T

O-NIGHT he came and talked to me. I met him here last night. I stop in often to watch the dancing, and he had been pointed out to me at several previous dances here. at Heartbreak Hall. They said he is a remarkable dancing-master, one who teaches the teachers. He has a class here.

Heartbreak Dance runs every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday night from 8 to 12 o'clock; admission: ladies 25 cents, gents 50 cents. There can be no afternoon dance, because all the patrons are then at work over the city -at work for other people. From getting home at 6 P. M. to up for work at 6 A. M. they call their time their own; they do their own living then.

Heartbreak Hall, right in the business section, rises on a spot where the milk of human kindness seems curdled by greed. All day it watches passers-by, itself retired and quiescent. Deep within it this hall knows what passers-by do not see in each other in their trot.

When night comes down the street, things change. A fancy ticket-seller arrives, goes up into her coop, and begins. A special police officer comes and takes

his stand to keep an outward semblance of peace. Out from the open night into the human-heated hall move the ticketbuyers. Past the blazing electric sign outside into the confidentially lighted inside, from the gazers on the street outside to the fellow hunters inside, they come.

A bank of people stand milling about beyond the hat-check room. They are waiting for the music, observing, selecting, discarding, noting, sensing, enjoying. In the list of unfortunates, begin anywhere and go anywhere, up or down, they are here. There will be a little time left for some sleep after the close before one must plod through again. A little sleep!

As he came smiling up to-night, his figure was tall and looked distinguished. His face was made by eyes set in like a Turk's, back under a good forehead and above cheeks that sagged and ended in a lip. Always he smiled, yet his smile was one of self-control. It carried one up to a contemplation of the good and high forehead. His dancing was calm. His face showed a fineness of culture, but his features were gross. He was both unpleasant and attractive. Last night he fell immediately to discussing dancing as a racial need and music as a response to creative existence. Here, in Heartbreak

Dance, made up of these tense-feeling and non-understanding roamers from the whole city, where each one has given and taken from life without personal repression, and each is always by circumstances oppressed, where eight hundred persons have eight hundred histories of eight hundred kinds of unchecked joys and troubles -here the observations of my new acquaintance amazed me. He had a velvety voice, coming from somewhere else. He stated himself in few words, and now in a lisping accent he began: "Are you studying the crowd?"

"Not very much," I answered, as he sat down beside me. "This crowd does not require study; it spells itself all alike."

"Yes, they are all alike out there," he said, emphasizing it with a gesture, "all alike. No people all apes-no people among them-none," he chanted.

Apes!" I laughed. "I had not thought that. They could none of them cavort on a leafy limb, I am sure. I thought these human creatures more tame, if less sensible, than apes."

"Less sensible, yes. An ape will reach out when he wants something and will pick it, eat it, and be satisfied. No monkey will pick more than he thinks he needs to eat. But people! They are not going to be satisfied with that; they want more." He went on: "I know the monkey tribe. I used to go out to the Zoo every day with peanuts and I learned those monkeys. I named each one for some friend, and then I used to watch how they behaved. I would treat each as I did the friend. I used to talk to them and we learned to understand each other. One day, about my hundredth visit there, I had three of my friends along and they went with me to the cage. When I called a name and a monkey came ambling over to me, one friend spoke up: 'But hold on! Where did you get that name?' It was his own. I told him I had named this monkey for him because of its characteristics."

"But the friend, how did he take it?" I asked.

"He laughed it through, but deep down he was tapped."

I pondered. "That was rather remarkable," I concluded.

"Yes," he wagged, "but you see I

reached something in him that day. It took five years for it to come through. I met him five years later and he said: 'Tuck, I want to tell you. That monkey talk of yours taught me a lesson. I couldn't for a long while figure out just what, either. But gradually it came to me, and now I am always hunting God and I am trying to learn all I can.'

"What nationality are you?" I asked abruptly.

"French," he answered. "French and Spanish."

"Not farther East," I questioned, “not originally?"

"Yes, on my father's side, Moorish, really."

