Whistle Pig had always been light on his feet--an irony, considering the fact

that he was, in truth, a pig. But give the Victrola a good crank, and there would go Whistle Pig, cutting the rug in time to a bouncy Joplin rag.

This evening was no exception for our quick-hoofed friend. As he
jiggity-jogged around the room, fighting through a fragrant haze of cigar smoke, he grasped Maude--who was only too happy to oblige the pushy porker--and dragged her into the frenzy of flaying limbs that is inevitable when someone plays the piano as well as Henry was playing it now.

Whistle Pig had had his eye on Maude the entire evening. It was
hard, in a room as extravagantly large as Henry's parlor, to be a commanding presence. But if ever a presence commanded, Maude's did now. The tall brunette towered over Whistle Pig, whose rather unimpressive stature-- which did not, incidentally, dictate a limit to his staggering ego--brought him just to her chest, which was flat and boyish, in keeping with vogue.

Maude laughed like she knew she was being admired. Head tipped back so her bobbed hair just brushed the back of her lovely pale neck, she became charmingly amused whenever Henry tinkled across an f-sharp or when the woman next to her whose tumbler--and teeth, for that matter--was smudged with red lipstick, began to divulge stories of the fast women that her mother had warned her never to become.

And then there was Maude's impeccable taste in beverage. In the time Whistle Pig had been watching her, Maude had gone to the bar three times to refill her glass, each time returning with that unmistakable amber-colored luxury, that stand-alone staple of a gentleman's cabinet, that liquid scintillation of tremulous effect: the whiskey that, in honor of the very superior specimen that Whistle Pig had proven himself to be, had been named--what else?--Whistle Pig. He had to have a dance with this divine creature.

And so he did. They danced the Charleston. They danced the Black Bottom. They danced the Lindy Hop. Then they danced the Charleston again.

For all his lusting after her, Maude's winning over was not so much a record for the books as a regular occurrence. Whistle Pig was accustomed to getting what he wanted. Perhaps it was his boyish charm. Perhaps it was his surprising intellectuality. Perhaps it was the impeccably tailored three-piece pinstriped affairs that he donned on all occasions. Whatever the case, Whistle Pig had only to introduce himself before counting a new addition on the long list of willing admirers.