“Stopping everybody for that boy!” said Marjorie.

Penrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly—­nay, he was obviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he preserved a stoic front.  Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of her partner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie.

“Again, please, everybody—­ladies and gentlemen!” cried Professor Bartet.  “Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay puttickly attention!  Piano, please!  Now then!”

The lesson proceeded.  At the close of the hour Professor Bartet stepped to the centre of the room and clapped his hands for attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves quietly,” he said; “I speak to you now about to-morrow.  As you all know—­Mister Penrod Schofield, I am not sticking up in a tree outside that window!  If you do me the fafer to examine I am here, insides of the room.  Now then!  Piano, pl—­no, I do not wish the piano!  As you all know, this is the last lesson of the season until next October.  Tomorrow is our special afternoon; beginning three o’clock, we dance the cotillon.  But this afternoon comes the test of mannerss.  You must see if each know how to make a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies.  You have had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform like societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years of age.

“Now, when you’re dismissed each lady will go to her home and prepare to receive a call.  The gentlemen will allow the ladies time to reach their houses and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentleman will call upon a lady and beg the pleasure to engage her for a partner in the cotillon to-morrow.  You all know the correct, proper form for these calls, because didn’t I work teaching you last lesson till I thought I would drop dead?  Yes!  Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady’s house behind some-other gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady’s house, and keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are the same number of both, everybody shall have a partner.

“Now please all remember that if in case—­Mister Penrod Schofield, when you make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that gentlemen in good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you appear to attempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the lap.  Now please all remember that if in case—­Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please!  Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back by causing frictions between it and the back of your chair, either!  Nobody else is itching here! I do not itch!  I cannot talk if you must itch!  In the name of Heaven, why must you always itch?  What was I saying?  Where ah! the cotillon—­yes!  For the cotillon it is important nobody shall fail to be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he cannot possible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the form of good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself—­and he must give the reason.