constitution, Jacques Rennepont had been induced by Morok to join the
masquerade. The brute-tamer himself, dressed as the King of Diamonds,
represented PLAY. His forehead was adorned with a diadem of gilded
paper, his face was pale and impassible, and as his long, yellow beard
fell down the front of his parti-colored robe, Morok looked exactly
the character he personated. From time to time, with an air of grave
mockery, he shook close to the eyes of Goodman Cholera a large bag full
of sounding counters, and on this bag were painted all sorts of playing
cards. A certain stiffness in the right arm showed that the lion-tamer
had not yet quite recovered from the effects of the wound which the
panther had inflicted before being stabbed by Djalma.

PLEASURE, who also represented Laughter, classically shook her rattle,
with its sonorous gilded bells, close to the ears of Goodman Cholera.
She was a quick, lively young girl, and her fine black hair was crowned
with a scarlet cap of liberty. For Sleepinbuff's sake, she had taken the
place of the poor Bacchanal queen, who would not have failed to attend
on such an occasion--she, who had been so valiant and gay, when she
bore her part in a less philosophical, but not less amusing masquerade.
Another pretty creature, Modeste Bornichoux, who served as a model to
a painter of renown (one of the cavaliers of the procession), was
eminently successful in her representation of LOVE. He could not have
had a more charming face, and more graceful form. Clad in a light blue
spangled tunic, with a blue and silver band across her chestnut hair,
and little transparent wings affixed to her white shoulders, she
placed one forefinger upon the other, and pointed with the prettiest
impertinence at Goodman Cholera. Around the principal group, other
maskers, more or less grotesque in appearance, waved each a banner, an
which were inscriptions of a very anacreontic character, considering the
circumstances:

"Down with the Cholera!" "Short and sweet!" "Laugh away, laugh always!"
"We'll collar the Cholera!" "Love forever!" "Wine forever!" "Come if you
dare, old terror!"

There was really such audacious gayety in this masquerade, that the
greater number of the spectators, at the moment when it crossed the
square, in the direction of the eating-house, where dinner was waiting,
applauded it loudly and repeatedly. This sort of admiration, which
courage, however mad and blind, almost always inspires, appeare