won't forget me?"

The flunkey grinned. "You're the only gentleman I've seen to-night,
sir, in a costume anything like your own."

"There's but one of me in the Union," said the gentleman, sententious:
"my spear knows no brother."

"Thank you, sir," said the servant civilly, making off.

With an air of some dubiety, the little man watched him go.

"I say!" he cried suddenly--"come back!"

He was obeyed.

A second dollar bill appeared as it were by magic between his fingers.
The flunkey stared.

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Take it"--impatiently.

"Thank you." The well-trained fingers executed their most familiar
manoeuvre. "But--m'y I ask, sir--wot's it for?"

"You called me a gentleman just now."

"Yes, sir."

"You were right."

"Quite so, sir."

"The devil _is_ a gentleman," the masquerader insisted firmly.

"So I've always 'eard, sir."

"Then you may go; you've earned the other dollar."

Obsequiousness stared: "M'y I ask, 'ow so?"

"By standing for that antediluvian bromidiom. I had to get it off my
chest to somebody, or else blow up. Far better to hire an audience
when you can't be original. Remember that; you've been paid: you
daren't object."

"Thankyousir," said the lackey blankly.

"And now--avaunt--before I brand thee for mine own!"

The little gentleman flung out an imperative, melodramatic arm; and
veritable sparks sprayed from his crackling finger-tips. The servant
retired in haste and dismay.

"'E's balmy--or screwed--or the Devil 'imself!" he muttered....

Beneath his mask the little man grinned privately at the man's
retreat.

"Piker!" said he severely--"sharpening your wits on helpless servants.
A waiter has no friends, anyway!"

An elevator, descending, discharged into the lobby half a dozen
mirthful maskers. Of these, a Scheherazade of bewitching prettiness
(in a cloak of ermine!) singled out the silent, cynical little
gentleman in scarlet mask and smalls, and menaced him merrily with a
jewelled forefinger.

"What--you, Lucifer! Traitor! Where have you been all evening?"

"Madame!"--he bowed mockingly--"in spirit, always at your ear."

She flushed and bit her lip in charming confusion; while an abbess,
with face serene in the frame of her snowy coif, caught up the ball of
badinage:

"Ah, in spirit! But in the flesh?"

"Why, poppet!" he retorted in suave surprise--"it isn't possible that
_you_ missed me?"

And she, too, coloured; while a third, a girl dressed all in