sad, and I wished that the Medusa's head might be smuggled somehow into the
room for their attitudes to be imperishably recorded in cold stone; it
would have been a valuable addition to modern sculpture.

Upon this whirlpool I embarked with the greatest misgiving and a strange
young woman clinging to my person. The noise was deafening. The four black
men were now all shouting at once and playing all their instruments at
once, working up to the inconceivable uproar of the finale; and all the
dancers began to dance with a last desperate fury. Bodies buffeted one from
behind, and while one was yet looking round in apology or anger more bodies
buffeted one from the flank. It was like swimming in a choppy sea, where
there is no time to get the last wave out of your mouth before the next one
hits you.

Close beside us a couple fell down with a great crash. I looked at them
with concern, but no one else took any notice. On with the dance! Faster
and faster the black men played. I was dimly aware now that they were
standing on their chairs, bellowing, and fancied the end must be near. Then
we were washed into a quiet backwater, in a corner, and from here I
determined never to issue till the Last Banjo should indeed sound. Here I
sidled vaguely about for a long time, hoping that I looked like a man
preparing for some vast culminating feat, a side-step or a buzz or a
double-Jazz-spin or an ordinary fall down.

The noise suddenly ceased; the four black men had exploded.

"Very good exercise," my partner said.

"Quite," said I.