"Are you fond of dancing, Mr. Thane?" inquired Mrs. Pollock. "I used to love to trip the light fantastic."
"I am very fond of dancing," said he, and then added with a smile: "Especially since the girls have taken to parking their corsets."
There was a shocked silence, broken by Miss Grady, who, as a dressmaker, was not quite so finicky about the word.
"What do you mean by parking?" she inquired.
"Same as you park an automobile," said he, enjoying the sensation he had created. "It's the fashion now, among the best families as well as the worst, for the girls when they go to dances to leave their corsets in the dressing rooms. Check 'em, same as you do your hat."
"Bless my soul," gasped Mr. Pollock. "Haven't they got any mothers?"
"Sure,—but the mothers don't know anything about it. You see, it's this way. We fellows won't dance with 'em if they've got corsets on,—so off they come."
"What's the world coming to?" cried the editor.
"You'd better ask where it's going to," said Charlie Webster.
"Do you go to the opera very often?" asked Miss Miller nervously.