Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/141

 aid, to scramble up and limp after his partner, beckoning to her to try it again.

"Game girl!" Jello audibly approved her compliance; and Methuselah caught her and braced himself again. Br-r-r-at-atat-tat! applauded the snare drum and stayed with him about one turn—two. Then thump! Boom! Boom!

Old Meth, game but groggy, sat up rubbing his bumped head and bowing to the plaudits and laughter. Art Slengel supported him from the floor, patting his back and praising him.

"Now we show 'em," whispered Jello to Di, and he seized her and started spinning.

Sam was become a triumphant whirling dervish in the center of the floor, with Di a flywheel around him. She shut her eyes. Sam was bent on showing how it should be done, since the clown act was cleared away, and Di, opening her eyes, got skipping glimpses of palms, wallpaper, piano and staring faces. She felt herself slipping in Jello's sweaty hands; she tried to tighten the grasp and he tried to hold her but their fingers failed and she flew from him, tripping, sliding and skimming at last on side and shoulder and cheek over the waxy boards.

Jello, stumbling back, kept his balance and staggered to a divan in a nook before he fell from dizziness. Di turned over and sat up, soiled and shaky in the face of loud applause. She saw Irene cross the spinning room and go to the nook after Jello. Di arose and retired for a wash, re-rouging and repairs.

More determination than distinguished either of her parents, in the little unkempt cottage near the Straits of