“A ‘dinner dance’?” repeated his daughter, not sure for the moment that she wished to have so much confusion in the house when there was so much to do.
“Yes! Now, it isn’t one of those dances you read about out East, where folks drink a cup of tea, and then get up and dance around, and then take a sandwich and the orchestra strikes up another tune,” chuckled Captain Rugley.
“No, it isn’t like that. I couldn’t stand any such doings. I’d never know when I’d had enough to eat; every dance would shake down the courses so that my stomach would be packed as hard as a cement sidewalk.”
“Oh, Daddy!” said Frances, half laughing at him.
“No. This dinner dance idea is all right,” declared the ranchman. “We give a dinner to the whole crowd–all the girls and boys that have been coming over here for the past two or three weeks.”
“It will make fifteen at table,” said the practical Frances, thinking hard of the resources of the household.
“That’s all right. I’ll get in the Reposa boys to help San Soo and Ming.”
“Victorino, too?” asked his daughter, curiously.
“Yes,” declared the Captain, stoutly. “He’s sorry he mixed up with Ratty M’Gill. Vic isn’t a bad boy. Well, that’s help enough, and San Soo can outdo himself on his dinner.”
“That part of it will be all right–and the service, too, for José and Victorino are handy boys,” admitted Frances.