A jingling and a right merry cacophony of sound came fast upon the bubble bombardment, and then, to a light runnel of song, the row of twenty-four, harnessed in slotted sleigh-bells and with little-girl flounced frocks to their very sophisticated pink-silk knees.
The devices of vaudeville are perennial. Rigoletto, who set a court's sides aching, danced to bells. The row of twenty-four, pink and white as if the cradle had just yielded them up, shivered suddenly into an ecstasy of sound, the jerked-up shoulder of one, the tossing curls of another, the naughty shrug of a third, eking out a melody.
A laugh rose off the crowd.
"Say, this town'll fall for anything! That act's got barnacles. But the little devils look cute, though. Say—say, old man, cut that out! This is no place for your mother's son. Say!"
Mr. Loeb was leaning forward across the table, his head well ahead of his shoulders. From the third from the end of the row of twenty-four, a shoulder shrugging to the musical nonsense of bells was arching none too indirectly toward him, and once the black curls bobbed, giving a share of tremolo to the melody. But the bob was carefully directed, and Herman Loeb returned it in fashion, only more vehemently and with repetition.
"Say, Herman, enough is enough! You'll have her here at the table next. It's like Al Suss always says, the reason he woke up one morning and found himself married to the first pony in the sextet was because he stuck a stamp upside down on a letter to her and found he could be held for a proposal in stamp language."
To a great flare of the Negroid music, the row of twenty-four suddenly turned turtle, and prone on a strip of rug, heads to audience and faces to ceiling, twenty-four pairs of legs, ankleted in bells, kicked up a syncopated melody. From a Niagara of lace, insteps quivered an arpeggio. A chromatic scale bounced off a row of rapidly pointing toes. The third from the end, seized with sudden chill, quivered into grace notes, small pink feet kicking violently to the chandelier.
Men red with laughter pounded their plates. The rhythmic convulsion passed down the prostrate line, forty-eight little feet twinkled a grand finale, and the curtains swung, then opened, remaining so.
The line of twenty-four danced down and across the wide hair-line that separates life and stage, butterflies sipping from table to table. The cabaret was done. Lights resumed, and the business of food and drink.
Mr. Loeb flung out an arm, pulling awry a carefully averted pink sash.