is shoulder, defiantly symbolizing her complete adoption of him.

When they entered, the couples were already seating themselves at
tables round the walls, and Mrs. Townsend, resplendent as a super
bareback rider with rather too rotund calves, was standing in the
centre with the ringmaster who was in charge of arrangements. At a
signal to the band everyone rose and began to dance.

"Isn't it just slick!" breathed Betty.

"You bet!" said the camel.

"Do you think you can possibly dance?"

Perry nodded enthusiastically. He felt suddenly exuberant. After all,
he was here incognito talking to his girl--he felt like winking
patronizingly at the world.

"I think it's the best idea," cried Betty, "to give a party like this!
I don't see how they ever thought of it. Come on, let's dance!"

So Perry danced the cotillion. I say danced, but that is stretching
the word far beyond the wildest dreams of the jazziest terpsichorean.
He suffered his partner to put her hands on his helpless shoulders
and pull him here and there gently over the floor while he hung his
huge head docilely over her shoulder and made futile dummy motions
with his feet. His hind legs danced in a manner all their own,
chiefly by hopping first on one foot and then on the other. Never
being sure whether dancing was going on or not, the hind legs played
safe by going through a series of steps whenever the music started
playing. So the spectacle was frequently presented of the front part
of the camel standing at ease and the rear keeping up a constant
energetic motion calculated to rouse a sympathetic perspiration in
any soft-hearted observer.

He was frequently favoured. He danced first with a tall lady covered
with straw who announced jovially that she was a bale of hay and
coyly begged him not to eat her.

"I'd like to; you're so sweet," said the camel gallantly.

Each time the ringmaster shouted his call of "Men up!" he lumbered
ferociously for Betty with the cardboard wiener-wurst or the
photograph of the bearded lady or whatever the favour chanced to be.
Sometimes he reached her first, but usually his rushes were
unsuccessful and resulted in intense interior arguments.

"For heaven's sake," Perry would snarl fiercely between his clenched
teeth, "get a little pep! I could have gotten her that time if you'd
picked your feet up."

"Well, gimme a little warnin'!"

"I did, darn you."

"I can't see a dog-gone thing in here."

"All you have to do