outh pursed cautiously.

"Aren't they rather--er--fast?" he inquired.

"As fast as you choose to make 'em."

"But aren't the ladies rather--er--rather--well--"

"Not a bit," said the Colonel. "There's a mixture, that's all."

"But I say, Charlie, what about being seen by any one we know?"

"We'll get a disguise for you," smiled Charlie.

"Really, can you?"

"Oh, I'll see to that."

He began to picture a very amusing evening with his old friend Heriot.

Mr. Walkingshaw drank off his glass of champagne.

"Well, if you're game--" said he.

"I'm game for anything, my dear fellow, so long as I've you by my side,"
laughed Charlie. "When you're tired, I'll promise to take you away.
Shall we call it arranged?"

"I'll risk it," said Heriot stoutly.

CHAPTER II

Round came the big man in the purple domino and the long false nose,
hopping blithely to the crashing waltz, his arm encircling the waist of
a little lady attired to represent a hot cross-bun. Then he was lost in
the crowd, and the Colonel's eyes, in which for a moment a spark of
wonder had burned, grew old and tired again. As he stood there alone,
with youth and recklessness gamboling before him, he realized somberly
that for him this revel was ended. How he would have enjoyed it once!
But never, never again. His straight, soldierly back bent with
weariness; he jerked back his shoulders, but they slipped forward,
forward, and he let them stay. How little the fair faces interested him;
how stupidly riotous these young fellows were!

Round came the false nose again, and this time the empurpled figure
unclasped one hand of the hot cross-bun and waved a genial greeting as
they stampeded by. And again a gleam, almost of fear, lit the Colonel's
weary eyes. It was horrible, grotesque, inhuman, to see the friend of
his youth, a man older than himself, the honored head of a respectable
firm, the father of five grown-up children, going on like this. The
Colonel had thought it would be funny, but as hour succeeded hour, and
the ringleader of the frolic gradually became a wearied spectator, this
superhuman display of high-spirited energy grew long past a joke.
Charlie had never been austere, but there were limits to all things.
Good Gad, there were limits! If the man had got drunk or grown vicious,
he might have excused him. But to see him interminably bounding round
that floor behind six inches of pasteboard nose! He began to move away.
He could stand th