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CHARLIE - Mr. Prohack
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"Can you definitely promise me fifty pounds, dad?" Sissie asked quietly.
Mr. Prohack made no articulate answer. His reply was to take out his cheque-book and his fountain-pen and fill in a cheque to _Miss Sissie Prohack or order_. He saw no just reason for differentiating between the sexes in his offspring. He had given a cheque to Charlie; he gave one to Sissie.
"Then you aren't absolutely stone-broke," said Sissie, smiling.
"I should not so describe myself."
"It's just like mother," she murmured, the smile fading.
Mr. Prohack raised a sternly deprecating hand. "Enough."
"But don't you want to know what I want the money for?" Sissie demanded.
"No!... Ha-ha!"
"Then I shall tell you. The fact is I must tell you."
* * * * *
III
"I've decided to teach dancing," said Sissie, beginning again nervously, as her father kept a notable silence.
"I thought you weren't so very keen on dancing."
"I'm not; but perhaps that's because I don't care much for the new fashion of dancing a whole evening with the same man. Still the point is that I'm a very fine dancer. Even Charlie will tell you that."
"But I thought that all the principal streets in London were full of dancing academies at the present time, chiefly for the instruction of aged gentlemen."
"I don't know anything about that," Sissie replied seriously. "What I do know is that now I can find a hundred pounds, I have a ripping chance of taking over a studio--at least part of one; and it's got quite a big connection already,--in fact pupils are being turned away."
"And this is all you can think of!" protested Mr. Prohack with melancholy. "We are living on the edge of a volcano--the country is, I mean--and your share in the country's work is to teach the citizens to dance!"
"Well," said Sissie. "They'll dance anyhow, and so they may as well learn to dance properly. And what else can I do? Have you had me taught to do anything else? You and mother have brought me up to be perfectly useless except as the wife of a rich man. That's what you've done, and you can't deny it."
"Once," said Mr. Prohack. "You very nobly drove a van."
"Yes, I did. But no thanks to you and mother. Why, I had even to learn to drive in secret, lest you should stop me! And I can tell you one thing--if I was to start driving a van now I should probably get mobbed in the streets. All the men have a horrid grudge against us girls who did their work in the war. If we want to get a job in these days we jolly well have to conceal the fact that we were in the W.A.A.C. or in anything at all during the war. They won't look at us if they find out that. Our reward! However, I don't want to drive a van. I want to teach dancing. It's not so dirty and it pays better. And if people feel like dancing, why shouldn't they dance? Come now, dad, be reasonable." 
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