University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE FANCY BALL AT THE CITY ASSEMBLY ROOM.

The butcher and his wife, not belonging as yet
to good society, not having removed to a fashionable
part of the town, the story of the Pump-street
amour, did not come to the ears of the beau
monde. The laugh was confined to the inglorious
regions of the Bowery, and Sopus soon forgot his
bloody disasters. He continued, as before, a star
in the milky-way of fashion, and though his five
thousand francs had long since melted into thin
air, he did not want money for his necessary occasions.
A man who has finished his education
abroad, in the proper schools, knows how to economize,
as well as to spend. Our hero hired
lodgings in a cheap little cross street, where he
boiled his own kettle of a morning, spunged for
an invitation to dinner, and failing of that, resorted
to a cheap ordinary, and took his tea with the
ladies. To save his friends trouble, he had his
cards left at a fashionable hotel, by arrangement
with the bar keeper, where he was never at home
by any accident. As to keeping himself in spending
money, a man who had lost a couple of hundred
thousands to such clever fellows as the count

and the baron, could hardly fail of winning, now
and then, at cards and dice. He had paid enough
in all conscience for his experience. I do not say
that he played foully; but he had studied chances,
runs of luck, runs of the cards, and above all, he
had studied character and faces, till he had reduced
it almost to a certainty that he could, in the end,
make something out of other people's inexperience.
By choosing his company, and playing his cards
well, he accordingly managed to secure to himself
an honourable independence from day to day.

In the mean time the whole town was talking
about the fancy ball to be given at the Assembly
Room, and the young ladies studying costumes,
till one or two of them actually lost their wits in
the perplexity of choosing a character. It was
reported that one lady changed her mind twenty-four
times in one day, but the number was probably
exaggerated.

“For my part,” said Miss Macfaddle to Miss
Maccubbin, “I mean to go as a milkmaid.”

“Charming!” cried Miss Maccubbin, “your
skin is as white as milk, and you'll look beautiful.”

“But what do you mean to go in?” asked Miss
Macfaddle

“Why, I am balancing between a Mary queen
of Scots, and a Virgin of the Sun. Mamma is for
the queen, but I prefer the virgin, if papa will only
give me a real gold sun; I'm determined not to
be put off with a gilt one. O, here comes Miss

Fitzpoisson, to talk us to death of what she can't
and what she can afford. She always looks like a
dowdy, in that everlasting pink gauze. But, poor
thing, I suppose she can't afford any better.”

Miss Fitzpoisson now entered with Heartwell,
and the conversation received a fresh impulse.

“Pray how are you going, Miss Fitzpoisson?”
asked Miss Macfaddle.

“Why, at first, I thought of going as a Spanish
lady, but my mamma thought the hat and feathers
would cost too much. Then I thought of going
as a sultana, but papa insisted on my appearing
in the character of a Christian woman. Then I
thought of wearing my grandmother's wedding
dress, but brother George, told me there was no
occasion to make myself look uglier than I was.
Then I thought of a Gipsy, but brother Tom said
I looked too much like a Gipsy already. Then
I thought of a Swiss girl, but brother Frank told
me the less of my ancles I showed the better.
And then, and then, I determined not to go at all.”

Bravo, thought Heartwell, a member of congress
could not have made a better speech about nothing,
or come to a more logical conclusion.

“But have you heard,” said Miss Fitzpoisson—

“What? what?” asked the ladies all at once.

“Why, they say Mrs. widow Elevenstone is going
as Zephyr, and her everlasting beau, Mr. Crickback,
as Cupid. It will be capital, for you know she is

so fat she can hardly walk, and he so lean he can
scarcely stand.”

“They had better personate Pharaoh's dream,”
said Heartwell. “She seven years of plenty, he
seven years of famine.”

“Lord,” said Miss Macfaddle, “how you talk.
How could they dress like ears of corn.”

“Why in green silk, and satin hair, and a sheaf
of corn under each arm.”

“Well, I declare, that would be very pretty,”
said Miss Maccubbin, “but what character do you
mean to go in?”

“O, I mean to go as Mount ætna.”

“Mount ætna!” exclaimed the ladies all at
once, “how will you manage about the smoke?”

“You shall see.”

“I can tell you something better than that,”
cried Miss Macfaddle, “little Mr. Shorter is going
as puss in boots. He has got a catskin robe and
whiskers, and is learning to purr.”

“Well, I declare,” said Miss Maccubbin, “it
will be quite allegorical.”

“Categorical, you mean,” said Heartwell.

“I don't mean any such thing,” said the lady,
pouting.

“But who is to play my Lord Marquis of Carabas?”

“O, young Middlings; you know his father was
a miller.”

“Does he mean to play the drowning scene?”

The lady gave Heartwell a great blow with her
glove, and the party separated to go and talk of
the fancy ball elsewhere.