m and the judge almost had a fight-out--and right on Main Street,
too.

Each accused the other of fathering a child that had decoyed away and
ruined the life of the other child. Both were so scorched with helpless
wrath that each went home to his bed and threatened to bite any hand
that was held out in comfort. Judge Hippisley had just strength enough
to send word to poor Olive that she was fired.

XVI

The next news came the next day. Oscawanna had been famished for a sight
of the world-sweeping dances. It turned out in multitudes to see the
famous Carthage queen in the new steps. The opera-house there had not
held such a crowd since William J. Bryan spoke there--the time he did
not charge admission. According to the Oscawanna _Eagle_: "This
enterprising city paid one thousand dollars to see Peerless Prue
Pepperall dance with her partner Otto Hipkinson. What you got to say
about that, ye scribes of Carthage?"

Like the corpse in Ben King's poem, Judge Hippisley sat up at the news
and said: "What's that?" And when the figures were repeated he "dropped
dead again."

The next day word was received that Perkinsville, jealous of Oscawanna,
had shoveled twelve hundred dollars into the drug-store where tickets
were sold. Two sick people had nearly died because they couldn't get
their prescriptions filled for twelve hours, and the mayor of the town
had had to go behind the counter and pick out his own stomach bitters.

The Athens theater had been sold out so quickly that the town hall was
engaged for a special matinee. Athens paid about fifteen hundred
dollars. The Athenians had never suspected that there was so much money
in town. People who had not paid a bill for months managed to dig up
cash for tickets.

Indignant Oscawanna wired for a return engagement, so that those who had
been crowded out could see the epoch-making dances. Those who had seen
them wanted to see them again. In the mornings Prue gave lessons to
select classes at auction prices.

Wonderful as this was, unbelievable, indeed, to Carthage, it was not
surprising. This blue and lonely dispeptic world has always been ready
to enrich the lucky being that can tempt its palate with something it
wants and didn't know it wanted. Other people were leaping from poverty
to wealth all over the world for teaching the world to dance again. Prue
caught the crest of the wave that overswept a neglected region.

The influence of her success on her people and her