In two minutes he
emerged and turned his left side to Mac. Then he spoke.
"You've got a foot movement, kid, like a baby hippopotamus trying to
side-step a jab from a humming-bird. And you hold yourself like a truck
driver having his picture taken in a Third Avenue photograph gallery.
And you haven't got any method or style. And your knees are about
as limber as a couple of Yale pass-keys. And you strike the eye as
weighing, let us say, 450 pounds while you work. But, say, would you
mind giving me your name?"
"McGowan," said the humbled amateur--"Mac McGowan."
Delano the Great slowly lighted a cigarette and continued, through its
smoke:
"In other words, you're rotten. You can't dance. But I'll tell you one
thing you've got."
"Throw it all off of your system while you're at it," said Mac. "What've
I got?"
"Genius," said Del Delano. "Except myself, it's up to you to be the
best fancy dancer in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the colonial
possessions of all three."
"Smoke up!" said Mac McGowan.
"Genius," repeated the Master--"you've got a talent for genius.
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