"We are now going to have a new sort of dance. And knowing you to be a fine dancer, I would suggest that you ask that[p. 99] shortish, stoutish lady to be your partner. I should say that next to you, she is the most graceful dancer at the Ball."
Tommy Fox hurried over at once to claim a dance with the strange lady, who was really Fatty Coon—only Tommy didn't know it.
As soon as everyone was ready, Jimmy Rabbit climbed on top of a toadstool and made a speech.
"The new dance," he said, "will be like this: Everybody must be blindfolded." So every dancer pulled out his pocket-handkerchief and tied it over his eyes. "The new dance will be without music," Jimmy added. "You will dance until the music begins, instead of dancing until it stops."
Everyone said that that was a queer sort of dance. But Jimmy Rabbit paid no attention to such remarks.
"All ready!" he called. "One, two,[p. 100] three—dance!" he cried in a loud voice.
Among all that crowd, Jimmy Rabbit was the only one who was not blindfolded. But no one else knew that, for nobody could see him—except the musicians. And as soon as Jimmy whispered something to them they tucked their corn-stalk fiddles under their arms and ran away.
But everybody kept dancing—because, you remember, it was to be a dance without music. Jimmy Rabbit had said that they weren't to stop dancing till the music began. And with the fiddlers gone, you might think they'd be dancing yet.
But it was not so.
