Page:Pleased to Meet You (1927).pdf/154

 "What does he mean?" asked Nyla.

"He must mean Frau Quackenbush."

"Poor Daddy, he's having a terrible time."

"If ve say von million florin a year for sixty-two year," continued the unhappy voice of Herr Leutz, "mit an average rate of interests of not more dan von per cent"

"This is too gruesome," said the Colonel, and they turned toward the dance.

Through the open French windows they could see glimpses of gliding couples, where the fashionables of Farniente did honour to the occasion. But there were also some whose ambit would require a bumpier participle. On those polished timbers the honest proletarians of Herr Guadeloupe's ministry had rallied bravely round their chief. One after another, with despair behind their creaking shirt fronts, the doomed men had partnered Frau Quackenbush in a series of exhausting oscillations. The unfortunate lady, jarred from clavicle to coccyx, wondered secretly whether even the hay fever would not have been an easier ordeal. Now the