"GENTS 1/-; LADIES INVITED."

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 136, 15 July 1914, Page 6

"GENTS 1/-; LADIES INVITED."

A SATURDAY DANCE IN THE SUBURBS. [Written for THE SUN.] The Mistletoe Assembly in the Hopper's Hall, Street, on Saturday, at 8. Gents, a ladies invited. — Familiar advertisement from the Amusement Column. The spirit moved us, and we went. It was not a fashionable suburb anil the place where the festivity took'place.was rather hard to find. To be quite truthful, the spirit (of adventure) moved nobody but me. Jean and Alice simply went because 1 was determined to go, and they refused to let me go alone. How we eventually tracked a danc« to its deep, dark lair is too long a story to be told here, but track it we did, although it took us the best part of an hour. The dance was well in progress when we arrived. We shed our wraps in the dressing room, where a couple of girls were repairing before a cracked mirror the ravages of the last dance. One had parted company with her belt during the riotous rush of the lancers, "and the other's coiffure was even wilder than Nature and design had intended it. They eyed us with curiosity and some hostility, as strange females who came manless and unattended, evidently with the base intention of poaching on th<> •preserves of others more fortunate. W-.j sensed this at once, and endeavoured to propitiate them by assuming a meek and lowly bearing, such as befitted our forlorn state. Alice, who lias the knack of pouring oil on troubled waters, teemed a friendly feeling by the gift of two hairpins, of which the towsled one stood in sore need, and a safety pin foT the other, for which she was extremely grateful. "A plain pin at the waist is a fair terror at a dance," she said, " 'cause of the gents always find in' it with their fingers."

"They don't like it, do they?" I said, anxious to join in.the conversation and to show that, although I had brought no man along with me, I was still not altogether ignorant of the ways of the creatures. The girl stared and then laughed.

"Hardly," s-.he said. "I knew a boy that give his girl the chuck after tearing his finger half an inch deep through catching it 011 a big brass piu she luid her belt fixed with." She screwed her head' round to see that all was well at the back, and as she disappeared through the curtained doorway she threw, me a friendly nod and a word of advice: "Tf you want ter get a boy—and keep him —don't you wear 110 more pins in your clothes than you can help," she said. In the Ballroom. We followed her out to tjhe ballroom, whose walls were lined with rows o!.' chairs, about half of which were occupied with women and girls. The men stood about the doors and on the little platform where the piano had its abode, pulling away at cigarettes and exchanging man talk. A procession of them kept going down and coming up the stairs between dancjs, and we noticed two pe euliarities about them —those who were coming up were invariably wiping their mouths, and those who were going down were just as invariably feeling in their

on strike unless they consulted the brainy men at the head of affairs. Before the ink was dry on this manifesto the Taupiri Company gave notice of dismissal to members of the Huntly Union upon the grounds of shortage of trade. A. few days later the whole of the men employed decided to come out on strike. Then came the strike on the Wellington waterfront about the middle of October and the attendant industrial turmoil j which spelt disaster to the Federation of Labour at every turn of the battle. i SECRET BALLOT BEFORE STRIKE.

Just here it is'well to point out that at the conference of last year a minority predicted events almost as they have happened. In the present report these men are now accused of having "ratted" on the findings of the July Conference, and of "endeavouring to perpetuate still further division in the ranks of Labour." But during last week the conference decided to "rat" upon its previous decisions with regard to the right, to strike. Last year the final cleavage occurred, when it was claimed for the executive that they should have the right to call out any men without a previous ballot. This time they have decided that every union shall have absolute control of its own business, and no unionist shall be expected to strike unless a secret ballot has been taken on the question. The only drawback-about this*decision, from the worker's point of view, is that nothing short of the worst industrial turmoil in the history of the Dominion could drum the wisdom of the proposal into the heads of these officials. JOHN PLOWMAN.

| pockets for change. " 'Tis passing • strange," I murmured to Alice, and thenI became aware of a tall young stranger i who was making a bee-line across the | room in the direction of Jean. Her rosy little face and shining fair hair had evidently attracted fyjm, for he bowed low before her and begged for the pleasure of the next dance. Off they went | a minute later, while Alice and I sat and looked on enviously. A tithe end of the dance she returned to us with him, and gravely presented us. Afterwards we learned that she had discovered his name in the first round, the fact that he was of Scotch descent was disclosed in the second, his occupation (carpentry) followed in the third, and a request to i be introduced to us in the fourth —which i was certainly going some. He told us that he was pleased to meet us, and asked me for the next dance and Alice for the one after that —indeed, he was a conscientious young man. A Little Mistake. The" next dance was a square —an Alberts, to be precise. "I'm not sure that I .can dance Alberts," I said nervously, but my partner was very comforting. "We'll put you through somehow—worse mugs than you come here,'' he said, for v-hich I thanked him most humbly, and he asked me magnificently not to mention it. I assured him hastily that I wouldn't.

