ruffly responded Mephisto.

"_Ma foi_, there is no other," said the ancient, shrugging her
shoulders. "But one is left now, mademoiselle would make a fine
troubadour."

"Flo," said Mephisto, "it's a dare-devil scheme, try it; no one will
ever know it but us, and we'll die before we tell. Besides, we must;
it's late, and you couldn't find your crowd."

And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender troubadour
of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder, followed by a
bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as they swept
down Rampart Street.

When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled upon
the tired eye, and it is yet too soon to go home, and to such a prosaic
thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is wise to go
in the lower districts. Fantasy and fancy and grotesqueness in the
costuming and behavior of the maskers run wild. Such dances and whoops
and leaps as these hideous Indians and devils do indulge in; such wild
curvetings and great walks. And in the open squares, where whole groups
do congregate, it is wonderfully amusing. Then, too, there is a ball in
every available hall, a delirious ball, where one may dance all day for
ten cents; dance and grow mad for joy, and never know who were your
companions, and be yourself unknown. And in the exhilaration of the day,
one walks miles and miles, and dances and curvets, and the fatigue is
never felt.

In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream
of children and men into the broad channel of Elysian Fields Avenue,
there was a perfect Indian dance. With a little imagination one might
have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses and fancied one's
self again in the forest, where the natives were holding a sacred riot.
The square was filled with spectators, masked and unmasked. It was
amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so fierce and earnest.

Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto and
troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.

"Yes, who are they?"

"I don't know the devil," responded the other quietly, "but I'd know
that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands like
a woman's and that restless head. Ha!

"But there may be a mistake."

"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it's him. I'll pay him now. Ah,
sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
caressing s