One day by some masterly sleight, Mr. Pepin escaped, and went fiddling forth into the land. He was not after position; salary was no object; the one purpose of Mr. Pepin was to keep out of New York and thereby out of the clutches of his contralto, for whom—since she never left that metropolis—New York had become the dread synonym. You who read may now consider how far Mr. Pepin was justified of his shudders at the mention of Broadway. Two days prior to the coming of those Red Stocking Blondes, Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall had suffered an orchestral setback. In the midst of the evening’s gayety five couples presented themselves in the formation of one quadrille—a manifest solecism! Mr. Peacock, alive to the dangerous impropriety described, warned the musicians, by a repressive gesture of his hand, not to strike up. Had Mr. Peacock’s signals been heeded there would have been no trouble in the Dance Hall, for the gentlemen concerned would have either adjusted their differences by tossing a copper or gone outside to shoot. But the signals of Mr. Peacock were not obeyed. The violinist of the Dance Hall was one of your ill-conditioned natures that dislike a quiet life. Observing those five couple where only four should be, and careless of the pantomime of Mr. Peacock, with a brief exultant remark to the pianist that he thought he saw in the snarl the rudiments of trouble, the violinist went ranting off into the “Arkansas Traveler” and dragged the pianist along. Somewhere it has been put forth—and the assertion has had solemn acceptance to this day—that the man was a public benefactor who made two blades of grass grow where but one had grown before. However much this may be of value as a statement concerning grass, it fails when one attempts its application to quadrilles. Instead of benefiting the public, he who sought to make two couples dance where but one had danced before, would simply be laying the foundations of civil war. And this in particular were the scene of his operations Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall in the hour borne in mind. And so the sequel showed. That malignant violinist, when he plowed off into the “Arkansas Traveler”—to which music, be it known, more men have perished than to the “British Grenadier”—he gave the fatal call: “First four forward and back!” The “First Four” on this overloaded occasion, carrying as it did that extra couple and being not four but six, fell at once into a general knot. Upon the knot growing worse instead of better, those therein involved attempted to untie it with their guns. It was over in a moment, with a gratifying count of one killed and none wounded. The word “gratifying” is used, because the one killed was that troublemongering violinist who, with his “Arkansas Traveler,” had shoved the row from shore. Justice is blind, and now and then an accident may be counted upon to do an equity.