"Young ladies, it is my intention to bring you a little confectionery next Tuesday; and now, if you please, attention! and answer. What does practice do?"
In vain we shouted our customary response with more than our customary conviction; the confectionery was always for next Tuesday, and never, alas! for to-day. With longing eyes we watched the slightest movement of the master towards his pocket. He never produced anything but his handkerchief, and when he doubled in two to wish us "O reevoyer," he never omitted to say—
"To-day I did not pass by the confectioner's shop; but it will certainly be for next Tuesday."
For a long time he took us in, as other so-called magicians have taken in simpletons as great as we. We believed he had a secret understanding with the devil, for only to the power of evil could we attribute a quickness of apprehension such as he boasted. He would stand with his back to us, playing away at his violin, while we chasséed and croiséd and heaven knows what else—
"Now, my senses are so acutely alive to the impropriety of a false step, young ladies, that even with my back turned to you, I shall be able to tell which of you has erred without seeing her."
Sure enough he always pounced on the bungler, and never failed to switch round his bow violently and hit her toes. How was it done? Simply enough, one of us discovered quite by accident. There was a big mahogany press, as finely polished as a mirror, and in front of this the master planted himself. The rows of dancers, from crown to heel, were as clear to him as in a glass. By such simple means may a terrible reputation be acquired. For months had Mr. Parker shabbily usurped the fame of a magician.
In his quality of master he could permit himself a brutality of candour not usually shown by his sex to us without the strictest limits of intimacy. There was a big girl of sixteen, very stout, very tall, squarely built, with poultry-yard writ in broad letters over her whole dull and earthly form. An excellent creature, I have no doubt, though I knew nothing whatever about her, being half her age, which in school constitutes a difference of something approaching half a century. Her name was Janet Twycross, and she came from Shakespeare's town. As befits a master of the graceful art, Mr. Parker's preference was, given to the slim and lovely nymph, and such a square emblem of the soil as Janet Twycross would naturally provoke his impatient contempt. Possibly she merited all the vicious rage he showered on her poor big feet, pathetically evident, emerging from skirts that just reached her ankles. But with my larger experience and knowledge of his sex, I am inclined to doubt it, and attribute his vindictiveness to a mere masculine hatred of ugliness in woman rather than to the teacher's legitimate wrath. Hardly a Tuesday went by but he sent the inoffensive, great, meek creature into floods of tears; and while she wept and sobbed, looking less lovely than ever in her sorrow, he would snarl and snicker at her, imitate her jeeringly, and cast obloquy on her unshapely feet.
"A ploughboy would be disgraced by such feet as Miss Twycross's," he would hiss across at her, and then rap them wickedly with his bow.
The art of dancing, Mr. Parker proved to us, is insufficient to make a gentleman of its adept. Once his unsleeping fury against the unhappy girl carried him to singular lengths. He bade us all be seated, and then, with his customary inflated and foolish air began to address us upon the power of art. With art you can achieve anything, you can even lend grace to the ungraceful.
"I will now chose from your ranks the most awkward, the most pitiable and clumsy of her sex. The young lady unassisted cannot dance a single step; but such is my consummate skill, so finished is my art, that I shall actually succeed in bestowing some of my own grace as a dancer upon her. Advance, Miss Twycross."