"Well," said Mr. Amidon, "if I have contributed my share to the gaiety of the occasion, I shall beg now to be permitted to depart." The Waldrons were waiting for their carriage as he came down. "There will be plenty of assistance," said the aunty "and we shall not need to detain you." "Oh, auntie, auntie!" wept Elizabeth, when they were safely alone, "there was a spell upon him, as you say, there in the east room, but the spell that took him there was none of the hypnotist's working! I am shamed, and humiliated, and robbed of all I have to live for! He went there, auntie, of his own accord, _and left me_!" Mr. Alvord passed the thing off more lightly. "Confound it!" said he, "I wish they were in Hades with their mesmeric stunts! I shan't tell Brass what happened, for it won't do any good; and the less notice there's taken of it the better. But carrying things before him as he was--it was hard luck to have that occur. Puts him in an undignified position, to say the least. I wish I could think there was nothing more to it!" XXII A REVIVAL OF BELSHAZZAR We are but Sitters at the Table, Guests, Where each drinks more, the more that he protests, Sees, One by One, his Fellows slip from Sight, And then himself beneath the Table rests. * * * * * * Some walk the Sinuous Crack for Test, and Some Judge by the throbbing Fullness of the Thumb-- But lo! the Fool continues till the Guests Are changed to Pairs of Twins as in they come! --_Imitations of Immorality_. Barring the somewhat equivocal episode of the east room at Major Pumphrey's, everything had gone to Mr. Alvord's liking since Mr. Brassfield had placed the campaign in his hands. And, as a matter of fact, that affair was so susceptible of plausible explanation, and so fenced about by the sanctities of private hospitality, that Alvord was reassured after a day or two had passed with no public scandal. Amidon stayed away from headquarters, and Alvord, acting under the unlimited authority granted by Brassfield, took all responsibility and proceeded most effectively in his own way. Amidon's instructions by telephone, to prepare a statement of disbursements to be made public, he regarded as one of Brassfield's jokes. His suggestion that he meant to stand on a platform of principles seemed equally humorous. To propose such ridiculous things in a perfectly serious way, and laugh at the victim's credulity in "biting" on the hoax, was quite in harmony with the relations among the members of the set to which they belonged, where practical jokes, merciless chaffing and perpetual efforts to get the best of one another had given the group a more than local celebrity.