ass, grinning and smirking and pretending to be eighteen. They looked
like a couple of children--Henry, catching sight of himself in a
mirror, was surprised to find that his hair was not white.

Half an hour later, in the cab going home, Minnie, half asleep, was
aroused by a sudden stiffening of the arm that encircled her waist and
a sudden snort close to her ear.

It was Henry Wallace Mills resolving that he would learn to dance.

Being of a literary turn of mind and also economical, Henry's first
step towards his new ambition was to buy a fifty-cent book entitled
_The ABC of Modern Dancing_, by 'Tango'. It would, he felt--not
without reason--be simpler and less expensive if he should learn the
steps by the aid of this treatise than by the more customary method of
taking lessons. But quite early in the proceedings he was faced by
complications. In the first place, it was his intention to keep what he
was doing a secret from Minnie, in order to be able to give her a
pleasant surprise on her birthday, which would be coming round in a few
weeks. In the second place, _The ABC of Modern Dancing_ proved on
investigation far more complex than its title suggested.

These two facts were the ruin of the literary method, for, while it was
possible to study the text and the plates at the bank, the home was the
only place in which he could attempt to put the instructions into
practice. You cannot move the right foot along dotted line A B and
bring the left foot round curve C D in a paying-cashier's cage in a
bank, nor, if you are at all sensitive to public opinion, on the
pavement going home. And while he was trying to do it in the parlour of
the flat one night when he imagined that Minnie was in the kitchen