We had a jolly holdup in the Central house last night, and the way that
Tango skirt was hung put the women in a fright. A preacher took a
snapshot of that violent expose, and sent it off to Comstock, to New
York, U. S. A. ’Twas fun to see the women steer their husbands out the
door, and Murtha said, “We’ll be doggoned if we’ll dance here any more.”
---- bowed his head and blushed, and wore a look of shame, and the
management felt awful, and said we’re not to blame. The captains and
lieutenants said that Tango was a sin, while the roughnecks and the
vultures sat ’round and wore a grin. The learned judges from the Zone
to the balconies went to look, and the only baldhead not around was that
of Colonel Took. Poor Deeps and Jimmy Terry came in to take a squint;
the dancers acted merry, but finally took a hint that their dancing was
unseeming, as the females all were hurt, and Deeps put on his glasses to
diagnose that skirt. He said ’twas sixteen inches wide, and just above
the knee there’s nothing but horizon, as every one can see; there’s not
a bit of cotton cloth, nor a tiny bit of lace--nothing but the electric
light a-shining through the space. Then he turned to order drinks up,
for the waiter came to him, and Terry he got busy and diagnosed a limb.
There were shouts and shrieks of feeling and echoes of applause; men
were drunk and reeling, went forth with loud haw-haws. The persons we
call human, when all is said and done, at the antics of a woman looked
on and called it fun.