Bildungsromans; Boys -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Middle West -- Fiction
“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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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