Stepping out of Mr. Jones’s melancholy shop, Edwin thanked heaven that his father had not wanted him to follow in his footsteps; for it seemed to him that the life of a struggling tradesman in a small town must be the most humiliating on earth. He was awfully sorry for all of them as he walked down the street and read their names on the boards above their windows. He had never quite realised their condition before he smelt the particular odour of lower middle-class poverty, vaguely suggestive of perambulators, aspidistras, and boiled mutton, that moved down the linoleum floored passage at the back of Mr. Jones’s shop. In due course the clothes arrived. On the whole, Mr. Jones had not done badly; but even so, Edwin was still scarcely qualified for the business in hand. He had never learned to dance, and it was necessary to acquire this accomplishment in a little more than a week. At first he had decided to pull his courage together and approach Martin, whose eligibility compelled him to be an expert dancing man; but, at the last moment, he funked a confession that would expose such depths of social ignorance, and went instead to a certain Professor Beagle, who advertised classes in dancing and deportment at the hour of five on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, in the Queen’s Assembly Rooms, next door to the theatre of the same name. On the next Tuesday afternoon Edwin presented himself to Mr. Beagle at the advertised hour. He found him alone sitting on a platform at the end of a long room that smelt of dust and moth-eaten rep curtains. When Edwin appeared at the other end of the room the professor dismounted, cleared his throat, clasped his hands in front of him, and made a formal bow. He was a little man, and very fat. He wore a navy blue coat that was cut very short at the back, so that it ruckled up over his round haunches, and his collar rose so high and stiff above a white Ascot tie, that he was forced to carry his head tilted backwards in the direction of his waxed moustache. His face was purple and his watery eyes stared, whether as the result of the collar’s asphyxiation or his past manner of life it was difficult to say. His feet were excessively small, and his striped grey trousers tapered to the ankles in such a way that every step he made seemed a nice feat of balancing. He bowed to Edwin, and Edwin explained the urgent circumstances of his mission. “I see,” said Professor Beagle. “I quite understand. You must not, ’owever, expect me to be able to turn you out as I should wish to in the time at our disposal. Perhaps you will be good enough not to mention my name in this connection, and keep my instructions, as it were, dark?”