"
Bluff King Hal's representative was waltzing in a way that would
have filled that stout potentate with respectful admiration, while
Queen Katherine flirted with a Fire Zouave. Alcipades whisked Mother
Goose about the room till the old lady's conical hat tottered on her
head, and the Union held fast to a very little Mac. Flocks of
friars, black, white, and gray, pervaded the hall, with flocks of
ballet girls, intended to represent peasants, but failing for lack
of drapery; morning and evening stars rose or set, as partners
willed; lively red demons harassed meek nuns, and knights of the
Leopard, the Lion or Griffin, flashed by, looking heroically
uncomfortable, in their gilded cages; court ladies promenaded with
Jack tars, and dukes danced with dairy-maids, while Brother Jonathan
whittled, Aunt Dinah jabbered, Ingomar flourished his club, and
every one felt warmly enthusiastic and vigorously jolly.
"Ach himmel! Das ist wunder schon!" murmured a tall, gray monk,
looking in, and quite unconscious that he spoke aloud.
"Hullo, Bopp! I thought you weren't coming," cried Mephistopheles in
an emphatic whisper.
"Ah, I guess you! yes, you are well done. I should like to be a
Faust for you, but I haf no time, no purse for a dress, so I throw
this on, and run up for a hour or two. Where is--who is all these
people? Do you know them?"
The one with the Pope, Fra Diavolo; the telegraph, and two knights
asking her to dance, is Dolly, if that's what you want to know.
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