hour a smallish gentleman, in an old-style Inverness
opera-coat that cloaked him to his ankles, with an opera hat set
jauntily a wee bit askew on his head, a mask of crimson silk covering
his face from brows to lips, slipped silently like some sly, sinister
shadow through the Fifth Avenue portals of the Bizarre, and shaped a
course by his wits across the lobby to the elevators, so discreetly
and unobtrusively that none of the flunkeys in attendance noticed his
arrival.

In effect, he didn't arrive at all, but suddenly was there.

A car, discharging its passengers before the smallish gentleman could
catch the eye of its operator, flew suddenly upward in the echo of a
gate slammed shut in his face; and all the other cars were still at
the top, according to the bronze arrows of their tell-tale dials. The
late arrival held up patiently; but after an instant's deliberation,
doffed his hat, crushed it flat, slipped out of his voluminous cloak,
and beckoned a liveried attendant.

In the costume thus disclosed, he cut an impish figure: "Satan on the
half-shell," Peter Kenny had christened him.

A dress coat of black satin fitted P. Sybarite more neatly than him
for whom it had been made. The frilled bosom of his shirt was set with
winking rubies, and the lace cuffs at his wrists were caught together
with rubies--whether real or false, like coals of fire: and ruby was
the hue both of his satin mask and his satin small-clothes. Buckles of
red paste brilliants burned on the insteps of his slender polished
shoes with scarlet heels; and his snug black silk stockings set off
ankles and calves so well-turned that the Prince of Sin himself might
have taken pride in them. For boutonniere he wore a smouldering
ember--so true an imitation that at first he himself had hesitated to
touch it. Literally to crown all, his ruddy hair was twisted upward
from each temple in a cornuted fashion that was most vividly
picturesque.

"Here," he said, surrendering hat and coat to the servitor before the
latter could remonstrate--"take and check these for me, please. I
shan't be going for some time yet."

"Sorry, sir, but the cloak-room down 'ere 's closed, sir. You'll have
to check them on the ball-room floor above."

"No matter," said the little man: and groping in a pocket, he produced
a dollar bill and tendered it to ready fingers; "you keep 'em for me,
down here. It'll save time when I'm ready to go."

"Very good, sir. Thank you."

"You