"Say, Prue, if you want to get rich quick whyn't you charge for your tango advice? Says here that teachers are springing up all over Noo York and Chicawgo, and they get big, immense prices."
"How much?" said Prue, indifferently.
"Says here twenty-five dollars an hour. Some of 'em's earning a couple of thousand dollars a week."
This information went through the room like a projectile from a coast-defense gun. Serina listened with bated breath as Horace read the confirmation. She shook her head:
"It beats all the way vice pays in this world."
Horace read on. The article described how some of the most prominent women in metropolitan society were sponsoring the dances. A group of ladies, whose names were more familiar to Serina than the Christian martyrs, had rented a whole dwelling-house for a dancing couple to disport in, so that the universal amusement could be practised exclusively.
That settled Serina. Whatever Mrs. —— and Miss —— and the mother of the Duchess of —— did was better than right. It was swell.
Prue's frown now was the frown of meditation. "If they charge twenty-five dollars an hour in New York, what ought to be the price in Carthage?"
"About five cents a week," said Serina, who did not approve of Carthage. "Nobody in this town would pay anything for anything."
"We used to pay old Professor Durand to teach us to waltz and polka," said Horace, "in the good old days before pop got the bankruptcy habit."