had proved a
dismal failure. They were as the clay and the brass. The next morning
Asquith was split into factions and rent by civil strife, and the porch
of the inn was covered by little knots of women, all trying to talk at
once; their faces told an ominous tale. Not a man was to be seen. The
Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago papers, all of which had previously
contained elaborate illustrated accounts of Mr. Cooke's palatial park and
residence, came out that morning bristling with headlines about the ball,
incidentally holding up the residents of a quiet and retiring little
community in a light that scandalized them beyond measure. And Mr.
Charles Wrexell Allen, treasurer of the widely known Miles Standish
Bicycle Company, was said to have led the cotillon in a manner that left
nothing to be desired.

So it was this gentleman whom the Celebrity was personating! A queer
whim indeed.

After that, I doubt if the court of Charles the Second was regarded by
the Puritans with a greater abhorrence than was Mohair by the good ladies
of Asquith. Mr. Cooke and his ten friends were branded as profligates
whose very scarlet coats bore witness that they were of the devil. Mr.
Cooke himself, who particularly savored of brimstone, would much better
have remained behind the arras, for he was denounced with such energy and
bitterness that those who might have attempted his defence were silent,
and their very silence told against them. Mr. Cooke had indeed outdone
himself in hospitality. He had posted punch-bowls in every available
corner, and so industriously did he devote himself to the duties of host,
as he conceived them, that as many as four of the patriarchs of Asquith
and pillars of the church had returned home more or less insensible,
while others were quite incoherent. The odds being overwhelming, the
master of Mohair had at length fallen a victim to his own good cheer.
He took post with Judge Short at the foot of the stair, where, in spite
of the protests of the Celebrity and of other well-disposed persons, the
two favored the parting guests with an occasional impromptu song and
waved genial good-byes to the ladies. And, when Mrs. Short attempted to
walk by with her head in the air, as though the judge were in an
adjoining county, he so far forgot his judicial dignity as to chuck her
under the chin, an act which was applauded with much boyish delight by
Mr. Cooke, and a remark which it is just as well not to repeat. The
ju