He remembered the fable of the ant and the locust. Prue was the locust, frivoling away the summer. At the first cold blast she would be pleading with the industrious ant, Ollie, to take her in. In the fable the locust was turned away to freeze, but you couldn't do that with a human locust. The ants just have to feed them. Poor Ollie! Munching this quinine cud of thought, he went up to bed. He was footsore from tramping the town for work. He had covered almost as much distance as Prue had danced. He was all in. She was just going out. She kissed him good night, but he would not answer. She went to kiss her mother and Ollie and Horace. Ollie was practising shorthand, and kissed Prue with sorrowing patience. Horace dodged the kiss, but called her attention to an article in the evening paper: "Say, Prue, if you want to get rich quick whyn't you charge for your tango advice? Says here that teachers are springing up all over Noo York and Chicawgo, and they get big, immense prices." "How much?" said Prue, indifferently. "Says here twenty-five dollars an hour. Some of 'em's earning a couple of thousand dollars a week." This information went through the room like a projectile from a coast-defense gun. Serina listened with bated breath as Horace read the confirmation. She shook her head: "It beats all the way vice pays in this world." Horace read on. The article described how some of the most prominent women in metropolitan society were sponsoring the dances. A group of ladies, whose names were more familiar to Serina than the Christian martyrs, had rented a whole dwelling-house for a dancing couple to disport in, so that the universal amusement could be practised exclusively. That settled Serina. Whatever Mrs. ---- and Miss ---- and the mother of the Duchess of ---- did was better than right. It was swell. Prue's frown now was the frown of meditation. "If they charge twenty-five dollars an hour in New York, what ought to be the price in Carthage?" "About five cents a week," said Serina, who did not approve of Carthage. "Nobody in this town would pay anything for anything." "We used to pay old Professor Durand to teach us to waltz and polka," said Horace, "in the good old days before pop got the bankruptcy habit." That night Prue made an experiment. She danced exclusively with Ort Hippisley and Grant Beadle, the surest-footed bipeds in the town. When members of the awkward squad pleaded to cut in she danced away impishly, will-o'-the-wispishly. When the girls lifted their skirts and asked her to correct their footwork she referred them to the articles in the magazines. She was chiefly pestered by Idalene Brearley, daughter of the clergyman, and his chief cross. Finally Idalene Brearley tore Prue from the arms of Ort Hippisley, backed her into a corner, and said: