“What was it?” asked Charlotte.
“Well, dear, it was nothing except a dance by a nigger. Maybe you wouldn't have thought so much of it. I don't know, though; it did bring down the house. He was called back I don't know how many times. It was like a dance an old fellow on my father's plantation used to dance before the war. Arthur, you must have seen old Uncle Noah dance that. Why, now I think of it, you used to dance it yourself when you were a boy, and sing for the music just the way he did. Don't you remember?”
Carroll nodded laughingly, and went on eating.
“Used to—I guess you did! I remember your dancing that at Bud Hamilton's when Bud came of age. Old Noah must have been gone then. It was after the war.”
“Oh, papa,” cried Eddy, in a rapture, “do dance it sometime, won't you?”
“I'll tell you what we will all do,” cried Major Arms, with enthusiasm, “we'll all go to the City to-morrow night, and we'll see that dance. I tell you it's worth it. It's a queer thing, utterly unlike anything I have ever seen. It is a sort of cross between a cake-walk and an Indian war-dance. Jove! how it carried me back!” Arms began to hum. “That's it, pretty near, isn't it, Arthur?” he asked.
“Quite near, I should say,” replied Carroll.
“Oh, papa, won't you sing and dance it after breakfast?” cried Eddy.
“Now, hush up, my son,” said Arms. “Your father has the dignity of his position to support. A gentleman doesn't dance nigger dances when he is grown up and the head of a family. It's all very well when he is a boy. But we'll all go to New York to-morrow night and we'll see that dance.”
“There is a great deal to do,” Anna Carroll remarked.