“Come ’long, Elliott, don’t be so—so uncomf’t’ble ’n’ p’tic’lar! W’t’s use of be’ng shnobbish?” he urged, clinging hilariously to his partner, a pigeon-toed ballet girl. But Elliott only laughed and said: “No; waltzes are all I care for. No quadrille for me—” The crash of the orchestra drowned his voice, and Clifford, turning and bowing gravely to his partner, and then to his vis-à-vis, began to perform such antics and cut such pigeonwings that his pigeon-toed partner glared at him through the slits of her mask in envious astonishment. The door was dotted with numerous circles of maskers, ten or fifteen deep, all watching and applauding the capers of the hilarious couples in the middle. But Clifford’s set soon attracted a large and enthusiastic audience, who were connoisseurs enough to distinguish a voluntary dancer from a hired one; and when the last thundering chords of Offenbach’s “March into Hell” scattered the throng into a delirious waltz, Clifford reeled heavily into the side scenes and sat down, rather unexpectedly, in the lap of Mademoiselle Nitouche, who had crept in there with the Baron Silberstein for a nice, quiet view of a genuine cancan. Mademoiselle did not think it funny, but the Baron did, and when she boxed Clifford’s ears he thought it funnier still. Rowden and Elliot, who were laboriously waltzing with a twin pair of flat-footed Watteau Shepherdesses, immediately ran to his assistance; and later, with a plentiful application of cold water and still colder air, restored Mr Clifford to his usual spirits. “You’re not a beauty, you know,” said Rowden, looking at Clifford’s hair, which was soaked into little points and curls; “you’re certainly no beauty, but I think you’re all right now—don’t you, Elliott? ” “Certainly,” laughed the triumvir, producing a little silver pocket-comb and presenting it to the woebegone Clifford, who immediately brought out a hand glass and proceeded to construct a “bang” of wonderful seductiveness. In ten minutes they sallied forth from the dressing room and wended their way through the throngs of masks to the center of the floor. They passed Thaxton and Rhodes, who, each with a pretty nun upon his arm, were trying to persuade Bulfinch into taking the third nun, who might have been the Mother Superior or possibly a resuscitated 14th century abbess. “No,” he was saying, while he blinked painfully at the ci-devant abbess, “I can’t go that; upon my word, don’t ask me, fellows—I—I can’t.” “Oh, come,” urged Rhodes, “what’s the odds?” “You can take her and I’ll take yours,” began the wily little man, but neither Rhodes nor Thaxton waited to argue longer. “No catacombs for me,” growled Bulfinch, eyeing the retreating nuns, but catching sight of the triumvirate, his face regained its bird-like felicity of expression.