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Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
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looking faintly uncomfortable.
The Captain, by some process known only to him, selects one of the widows and asks her to dance. Two husbands dance with their wives. Uncle Tom offers me his arm and leads me to the floor. Two or three of the junior officers follow the Captain’s example. Clark takes advantage of the breathless excitement to raid the punch bowl.
But nobody asks Girdie to dance.
This is no accident. The Captain has given the Word (I have this intelligence with utter certainty through My Spies) that no ship’s officer shall dance with Miss Fitz-Snugglie until he has danced at least two dances with other partners—and I am not an “other partner,” because the proscription, since leaving Mars, has been extended to me.
This should be proof to anyone that a captain of a ship is, in sober fact, the Last of the Absolute Monarchs.
There are now six or seven couples on the floor and the fun is at its riotous height. The floor will never again be so crowded. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the chairs are still occupied and you could ride a bicycle around the floor without endangering the dancers. The spectators look as if they were knitting at the tumbrels. The proper finishing touch would be a guillotine in the empty space in the middle of the floor.
The music stops; Uncle Tom takes me back to my chair, then asks Girdie to dance—since he is a Cash Customer, the Captain has not attempted to make him toe the mark. But I am still out of bounds, so I walk over to the punch bowl, take a cup out of Clark’s hands, finish it, and say, “Come on, Clark. I’ll let you practice on me.”
“Aw, it’s a waltz!” (Or a “flea hop,” or a “chassé,” or “five step”—but whatever it is, it is just too utterly impossible.)
“Do it—or I’ll tell Madame Grew that you want to dance with her, only you’re too shy to ask her.”
“You do and I’ll trip her! I’ll stumble and trip her.”
However, Clark is weakening, so I move in fast. “Look, Bub, you either take me out there and walk on my feet for a while—or I’ll see to it that Girdie doesn’t dance with you at all.”
That does it. Clark is in the throes of his first case of puppy love, and Girdie is such a gent that she treats him as an equal and accepts his attentions with warm courtesy. So Clark dances with me. Actually he is quite a good dancer, and I have to lead him only a tiny bit. He likes to dance—but he wouldn’t want anyone, especially me, to think that he likes to dance with his sister. We don’t look too badly matched, since I am short. In the meantime Girdie is looking very good indeed with Uncle Tom, which quite an accomplishment, as Uncle Tom dances with great enthusiasm and no rhythm. But Girdie can follow anyone—if her partner broke his leg, she would follow fracturing her own at the same spot. But the crowd is thinning out now; husbands that danced the first dance are too tired for the second and no one has replaced them.
Oh, we have gay times in the luxury line Tricorn! Truthfully we do have gay times. Starting with the third dance Girdie and I have our pick of the ship’s officers, most of whom are good dancers, or at least have had plenty of practice. About twenty-two o’clock the Captain goes to bed and shortly after that the chaperones start putting away their whetstones and fading, one by one. By midnight there is just Girdie and myself and half a dozen of the younger officers—and the Purser, who has dutifully danced with every woman and now feels that he owes himself the rest of the night. He is quite a good dancer, for an old man.
Oh, and there is usually Mrs. Grew, too—but she isn’t one of the chaperones and she is always nice to Girdie. She is a fat old woman, full of sin and chuckles. She doesn’t expect anyone to dance with her, but she likes to watch—and the officers who aren’t dancing at the moment like to sit with her; she’s fun.
About one o’clock Uncle Tom sends Clark to tell me to come
The Captain, by some process known only to him, selects one of the widows and asks her to dance. Two husbands dance with their wives. Uncle Tom offers me his arm and leads me to the floor. Two or three of the junior officers follow the Captain’s example. Clark takes advantage of the breathless excitement to raid the punch bowl.
But nobody asks Girdie to dance.
This is no accident. The Captain has given the Word (I have this intelligence with utter certainty through My Spies) that no ship’s officer shall dance with Miss Fitz-Snugglie until he has danced at least two dances with other partners—and I am not an “other partner,” because the proscription, since leaving Mars, has been extended to me.
This should be proof to anyone that a captain of a ship is, in sober fact, the Last of the Absolute Monarchs.
There are now six or seven couples on the floor and the fun is at its riotous height. The floor will never again be so crowded. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the chairs are still occupied and you could ride a bicycle around the floor without endangering the dancers. The spectators look as if they were knitting at the tumbrels. The proper finishing touch would be a guillotine in the empty space in the middle of the floor.
The music stops; Uncle Tom takes me back to my chair, then asks Girdie to dance—since he is a Cash Customer, the Captain has not attempted to make him toe the mark. But I am still out of bounds, so I walk over to the punch bowl, take a cup out of Clark’s hands, finish it, and say, “Come on, Clark. I’ll let you practice on me.”
“Aw, it’s a waltz!” (Or a “flea hop,” or a “chassé,” or “five step”—but whatever it is, it is just too utterly impossible.)
“Do it—or I’ll tell Madame Grew that you want to dance with her, only you’re too shy to ask her.”
“You do and I’ll trip her! I’ll stumble and trip her.”
However, Clark is weakening, so I move in fast. “Look, Bub, you either take me out there and walk on my feet for a while—or I’ll see to it that Girdie doesn’t dance with you at all.”
That does it. Clark is in the throes of his first case of puppy love, and Girdie is such a gent that she treats him as an equal and accepts his attentions with warm courtesy. So Clark dances with me. Actually he is quite a good dancer, and I have to lead him only a tiny bit. He likes to dance—but he wouldn’t want anyone, especially me, to think that he likes to dance with his sister. We don’t look too badly matched, since I am short. In the meantime Girdie is looking very good indeed with Uncle Tom, which quite an accomplishment, as Uncle Tom dances with great enthusiasm and no rhythm. But Girdie can follow anyone—if her partner broke his leg, she would follow fracturing her own at the same spot. But the crowd is thinning out now; husbands that danced the first dance are too tired for the second and no one has replaced them.
Oh, we have gay times in the luxury line Tricorn! Truthfully we do have gay times. Starting with the third dance Girdie and I have our pick of the ship’s officers, most of whom are good dancers, or at least have had plenty of practice. About twenty-two o’clock the Captain goes to bed and shortly after that the chaperones start putting away their whetstones and fading, one by one. By midnight there is just Girdie and myself and half a dozen of the younger officers—and the Purser, who has dutifully danced with every woman and now feels that he owes himself the rest of the night. He is quite a good dancer, for an old man.
Oh, and there is usually Mrs. Grew, too—but she isn’t one of the chaperones and she is always nice to Girdie. She is a fat old woman, full of sin and chuckles. She doesn’t expect anyone to dance with her, but she likes to watch—and the officers who aren’t dancing at the moment like to sit with her; she’s fun.
About one o’clock Uncle Tom sends Clark to tell me to come
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