B677 <=> B679 [BTG XXXVII France, p. 678]

“One of the Americans who did not want to wait any longer for his friend, went with us to the other restaurant.

“On closer acquaintance with this American three-brained being, he turned out to be merry, observant, and loquacious.

“All the way, and then there at the new place we went to, he talked all the time and made us laugh, chiefly because he very skillfully and aptly noticed the comic aspects of the people we met and of the people sitting in the new restaurant.

“Later, from inquiries, it became clear that this American was the owner of a big school of fashionable dancing there in Paris.

“From all he told us about his business, I understood that the pupils of his school consisted entirely of American beings who learned chiefly one favorite American dance, the ‘fox trot.’

“I also understood that this dance, the fox trot, was purely American in origin and that it is popular and danced in full swing chiefly there in America.

“And that was why, when we together had all chosen a new brand of champagne, and this merry American stopped his chatter a little, I asked him:

“’Tell me, please, respected sir, if this is so, why do you not have your school over there at home in America instead of here, in the city Paris, so far from your own country and from the place of the “arising” of this “beneficent” fox trot?’

“’What! What! . . .’ he exclaimed in a sincerely surprised tone. “But I have a large family!

“’If I had my school in my native country, not only would my family die of hunger, but I should not even be able to rent a damp room in New York to shelter us during bad weather from the freezing North winds there.