"Please, Holmes. I should very much like to attend."

Sherlock Holmes sighed deeply. He struck at his forehead, and dragged the heels of both his shoes in a cacophonous medley across the bare floorboards before standing and turning to face me. His face was pinched and unhappy.

"But why?" he asked. "It will be dreadful. You will hate it. You will eat too much, drink beyond your capacity and end up falling into someone's flowerbed at two o'clock in the morning."

"You cannot possibly know that," I replied, crossly. "Holmes, I do not wish to spend New Year's Eve here at 221B with nothing to do but stare out of the window. I should really like for us to accept Mycroft's invitation."

My friend cast a large sheaf of newspapers and documents from the sofa onto the floor, and threw himself down into a seat. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The smoke appeared reluctant to depart his mouth. A great many seconds passed. I stared at him, fascinated.

"Are you ever going to exhale?" I asked, eventually.

He did so, in a massive plume of frustrated pique.

"What you are saying, then," said he, his aquiline nose pointed high into the air, "is that you find me intolerable company and would wish for more amiable entertainment elsewhere, far away from here. Well, do please accept the invitation on your own account; I shall simply remain here and amuse myse-OW!"

I had kicked his right shin. He rubbed it, blinking at me fearfully. "That hurt!" he whined.

"It was meant to," I said. "Really, Holmes, I have never heard such self-pitying tripe. I was not saying that atall. Of course I would want you to attend with me, and I should not dream of accepting without you. But it will be New Year's Eve, old fellow! And I am curious to see your brother's home. We have never yet accepted any of his invitations, as you know."

"I am very aware of that," Holmes replied. "And there is good reason."

"Name one," I demanded.

Holmes continued to rub his shin, thoughtfully. He took a further three pulls upon his cigarette before opening his mouth to speak.

"Mycroft will be there," he said.

"Well, of course Mycroft will be there!" I said, incredulous. "It is his party."

"There will be singing. And dancing." Holmes had drawn all of his features tightly together into an expression of anguish.

I smiled, sympathetically. "I know that you do not enjoy either of those pursuits," I said. "Just because there will be singing and dancing, that does not mean that you have to engage in them. There are other rooms in the house to which you might escape, surely?"

"Mycroft will expect me to dance," said Holmes. "He will cadger and scold and be thoroughly disagreeable if I do not. And he will do the same to you," he added, as an afterthought.

"I enjoy dancing," I said, wistfully. "And yet I so seldom get the opportunity of actually doing it." A thought struck me, suddenly. "Holmes, is it the not knowing how to dance that is stopping you from participating?"

My friend mumbled a reply from the side of his mouth. It was necessary for me to ask him to repeat it twice further before I was able to sufficiently understand. Sherlock Holmes had not danced a Two-Step in his life. He had neither Waltzed, Mazurked, Polkaed, nor more simply shuffled around a dancefloor in all of his years. The occasional high-spirited jig upon our hearth-rug could hardly count. Upon considering this fact I realised that it was not so very surprising. For of course, he was a solitary creature, disinclined to most every nuance of society and its indulgences, save for certain bohemian variations which he coveted and claimed. Dancing, and furthermore singing, could not have possibly entered into his equation.

"Would you like me to teach you?" I offered, in a moment of spontaneous lunacy.

Holmes looked at me, a curious expression upon his face.

"Teach me to what?" he asked.

"Dance," I explained, patiently. "Teach you to dance, Holmes."

"But I don't know how to," he said.

Sometimes I felt it necessary to wonder if my friend was really quite all there. This was one of those times.

"I know," I said, smiling at him encouragingly. "That is why I am offering to teach you."

"Where?" Holmes twisted his head around the room. "Here? It is hardly appropriate, Watson. There is very little floor space for that sort of... movement. If your toe caught underneath our hearth-rug and you ended up inside the fireplace, I should never be able to forgive myself."

I tutted. "Why must you always assume that I am cloth-footed, Holmes?" I asked. "It is more than a little disheartening. Look here, old boy, even if you do decide that you would rather not attend Mycroft's party, I think this still might be an enjoyable pastime for us both in the interim. Wouldn't you agree?"

I saw from my friend's face that I had snared his interest in some small form at the least, for he did very much relish a challenge without outside interference.

"All right," he agreed. "But what will you teach me, and who will lead? You had better not stomp on my toes, do you hear?"

Even as he said this, he had risen and was moving chairs and rugs aside, clearing a floor space for our manoeuvres.

"This does not mean that I have agreed to accompany you to the party," he said, over his shoulder. "It just means that I find the idea of you teaching me to dance a trifle amusing."

"There is really nothing to it," I replied. "I am sure that you will pick it up in no time at all."

With our floor space cleared, we took up our positions in the centre of the room. Where once we had stood in this same spot for fencing practice, swiftly aborted, we now prepared to embrace the rhythm of the dance.

"Are you going to put your arms around me?" asked Holmes. He did not seem very keen upon the idea.