To my surprise I discovered that Joan, with another young man. was vis-a-vis, and Alice was danciug with my corner partner. Clearly we were getting on We were all cheerfully ignorant of Alberts, but we adopted the simple expedient, when in doubt, of swinging with the man nearest to hand, and on the whole it worked well enouglf. An awkward little 'contretemps, however, occurred in the last figure, for which I realty do not think I should be blamed. Dazed and breathless with what seemed to me one long swing, and momentarily at a loss as to what to do next, 1 seized the man nearest to me and whirled violently round with him. He seemed strangely unwilling, and when I released him l discovered that he was not dancing at all, but was merely an inoffensive elderly gentleman who had seized that moment to cross to the other side of the room, skirting our set en route. I apologised profusely, but he gave me a look that made me feel like cold storage, and eyed me with withering disapproval for the rest of the evening.

My partner, however, was quite proud of me. "You're hot stuff, you are!" he said, beaming genially 011 me, "ketchin' old Brown like that and dashed near swing-in' him oft' his feet. You better look out for his old woman—-she's a jealous old piece of goods. One night here she give a girl a hidin' because she tipped the old man the glad eye —or the old girl thought she did. She's a warrior all right.'' We had barely resumed our seats when other cavaliers, all requesting the favour of dances, appeared 011 the scene. The Imperial Waltz. We went through strauge and wonderful dances, such as are never met with in ordinary ballrooms, during the course of that evening. I was beguiled into all mariner of manoeuvres, including the "Imperial waltz," in which you went round twice with your partner, doing a kind of waltz step, and then separated from him to do a. few twirls 011 your own, at the end of which you rejoined him and twirled some more in his company. New and unused to it as I was, 1 was in a constant fever of anxiety lest,

at,-the end of my solitary whirlings, I should be unable to find my partner. He noticed this pretty soon, and, being a resourceful*' as well as a kind youth, he invented a new way* of doing it, so that we would not need to separate entirely but would catch hands while doing tlie twirlings that tbe dance demanded.' The new way, I must confess, caused some mirth among the other dancers, and the MX'., an all-powerful person whose w.ord was absolute law, had grave doubts as to whether he would let us continue, especially, rvvhen he . recollected 'my behaviour in, the Alberts. While he was deciding, the music stopped.

The Grift of Repartee. A little playful badinage was going on between two giddy young things who had seats riext to the one I selected. "Kid you don't know a feller .when ye're dressed up like a sore finger,'' grinned the youth, and the girl tossed her beribboned head' saueily. •"I'll knock yoftr head off if you tali to me like that,'' she retorted amiably, and the boy gazed upon her with unbounded admiration. The gift of repartee is always to be respected. "Bit of all right, ain't you?" he answered, aiid here the all-powerful M.<J. created a diversion; by getting up on the platform to make an announcement. '' I want to remind you blokes and girls," he said, "that next Tuesday is long night. Gents two and six, ladies live bob—l mean sixpence." (Boars of laughter at this pleasantry.) "Bring yer friends from the country if yer have any in town —that's all." He turned to the men's dressing room, from whichissued dense clouds of smoke and sounds of hilarity, and bellowed "Tommy!" at which the pianist emerged and onee more a-pplied himself to : the ricketty instrument on the platform with an energy almost amounting to frenzy. He had to, in order to get sound out of it. A peculiar looking person, with hair combed straight down into his eyes and an expression of sad intensity, evinced a great desire to attach himself to our little party. Already he had prevailed upon Alice arid Jean to each have a dance with him, and he showed an unmistakeable intention of having one with me also. The man with whom I had danced the Imperial waltz came and whispered a word of advice. ' i Don't you have nothin' to do with that cove in the grey suit, miss,'' he said earnestly. '' He's balmy.'' He certainly looked it. The Amazing Medley. I found that I had engaged myself to Jean's cavalier for the medley. I must explain that the medley is a pot pourri of all the known —and, to me, of a great many unknown —dances, one following the other without a pause between, and lasting half an hour or thereabouts. Well, we waltzed, we schottischeil, we mazurked, we tangoed, and then we polka'd. Heavens, how we polka'd! My hair began to come down, my breath to get gaspv, my stops to flag. "Shake it up! " commanded my partner, and he set the example by introducing all kinds of little fancy and extra steps into the measure, just to show what really might, be made of a polka. I did my best, and we performed amazing gyrations, and flew like the hag-driven Tam O'Shanter round and round the room. Afterwards Jean and Alice, who .watched my performance with fascinated awe, told me that we had '' danced almost everybody down,'' oYily two couples being left when the musician, with a mighty and final pound, ceased the music. L sat down between them breathlessly. "Am I—am I —" I gasped, but could get no further. Jean got excited, as usual. "Are you ivhatV' she demanded shrilly, and Alice turned concerned eyes on me and took my hand. "Am I all there?" I got out finally. "Do look and see if there isn't some of me up at the other end of the room. I feel as thongh there must be.',' At which they both looked strangely at one another and decided, with startling unanimity, that it was time to go home. I agreed in three gasps. There might have been another medley on the programme, and I feared the consequences! FLO.