We became, meanwhile, frequent guests at the Villa Fabron, dining there often, and being always received cordially by the old millionaire. The secretary, Barnes, appeared to me to rule the household, for he certainly placed himself more in evidence than his employer, and I could see that the relations between Gerald and this factotum of his father were somewhat strained. He was a round-faced man of about thirty-five, dark, clean-shaven, with a face that was quite boyish-looking, but with a pair of small eyes that I did not like. I always distrust people with small eyes. From his manner, however, I gathered that he was a shrewd, hard-headed man of business, and even Gerald himself had to admit that he fulfilled the duties of his post admirably. Of course, I came into contact with him very little. Now and then we met on the Promenade or in the Quai St. Jean Baptiste, and he raised his hat in passing, or he would encounter us at the Villa when we visited there, but beyond that I had not spoken with him a dozen words. “He has the face of a village idiot with eyes like a Scotland Yard detective,” was Ulrica’s terse summary of his appearance, and it was an admirable description. On the Sunday afternoon when the first Battle of Confetti was fought we went forth in our satin dominoes of mauve and old gold--the colors of that year--and had glorious fun pelting all and sundry with paper confetti or whirling serpentines among the crowd in the Avenue de la Gare. Those who have been in Nice during Carnival know the wild gayety of that Sabbath, the procession of colossal cars and grotesque figures, the ear-splitting bands, the ridiculous costumes of the maskers, the careless, buoyant fun, and the good humor of everybody in that huge cosmopolitan crowd. Gerald was with us, as well as another young American named Fordyce, whom we had known at home and who was now staying at the Métropole over at Cannes. With our sacks containing the confetti slung over our shoulders and the hoods of our bright dominoes drawn over our heads and wearing half-masks of black velvet, we mixed with the gay crowd the whole of that afternoon, heartily participating in the fun. I confess that I enjoyed, and shall always, I hope, enjoy, the Nice Carnival immensely. Many constant visitors condemn it as a tawdry tinsel show, and leave Nice for a fortnight in order to escape the uproar and boisterous fun, but after all, even though the air of recklessness would perchance shock some of the more puritanical in our own land, there is, nevertheless, an enormous amount of harmless, healthy fun to be derived from it. It is only soured spinsters and the gouty who really object to Carnival. The regular visitor to the Riviera condemns it merely because it is good form to condemn anything vulgar. They once enjoyed it, until its annual repetition became wearisome.