te associate could have detected the fraud. Do you ask us who was
the betrayer, reader? We answer,--

One whose highest ambition did seem that of getting her from her
paramour, George Mullholland. It was Judge Sleepyhorn. Reader! you will
remember him--the venerable, snowy-haired man, sitting on the lounge at
the house of Madame Flamingo, and on whom George Mullholland swore to
have revenge. The judge of a criminal court, the admonisher of the
erring, the sentencer of felons, the _habitue_ of the house of Madame
Flamingo--no libertine in disguise could be more scrupulous of his
standing in society, or so sensitive of the opinion held of him by the
virtuous fair, than was this daylight guardian of public morals.

The Baronet got himself nicely out of the affair, and Mr. Soloman
Snivel, commonly called Mr. Soloman, the accommodation man, is at the
house of Madame Flamingo, endeavoring to effect a reconciliation between
the Judge and George Mullholland.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH IS SEEN A COMMINGLING OF CITIZENS.

Night has thrown her mantle over the city. There is a great gathering of
denizens at the house of Madame Flamingo. She has a _bal-masque_
to-night. Her door is beset with richly-caparisoned equipages. The town
is on tip-toe to be there; we reluctantly follow it. An hundred
gaudily-decorated drinking saloon are filled with gaudier-dressed men.
In loudest accent rings the question--"Do you go to Madame Flamingo's
to-night?" Gentlemen of the genteel world, in shining broadcloth, touch
glasses and answer--"yes!" It is a wonderful city--this of ours. Vice
knows no restraint, poverty hath no friends here. We bow before the
shrine of midnight revelry; we bring licentiousness to our homes, but we
turn a deaf ear to the cries of poverty, and we gloat over the sale of
men.

The sickly gas-light throws a sicklier glare over the narrow, unpaved
streets. The city is on a frolic, a thing not uncommon with it. Lithe
and portly-figured men, bearing dominos in their hands, saunter along
the sidewalk, now dangling ponderous watch-chains, then flaunting
highly-perfumed cambrics--all puffing the fumes of choice cigars. If
accosted by a grave wayfarer--they are going to the opera! They are
dressed in the style of opera-goers. And the road to the opera seems the
same as that leading to the house of the old hostess. A gaily-equipped
carriage approaches. We hear the loud, coarse laughing of those it so
buoyantly bears, then