nfess to an anxiety to get near that worthy official. We were only
three outsiders, and the company looked mischievous. One gentleman was
walking violently up and down, turning up his coat-sleeves, as though
bent on our instant demolition. Another, an old grey-bearded man, came
up, and fiercely demanded if I were a Freemason. I was afraid he might
resent my saying I was not, when it happily occurred to me that the
third in our party, an amateur contra-bassist, was of the craft. I told
our old friend so. He demanded the sign, was satisfied, and, in the
twinkling of an eye, our double-bass friend was struggling in his
fraternal embrace. The warder, mistaking the character of the hug,
hastened to the rescue, and I was at ease.

We then passed to the ball-room, where my musical friends were beginning
to "tune up," and waiting for their conductor. The large room was gaily
decorated, and filled with some three or four hundred patients, arranged
Spurgeon-wise: the ladies on one side, and the gentlemen on the other.
There was a somewhat rakish air about the gathering, due to the fact of
the male portion not being in full dress, but arrayed in free-and-easy
costume of corduroys and felt boots. The frequent warders in their dark
blue uniforms lent quite a military air to the scene; and on the ladies'
side the costumes were more picturesque; some little latitude was given
to feminine taste, and the result was that a large portion of the
patients were gorgeous in pink gowns. One old lady, who claimed to be a
scion of royalty, had a resplendent mob-cap; but the belles of the
ball-room were decidedly to be found among the female attendants, who
were bright, fresh-looking young women, in a neat, black uniform, with
perky little caps, and bunches of keys hanging at their side like the
rosary of a soeur de charite, or the chatelaines with which young ladies
love to adorn themselves at present. Files of patients kept streaming
into the already crowded room, and one gentleman, reversing the order
assigned to him by nature, walked gravely in on the palms of his hands,
with his legs elevated in air. He had been a clown at a theatre, and
still retained some of the proclivities of the boards. A wizen-faced
man, who seemed to have no name beyond the conventional one of "Billy,"
strutted in with huge paper collars, like the corner man in a nigger
troupe, and a tin decoration on his breast the size of a cheeseplate. He
was insensible to the charm