until recently, assumed with some bitterness that my dancing days
were over. My wife and I went to balls, to be sure, but not to dance. We
left that to the younger generation, for the reason that my wife did not
care to jeopardize her attire or her complexion. She was also conscious
of the fact that the variety of waltz popular thirty years ago was an
oddity, and that a middle-aged woman who went hopping and twirling about
a ballroom must be callous to the amusement that followed her gyrations.

With the advent of the turkey trot and the tango, things have changed
however. No one is too stout, too old or too clumsy to go walking
solemnly round, in or out of time to the music. I confess to a
consciousness of absurdity when, to the exciting rhythm of Très
Moutard, I back Mrs. Jones slowly down the room and up again.

"Do you grapevine?" she inquires ardently. Yes; I admit the soft
impeachment, and at once she begins some astonishing convolutions with
the lower part of her body, which I attempt to follow. After several
entanglements we move triumphantly across the hall.

"How beautifully you dance!" she pants.

Aged roisterer that I am, I fall for the compliment. She is a nice old
thing, after all!

"Fish walk?" asks she.

I retort with total abandon.