Where, in other cities of the South, I have managed to dance as much as half a dance without interruption, I never danced more than twenty feet with one partner in Birmingham. Nor did my companion.
Our host was energetic in presenting us to ladies of infinite pulchritude and State-wide terpsichorean reputation, but we would start to tread a measure with them, only to have them swiftly snatched from us by some spindle-necked, long-wristed, big-boned, bowl-eared high-school youth, in a dinner suit which used to fit him when it was new, six months ago.
As we would start to dance the lady would say:
"You-all ah strangehs, ahn't you?"
We would reply that we were.
"Wheh do you come from?"
"New York."
Then, because the Hardware Convention was being held in town at the time, she would continue:
"Ah reckon you-all ah hahdware men?"
But that was as far as the conversation ever got. Just about the time that she began to reckon we were hardware men a mandatory hand would be laid upon us, and before we had time to defend ourselves against the hardware charge, the lady would be wafted off in the arms of some predatory youth who ought to have been at home considering pons asinorum.