"A little," I said. "It is inevitable, I am afraid. Just imagine that I am some charming young lady in a beautiful silk ballgown."

"That is very much worse," he replied. "So never mind. But where is our music?"

"I shall hum it," I said.

Holmes's face was a picture. "Oh," said he.

"Let us start with a simple Waltz," I suggested.

I placed my left hand upon my friend's shoulder, instructing him to place his right upon my left shoulderblade. Our spare hands clasped together, pointing out and across the snowy rooftops of Baker Street. I wedged my right foot between both of Holmes's. With our respective heads turned to the left, I carefully explained the basic steps of the Waltz.

"1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3, 4-2-3," I said, demonstrating at an uncomfortable angle.

"What?" said Holmes.

I smiled at my dear friend. "Just pay attention and follow my feet. 1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3, 4-2-3."

"Do I need to add or subtract the numbers?" asked Holmes.

"What? No! You need do neither. It is the rhythm of the Waltz. Are you watching my feet?"

Holmes looked down. "Yes?" he said. "They are not doing very much."

I bit my lip. "That is because I stopped," I said. "I shall begin again. 1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-"

"Wait," interrupted Holmes.

I smiled tensely. "What is it, my dear fellow?"

"What do my feet do while you are messing around with your feet?"

"They should follow my feet," I replied.

Holmes frowned. He appeared confused. "Very well," said he. "Watson, I am not at all sure that I enjoy the Waltz."

"We have not even danced it yet," I said, exhaling deeply. "All the same, it is the dance that is most likely to be performed at Mycroft's party, therefore I feel it in your best interests that we continue."

And thus we set off on a faltering, listing reel around the sitting-room, Holmes concentrating intensely upon following my feet but more often than not treading upon them, rendering me crippled at very regular intervals. I was proud, nevertheless, that I continued to hum the tune of the Waltz without cease, and we persevered, the two of us, in our close proximity of sufferance. When we came to a final halt a long minute or two later, Holmes regarded me anxiously.

"How did I do?" he asked.

"My feet hurt," I answered, honestly.

"That is strange," said Holmes, "for mine feel perfectly all right."

I decided then and there that we would require a great deal of practice before it might be deemed safe to release Holmes out upon any dancefloor. I was a stern taskmaster. Holmes complained, vociferously, to no avail, for my lessons were vigorous, yet – I felt – keenly informative. As the week drew to its close and Holmes's prowess slowly emerged triumphant, our thoughts began to turn to the inevitable subject of Mycroft's New Year's Eve celebrations.

"Shall we, then?" I proposed.

"If we absolutely must," Holmes replied.

Mycroft Holmes's house was fairly palatial: richly furnished, luxuriously tended to. His guests were many, coiffed and tittering; the cocktails colourful and free-flowing; the elder Holmes's manner for once rather effusive.

"Sherlock! Doctor Watson! So very lovely to see you both, and a very Happy New Year to you," he said, awarding us an over-zealous bow upon his threshold.

The dancefloor was highly polished; the musicians poised and ready. As we headed for the buffet table for Holmes to souse his familial jitters in wine, I looked around me, most admiringly.

"Brother Mycroft has a very beautiful home," I said to my friend.

"There are too many women here," said Holmes, turning around from the table, scowling.

"With whom would you choose to dance?" I asked him.

Holmes shook his head. "None of them," said he.

"But-"

"No," said my friend, "I did not spend a week of my life spinning around our sitting-room in a series of ever more tortuous tutorials only to end up in the arms of some rabid female with a wooden leg. If I am to dance here at all, then it can only be with you, my dear Watson."

"But-!"

Holmes lifted his chin. "I am resolute," he said.

"This is really rather awkward," I said. "People will talk."

"People do little else," said Holmes. "Bugger them."

I cursed my poor fortune then, as the string quartet struck up an introductory Waltz. I felt my friend's tug at my elbow. I took a deep breath, and together we stepped out upon the dancefloor.

I should have counted my blessings that, as we danced, we did so without fault. In fact, we were luminous. We gathered quite a circle of onlookers; who stood there, I hope, to admire rather than to gape. From a distance I was able to observe Mycroft Holmes, shaking his head, shrugging his broad shoulders and drawing deeply from his cocktail glass. A number of mixed couples stepped in to join us on the floor. The music played; the merry laughter and carousing continued well into the night. By some extraordinary circumstance, we did not stand out as so very odd. Perhaps to be a friend of Mycroft meant to possess a measure of indulgence and an acceptance of two young fellows dancing a most elegant Waltz together. Or perhaps Mycroft had laced the punchbowl.

"I declare that you are a better dancer than I envisaged," my friend informed me, as we twirled around on our fifth circuit of the evening. "It helps when one has a talented partner, I imagine, which is what you surely have in me."

I did not reply. Whether due to shortness of breath or a familiar speechless exasperation, I felt it best to allow Holmes his indulgence. For after all, it really had been the most beautiful evening.