"The dance of
the hours; what's that?"
"The dance of the hours! The dance of the hours!" echoed other voices,
and glasses were drained wildly. There was something exciting in the mere
sound of the words that seemed to set brains jigging, and feet moving,
and the world spinning and bowing. For if Time itself danced, what could
the most Puritan human being do but dance with it? Seeing the crowd round
Valentine, men who were drinking at the other end of the bar joined it,
and the toast passed quickly from mouth to mouth. Uttered by every
variety of voice, with every variety of accent, it filled the stifling
atmosphere, and tickled many an empty brain, like the catchword political
that can set a nation behind one astute wire-puller. Boys yelled it, men
murmured it, and an elderly woman in a plush gown and yellow feathers
screamed it out in a piercing soprano that would have put many a
trumpet-blast to shame. Glasses were emptied and filled again in its
honour. Yet nobody knew what it meant, and apparently nobody cared,
except the Oxford boy who had already expressed his desire to be better
informed on the subject. He had gradually edged his way through the
throng until he was close to Valentine, at whom he gazed with a sort of
tipsy reverence.
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