"There! I was sure of it; but I think you came from the depths of the Orient farther back still. Are you not something of a mystic?"

"There is no such thing as a mystic," he said readily. "There is only understanding. I do come from the Orient. Oh, I know that for sure! And I have the understanding; whether from anything of my own or from this present experience I do not know."

"Now you are talking reincarnation," I commented.

"Surely. One must. We are either a self or an experience reincarnated, are we not? It must be one or the other."

"Experience reincarnated? You mean heredity?" I asked.

"Of course. Are we not each a reincarnated set of experiences that our parents had?"

"We

He fell to musing as his eyes rested on the dancers moving over the floor. all are reincarnations," he repeated. "I talk to my classes at my lessons, and when I am teaching these people about their dancing, I sometimes look over the floor and think: 'What right have you to interfere? What right?" He leaned close as he said this. I had a sense of a power of hypnotism in his gaze. I avoided his eyes, though his rhythmic voice delighted me and his whole discourse laughed.

"This right," I answered; "the strong must warn the weaker of any known danger. The real question lies in a definition of danger."

"Yes. And-yes-I think we must warn them. We are then the instruments

of power, I suppose. They can treat it just as they please take it or leave it." He considered "But I am a sensitive instrument, and oh-so easily put out of order! I cannot be worked by blows, like a drum. I am not meant to be struck." A thoughtful silence, then the music. started. It was a waltz. "I must excuse myself," he said with deference. "I promised to give the soda-fountain girl a good waltz the next one that came, and here it is" and he bowed his leave. In a moment I saw him steering a trimmedup, heavy-set girl through the maze.

Not so large, this hall. It is dimmed by a lighting in rose-and-green globes during this waltz, a "moonlight waltz." Here at Heartbreak Hall it is Transition, the moonlight waltz. The troubled man becomes during this waltz the man at peace. His trouble is not forgotten, it is dissolved. Into the place where it was comes the sensation of twilight in May. The music stops. That stops the motion. Standing still ends the dance. The lights come on. Again it is a material room with objects. The boys crowd in heaps into their chosen corner-the girls seek seats.

"C'n I sit there?" asked a disappointedlooking young man. The secretive-looking girl moved down the bench.

"Nice crowd, ain't it?" said he. "Not so nice," said she. "But you're goin' to stay?" said he. "Think I'll be going soon," said she. "Ye-ah?" from him. Then he sat sidewise and looked at her. "Maybe you've got your troubles too, like me,' he confided, "but you look happy," he ventured, with scrutiny in his gaze.

"What d'you mean-like you?" was the response. She settled herself, so did he. "What I mean? I mean, I've got troubles all day and all night. I've lost my home. I haven't got anybody or nothin' left. I don' care much any more. Sometimes I drink some and I've forgotten it all. What's the use?" He thrust his feet forward.

She grew mildly interested. "Oh, I know all what you mean. Where's the

wife?" she ended.

"That's it. She's home. She's got the whole thing. It went all her way.

She got the house an' the kid an' all the furniture. I haven't got anything. You see, she went in and worked them all, judge an' lawyers an' everybody, y'know; worked the whole bunch against me. The whole bunch. Even the kid." "Was it a baby?"

"No-she'll be nine in August." "H'm. Hard on you. What'd you done?"

"Nothing! That's it-nothing! An' here I am without anything; turned clean out of the works. Just turned out."

"What did she say you did?" asked the wily member of the dialogue, who was perhaps thirty-two. She had a face that seemed to say it knew how. It understood the trick of getting something and being nothing. The powder was well put on so her complexion was tempting and very pure with sweet lips. The face was framed by hair of light brown, tightly marcelled, and the ensemble was trimmed with sparkling stones suspended on tiny chains from the ears. She moved her head often. Her dress was the usual black with heavy black lace set in for sleevelets and trimmings. Below, French flesh silk hose and fancy strapped patentleather slippers completed the decorations.

