my boy, you don't know--you can't tell!"

"Come, professor, get out of bed and dress. We want to see the parade
this evening. They say it will be great."

"Oh, I wish the parades were all at the bottom of the sea!"

"We couldn't see them then, for we're not mermaids or fishes."

"Will you never be serious?"

"I don't know; perhaps I may, when I'm too sick to be otherwise. Are you
going to get up?"

"No."

"Do you mean to stay in bed?"

"Yes."

"And miss the parade to-night?"

"I don't care for the old parade."

"Well, I do, and I'm going to see it."

"Will you see some newspaper reporters and state that I am very
ill--dangerously ill--that I am dying. Do this favor for me, Frank.
Colonel Vallier can't force a dying man to meet him in a duel."

"I am shocked and pained, professor, that you should wish me to tell a
lie, even to save your life; but I'll see what I can do for you."

CHAPTER XVII.

LED INTO A TRAP.

Frank ate alone, and went forth alone to see the parade. The professor
remained in bed, apparently in a state of utter collapse.

The night after Mardi Gras in New Orleans the Krewe of Proteus holds its
parade and ball. The parade is a most dazzling and magnificent
spectacle, and the ball is no less splendid.

The streets along which the parade must pass were lined with a dense
mass of people on both sides, while windows and balconies were filled.

Shortly after the appointed time the parade started.

It consisted of a series of elaborate and gorgeous floats, the whole
forming a line many blocks in length.

Hundreds of flaring torches threw their lights over the moving
_tableau_, and it was indeed a splendid dream.

Never before had Frank seen anything of the kind one-half as beautiful,
and he was sincerely glad they had reached the Crescent City in time to
be present at Mardi Gras.

The stampede of the Texan steers and the breaking up of the parade that
day had made a great sensation in New Orleans. Every one had heard of
the peril of the Flower Queen, and how she was rescued by a handsome
youth who was said to be a visitor from the North, but whom nobody
seemed to know.

Now, the Krewe of Proteus was composed entirely of men, and it was their
policy to have nobody but men in their parade. These men were to dress
as fairies of both sexes, as they were required to appear in the
_tableau_ of "Fairyland."

But the managers of the affair had conceived the idea that it would