Campbell Pope. Much to Jim's relief, he excused himself shortly,
whereupon the former, after allowing Wharton to pay the score,
suggested a dance, breezily sweeping aside his sister's mild
objection. Of course, Bob was delighted, and soon the trio had set
out upon a round of the dancing-cafes.

At the first place they visited they had difficulty in gaining
entrance, for a crowd was held in check by the heavy plush cord
stretched across the door to the restaurant proper; but here again
Wharton's name proved potent. The barrier was lowered, and the
party managed to squeeze their way into a badly ventilated Turkish
room, where a demented darky orchestra was drumming upon various
instruments ranging in resonance from a piano to a collection of
kitchen utensils. Tables had been crowded around the walls and
into the balcony so closely that the occupants rubbed shoulders,
but the center of the lower floor was occupied by a roped corral
in which a mass of dancers were revolving like a herd of milling
cattle. Dusty, tobacco-smoked oriental rugs, banners and lanterns,
suspended from walls and balcony railings, lent a semblance of
"color" to the place; little Moorish alcoves were set into the
walls, in and out of which undersized waiters dodged like rabbits
in a warren. The attendants were irritable; they perspired freely,
they bumped into people, squeezed past, or, failing in that,
crawled over the seated guests.

After a breathless half-hour of this the three sought a resort
farther up-town, where they found the entire upper floors of a
restaurant building given over to "trotting." During the previous
winter the craze for dancing had swept New York like a plague, and
the various Barbary Coast figures had reached their highest