"Oh," he muttered savagely, "what she said? Everything! you know-everything! Claimed my drinkin' has caused me to change all 'round. I'm an electrician an' I made good money. I bought our home. She got everything I had-" And he slumped.

The lace lady thought. "She played you a dirty trick," she decided. "Maybe you did drink a little, but you all do. I'll bet she does when she can. The lowdown faker. I know just how you feel. I know-believe me-I know. Ain't I been there!" plaintively. Then suddenly and eagerly: "I'll bet it didn't do a bit of good, either, for you to say a thing. She could not understand any explanation. Oh-don't I know, sweet mama!"

He was watching her, amazed. "You sure do seem to understand. Are you― have you been married?” "Rather!"

"Had troubles too?"
"Some. We're divorced."
"You!"

"Sure, me. And he did all the things

to me same as she did to you. They ain't fair when they are jealous. My husband was so jealous he didn't want me even to sit near a window, I guess."

"God, the dumb-bell!" he exploded. "You! and you understand a man so well. I can't see how your husband could've picked at you."

She, sweetly: "Ain't it strange we, who understand each other so, should meet here? Looks like it was planned."

He, distractedly: "There's the music, and I've got this dance out. I've got a blonde I brought here to-night, but this dance is with a different one. My blonde's been dancing. There she is, that tall one with the black drapes an' the big white beads; the fellow's in gray. See that's her."

The lace lady looked, then nodded, while her ear-drops sparkled. "Here comes my guy. I've got this out, too!" And she went to meet him.

A boy sitting out the dance went over to the Hall Mother. "Hello, mother, how are y' to-night?" He seated himself with a jerk at his knees.

"Very fine, thank you, John. Are you not dancing this?"

"No, mother, I'm all in. I'm in trouble"-mopping his brow after speed through the last dance.

his

"So?" kindly. "What sort?" "With my wife. We are getting an annulment. It isn't really Isabelle I'm divorcing, though; it's her mother. I've just got to have my liberty." John flattened back and put away his handkerchief. "How long have you and Isabelle been married?"

"Three weeks." The supervisor jumped. "Why, John! a divorce after three weeks?"

"Got to. Look here, mother, I gave up my religion to marry Isabelle. Now, after we are married her mother says I've got to give up pork meat and then do a bunch of their other stuff. I won't. will have my liberty. I'm healthy. I won't, that's all. I've applied for an annulment."

"How old is Isabelle?"

I

"She's nineteen," he answered, sitting forward to search a corner. There he located a slender girl in a straight black dress and long ivory ear-pendants, sitting

out the dance, and with "Guess I'll have a dance with Maye," he left energetically. The general manager came up. "Good evening! What news?"

"None here. What do you know?" "Well, I do know a bit. Our floor manager, Kirk, is going to leave us."

"Is_that_possible? After his sixteen years here I thought he had grown into these painted walls," she laughed.

"Nothing like that. You know, sixteen years ago Kirk left a lady he loved behind him in New Brunswick. Well, she married soon. He never went back. Now she's a widow, and it is on between her and Kirk again. He's going back next month and marry her. See his hair? You see, when he left there he had plenty of nice thick hair. It curled a little. Now he's awfully worried because he's so bald. He has a salve he is using nights and he puts on a little tight-fitting cap to hold the salve on all night, but," the manager asked concernedly, "do you think he can get it to grow in in a month?"

"Maybe, but I'm afraid it's a question," said the supervisor, trying to keep sober. "I remember he got his new teeth just last winter; it's good that they are all adjusted now."

He watched Kirk moving about on the floor, tall and thin, coming to a peak above the crowd. "Sixteen years is quite a while, you know," he puzzled.

"Hello, Juliette! Did y' hear what happened to me?" breezed a twenty-yearold excited dancer, as he poised his partner amidships and shivered to the music while he stood still in front of Juliette. "Nope, what?" encouraged his audi

ence.

"I've nearly died; been sick. Poison. Everybody said it was my wife poisoned me, but it wasn't; it was ptomaine. I was sure sick, too." He showed great satisfaction.

"Wife?" pumped Juliette. "I never saw any here with you. I never knew you was married."

