nounce it from the airy. We'll keep the
winders up, and when the hall-bell rings, you fellers as has to leave,
can just slip down onto the front stoop without breaking up the entire
swarry."

Here the large-hearted aldermanic chap was called hastily downstairs to
attend the bar, several army officers having just arrived in the ward,
and the "swarry" commenced as merrily as a fire in a carpenter's shop.
It set in for a heavy dance at about eleven o'clock, and then were seen
as many elaborate verses in the poetry of motion, as any pair of eyes
could wish to enjoy. "Fifty's" foreman, who danced with a very pretty
dotted muslin, produced a very striking and picturesque effect by
rolling his inexpressibles up over his boots, and giving a life-like
imitation of the working of an engine with his heels and toes;
whereupon the assistant foreman of "Thirty's Truck" suddenly threw off
his dress-coat and appeared in full red shirt, simultaneously striking
into a fine, artistic shuffle, intended to imitate the hauling-in and
reeling-up of the wet hose after a conflagration. These and other
graceful novelties were greatly admired by the ladies, each of whom
said so many spicy and spiteful things about the other's bare arms and
forward manners, that a stranger might have taken them all for the very
cream of Fifth Avenue or any other Best Society.

It was about midnight when "Fifty's" foreman, growing reckless with the
passionate splendors of excitement, scuffled away with his flushed
dotted muslin to a luxurious chintz sofa near one of the windows, and
intemperately whispered in her ear, "Miss Perkins, it were madness for
me longer to conceal my insanity, and to remain silent would but render
me speechless. Here let me lay my heart and trumpet at your feet,
and"--

She had fainted! Ay, sir, swooned!

Instantly the whole brilliant saloon was in confusion; the dancing
ceased, the dust commenced to settle, and the assistant foreman of
"Thirty's Truck" was seen to put on his coat.

"Bring your hose here, quick, and play on her face!" shouted "Fifty's"
foreman, half-crazed by what he had done. But the dotted muslin's
mother now clutched her in her arms, and says she, "Let's get her into
the dressing-chamber, and somebody bring a little sally wolatile."

Here another dowager seized an arm of the fainting girl, and the two
bore her tenderly into the retiring-room, followed by some two or three
sympathizing young ladies. And now, my bo