Not by the main door, whose low double flight of winding steps was protected by a rail of cast iron, wrought into grotesque shapes of centaurs and winged horses, but by a little side postern, half hidden in one of the irregular angles of the building, Lee and his companion gained a dark vestibule; ascending thence by a narrow break-neck flight of stone stairs to a corridor above. Pursuing its tortuous turns, it brought them in sight of a fair-sized gallery, whose gaily gilded balustrades and painted walls catching the pale yellow rays of the morning sun, presented a garish, confusing picture to the somewhat wearied senses of Lee. It would, indeed, have been a hard matter to find a resting-place for the eyes amidst the ever moving throng of richly dressed figures, conspicuous among which were numbers who were clad like his companion in silver-laced blue livery. These deftly threaded their way to and fro, bearing salvers of burnished silver loaded with cut-glass silver-gilt flagons, and brilliantly painted coffee and chocolate pots of oriental china. Pressing on after Flippet, or to speak with absolute correctness, dragging Flippet onward, Lee soon found himself in the very thick of the chattering, giggling, simpering crowd of fine ladies and gentlemen who were bidding their good-morrows to each other, and exchanging sweet compliments. [Sidenote: An awkward fix.] "A nice trim he's in," dismally grumbled Flippet to himself, as he marked the disgustful stares and supercilious smiles of this butterfly bevy, at the stranger's mud-bespattered attire, and the terror and alarm with which they snatched their skirts and ruffles from possibility of contact with it. "A sweet trim truly for an audience! It's all mighty fine for Master Alworth to say, 'Flippet do that,' and 'Flippet do this,' as if I was any fetching and carrying poodle dog; but--" and the gaze of silent despair he was bestowing on the rich blood-red Genoa velvet curtains which now stayed their progress, was more eloquent than words. No one knew better than himself that the brazen gates of an ogre's castle could more easily be broken through, and a couple of dragons sooner mollified, than that pair of suave-looking six-foot-high personages, habited in blue and silver, and wielding slender white wands in their delicate hands; for did not they guard the sacred way conducting straight to the private apartments of the king? [Sidenote: An awkward introduction.] "And what may be your business this morning, Mr. Flippet?" demanded one of these personages, "and who may be your friend?" he added, glaring at Lawrence Lee. "I--I--" stammered the lackey. "He's no friend of mine. Renounce me if he is, and--and--it's no business of mine, I assure you, Mr. Usher, none whatever."