The man was peremptory; and as there was no use in getting into a squabble about such a trifle, I handed my partner over to the care of a gentleman of the party, who was fortunately accoutred according to rule, and, stepping to my quarters, I equipped myself in a pair of tight nether integuments, and returned to the ball-room. By this time there was the devil to pay; the entrance saloon was crowded with military and naval men, high in oath, and headed by no less a person than a general officer, and a one-armed man, one of the chief civil officers in the place, and who had been a sailor in his youth. I was just in time to see the advance of the combined column to the door of the ball-room, through which they drove the picket of constables like chaff, and then halted. The one-armed functionary, a most powerful and very handsome man, now detached himself from the phalanx, and strode up to the advanced guard of stewards clustered in front of the ladies, who had shrunk together into a corner of the room, like so many frightened hares. The place being now patent to me, I walked up to comfort my party, and could see all that passed. The champion of the Excluded had taken the precaution to roll up the legs of his trowsers, and to tie them tightly at the knee with his garters, which gave him the appearance of a Dutch skipper; and in all the consciousness of being now properly arrayed, he walked up to one of the men in authority--a small pot bellied gentleman, and set himself to intercede for the attacking column, the head of which was still lowering at the door. But the little steward speedily interrupted him. “Why, Mr Singlefist, rules must be maintained, and let me see,” here he peered through his glass at the substantial supporters of our friend,--“as I live, you yourself are inadmissible.” The giant laughed. “Damn the body, he must have been a tailor!--Charge, my fine fellows, and throw the constables out of the window, and the stewards after them. Every man his bird; and here goes for my Cock Robin.” With that he made a grab at his Lilliputian antagonist, but missed him, as he slid away amongst the women like an eel, while his pursuer, brandishing his wooden arm on high, to which I now perceived, for the first time, that there was a large steel hook appended, exclaimed in a broad Scotch accent, “Ah, if I had but caught the creature, I would have clapt this in his mouth, and played him like a salmon.” At this signal, in poured the mass of soldiers and sailors; the constables vanished in an instant; the stewards were driven back upon the ladies; and such fainting and screaming, and swearing and threatening, and shying of cards, and fixing of time and place for a cool turn in the morning, it had never been my good fortune to witness before or since. My wig! thought I, a precious country, where a man’s life may be periled by the fashion of the covering to his nakedness!