“Me, I’ll try anything oncet.  Lead me to it.”

The elevator stopped at the ninth floor.  “Out here for the jackies’ dance,” said the elevator boy.

The two stepped out with the others.  Stepped out gingerly, caps in hand.  A corridor full of women.  A corridor a-flutter with girls.  Talk.  Laughter.  Animation.  In another moment the two would have turned and fled, terrified.  But in that half-moment of hesitation and bewilderment they were lost.

A woman approached them hand outstretched.  A tall, slim, friendly looking woman, low-voiced, silk-gowned, inquiring.

“Good-evening!” she said, as if she had been haunting the halls in the hope of their coming.  “I’m glad to see you.  You can check your caps right there.  Do you dance?”

Two scarlet faces.  Four great hands twisting at white caps in an agony of embarrassment.  “Why, no ma’am.”

“That’s fine.  We’ll teach you.  Then you’ll go into the ball room and have a wonderful time.”

“But—­” in choked accents from Moran.

“Just a minute.  Miss Hall!” She beckoned a diminutive blonde in blue.  “Miss Hall, this is Mr.—­ah—­Mr. Moran.  Thanks.  And Mr.?—­yes—­Mr. Kamps.  Tyler Kamps.  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.