lerk, with a spray of
jessamine in his coat, bent cordially toward Saint-Prosper as the
latter entered, and, approaching the desk, inquired:

"The Dauphin is advertised to sail to-morrow for France?"

"Yes, sir; at twelve o'clock noon."

"Book me for a berth. Ernest Saint-Prosper," he added, in answer to
the other's questioning look.

"Very good, sir. Would you like some labels for your baggage? Where
shall we send for it? The St. Charles? Very well, sir. Are you going
to the tableaux to-night?" he continued, with hospitable interest in
one whom he rightly conceived a stranger in the city. "They say it
will be the fashionable event. Good-day." As the prospective passenger
paid for and received his ticket. "A pleasant voyage! The Dauphin is a
new ship and should cross in three weeks--barring bad weather! Don't
forget the tableaux. Everybody will be there."

The soldier did not reply; his heart had given a sudden throb at the
clerk's last words. Automatically he placed his ticket in his
pocket, and randomly answered the employee's further inquiries for
instructions. He was not thinking of the Dauphin or her new engines,
the forerunner of the modern quadruple-expansion arrangement, but
through his brain rang the assurance: "Everybody will be there." And
all the way up the street, it repeated itself again and again.

CHAPTER IX

"COMUS' MISTICK WITCHERIES"

That elusive, nocturnal company, "The Mistick Krewe of Comus," had
appeared--"Comus, deep skilled in all his mother's witcheries"--and
the dwellers in Phantasmagoria were joyfully numerous. More
plentiful than at a modern spectacular performance, reveled gods,
demons and fairies, while the children resembled a flight of
masquerading butterflies. The ball at the theater, the Roman
Veglioni, succeeded elaborate tableaux, the "Tartarus," of the
ancients, and "Paradise Lost," of Milton, in which the "Krewe"
impersonated Pluto and Proserpine, the fates, harpies and other
characters of the representation. In gallery, dress-circle and
parquet, the theater was crowded, the spectacle, one of dazzling
toilets, many of them from the ateliers of the Parisian modistes; a
wonderful evolution of Proserpine's toga and the mortal robes of the
immortal Fates. Picture followed picture: The expulsion from
Paradise; the conference of the Gorgons, and the court of pandemonium,
where gluttony, drunkenness, avarice and vanity were skilfully set
forth in uncompromising colors.