"No, guess not. Most folks don't. You see, she dances at Starlight and I dance here. We like different halls," he beamed. The music urged and he skated off happily. His cleaving little partner followed his many steps as truly as could his own aura.

"Hello, Jule! See that dark, short woman with the straight bob?' This came from a cool, self-possessed girl with dark-red hair, cut to stand out curly all over her head. "That is a grandmother, and she is chambermaid at the Lewis Hotel from 8 to 5 o'clock and makes up forty-seven rooms every day, and then dances here or at the Princess five nights each week; and she has had two husbands, and the second one was as mean as dirt to her, and so now he is dead and she says it is her turn and she is going to have a good time. She enjoys herself great." All this in one breath as grandma danced complacently past. The breath expired as Myrtle, the stout, dropped out of the music onto the bench and plunged hurriedly into her vanity box, chewing and patting rapidly with: "Say, listen, Bertha, if that guy I just danced with asks you to dance, don't tell him I'm married, see? Don't tell him. I live with my mother and sister-see?and I'm not married"-interrupted here by: "Did ja know him before to-night?" and continuing: "Sure-he was here the first night I came three weeks ago, and danced with me both the nights I came before to-night. I've been kiddin' him along-he believes I'm single see? Tell him I'm livin' at home-I work at Dunn's-see?-don't come out oftenjust with you sometimes-see?"

Here the music brought an avalanche of partners, and a pleasant-looking boy hurried up, drawing a clipping from his inner coat-pocket. He was short, with sociable brown eyes which had seen Juliette about to rise.

"Hear about me, Jule?" and he took the seat Bertha, the red bob, had just left to dance with a pale, gray man. "Hear what?" agreeably asked Jule, of shiny black hair, a straight bob.

"Why, I committed suicide last night; didn't you know? Read this"-regally handing her the clipping. "You see I put one over on them! They say I'm in the hospital, see? and here I am at this dance," he crowed triumphantly. "I swore I wouldn't go anywhere, too, but here I am. I got down here somehow," perplexedly.

"It says you took poison. D'you feel sick?" quizzed Jule.

"Oh, I'm all punkins. I went to work

already to-day. You see, I took it at six last night and they took me to the hospital at midnight, after the dance at Bean's, so I was all over it this morning, fine and dandy. And they don't know it!" "Love trouble, Bud?"

"No-no girl in it. I just couldn't find any friends or any fun for myself, ain't got any folks left, and I was too lonesome for dust, so I just thought I'd end it, too."

"Gosh! Be glad they pulled you back, Bud, and I'll show you where to find your friends. You look me up at the dance to-morrow night. This girl acts like she thinks you've got this dance out with her now."

"Yes, I have. Sure. It's the whirl. I forgot. Hello, Myrtle. I'll be back; thanks. Good-by." He stepped off gaily and replaced the distinguishing clipping in his inner pocket.

The whirl began. Only once each evening is the whirling one-step allowed. Then the orchestra plays in circles and affects the room like a musical egg-beater, drawing into the suction of whipped tunes all dancers who venture on the floor to spin around at top speed, one foot to each revolution. The bulk of the crowd sit down to watch, and they watch breathlessly. Some couple is sure to intrude into some other at tornado velocity with tornado results. The wreckage squeals and is diverting. All the while the music is stirring up everything and everybody, and keeps the air swirling in a cyclone of saxophones and drums.

But Bertha was calmly revolving with great repose and perfect precision, guided by the pasty gray man equally self-propelled. In spite of speed they reversed as regularly and as simply as any pendulum. Bud had Myrtle, and the pair were hectic. Bud looked like a horse-race.

Heartbreak Dance was doing homage to its hero. As the blur dissolved itself into features, I saw. Here was the lovable young boss of the most just and powerful gang in the city. Winning, reliable, quiet-they were cheering him. Not for his brute record, but for combining it with qualities that endeared him. They loved him.

Jule burst out to me: "It is Bunchy Bock. He and Sue. Everybody likes