"
"Dick, I insist upon kissing you for that brilliant suggestion; and
then you may run and get me eight yards of cambric, just the color
of Fan's; but if you tell any one, I'll keep her from dancing with
you the whole evening;" with which bribe and threat Dolly embraced
her brother, and shut the door in his face, while he, putting
himself in good humor by imagining she was somebody else, departed
on his muddy mission.
If the ghosts of the first settlers had taken their walks abroad on
the eventful Friday night, they would have held up their shadowy
hands at the scenes going on under their venerable noses; for
strange figures flitted through the quiet streets, and instead of
decorous slumber, there was decidedly,--"A sound of revelry by
night"
Spurs clanked and swords rattled over the frosty ground, as if the
British were about to make another flying call; hooded monks and
nuns paced along, on carnal thoughts intent; ancient ladies and
bewigged gentlemen seemed hurrying to enjoy a social cup of tea, and
groan over the tax; barrels staggered and stuck through narrow ways,
as if temperance were still among the lost arts, while bears, apes,
imps, and elves pattered or sparkled by, as if a second Walpurgis
Night had come, and all were bound for Blocksberg.
"Hooray for the Rooster!" shouted young Ireland, encamped on the
sidewalk to see the show, as Mephistopheles' red cock's feather
skimmed up the stairs, and he left a pink domino at the ladies'
dressing-room door, with the brief warning, "Now cut your own capers
and leave me to mine," adding, as he paused a moment at the great
door,--
"By Jove! isn't it a jolly sight, though?"
And so it was; for a mammoth boot stood sentinel at the entrance; a
Bedouin Arab leaned on his spear in one corner, looking as if ready
to say,--
"Fly to the desert, fly with me,"
to the pretty Jewess on his arm; a stately Hamlet, with
irreproachable legs, settled his plumage in another, still undecided
to which Ophelia he would first address "The honey of his music
vows.
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