order. "It is all the result of a mistake,"
he says laughingly, and good-naturedly, patting every one he meets on
the shoulder. "A little bit of jealousy on the part of the girl. It all
had its origin in an error that can be easily rectified. In a word,
there's much ado about nothing in the whole of it. Little affairs of
this kind are incident to fashionable society all over the world! The
lady being only scratched, is more frightened than hurt. Nobody is
killed; and if there were, why killings are become so fashionable, that
if the killed be not a gentleman, nobody thinks anything of it," he
continues. And Mr. Soloman being an excellent diplomatist, does, with
the aid of the hostess, her twelve masters of ceremony, her beadle, and
two policemen, forthwith bring the house to a more orderly condition.
But night has rolled into the page of the past, the gray dawn of morning
is peeping in at the half-closed windows, the lights burning in the
chandeliers shed a pale glow over the wearied features of those who
drag, as it were, their languid bodies to the stifled music of unwilling
slaves. And while daylight seems modestly contending with the vulgar
glare within, there appears among the pale revellers a paler ghost, who,
having stalked thrice up and down the hall, preserving the frigidity and
ghostliness of the tomb, answering not the questions that are put to
him, and otherwise deporting himself as becometh a ghost of good metal,
is being taken for a demon of wicked import. Now he pauses at the end of
the hall, faces with spectre-like stare the alarmed group at the
opposite end, rests his left elbow on his scythe-staff, and having set
his glass on the floor, points to its running sands warningly with his
right forefinger. Not a muscle does he move. "Truly a ghost!" exclaims
one. "A ghost would have vanished before this," whispers another. "Speak
to him," a third responds, as the musicians are seen to pale and leave
their benches. Madame Flamingo, pale and weary, is first to rush for the
door, shrieking as his ghostship turns his grim face upon her. Shriek
follows shriek, the lights are put out, the gray dawn plays upon and
makes doubly frightful the spectre. A Pandemonium of shriekings and
beseechings is succeeded by a stillness as of the tomb. Our ghost is
victor.

CHAPTER VIII.

WHAT TAKES PLACE BETWEEN GEORGE MULLHOLLAND AND MR. SNIVEL.

The man who kissed and bore away the prostrate girl was George
Mullholla