Judging from to-night’s bill, which simply said--“Special--To-night: Mask and Costume Ball; Get your tickets in Advance--Special”--one might assume a catholicity of welcome not sustained by the manner of two tall--and masked--gentlemen in the hall beside a little table at the foot of the stairs.
I did not doubt that to-night, at least, there had been an exercise of selection by whomsoever (they were not named on the notice) sold tickets in advance. And here, at the foot of the stairs, was a second inspection. Each masker, or at least one in every group, lifted his cover when passing the table. Jerry did that for the two of us; of course he had tickets and we were passed and, after checking our outer garments, we climbed to the ballroom where jazz was playing.
Jerry was a courtier in doublet and jerkin; he was Sir Walter Raleigh as much as any one else. I was a monk, Erasmus for choice, in robe and cowl; both of us, as I’ve suggested, wore masks; about us everywhere were maskers, wigged Colonials, Barbara Frietchies, Mary Pickfords, Cæsars, Cromwells, Charlie Chaplins; then there were Aphrodites, devils and sailors, sashed pirates, queens and kings addicted not so much to any particular personage or period as to an impression of the generically royal in their garb. Many, of both sexes, went in for mere fantastic innovation, concealing electric batteries under silk bodice or skirt, switching on green, red and blue lights in their hair, on their shoulders and elbows while they danced.
They betrayed a penchant for weaponry, too, keeping in decent concealment the short, blue-barrelled automatics of contemporary pattern but evidencing long, decorative--and yet not entirely useless--daggers, rapiers and curved cutlasses.
I had picked my costume partly on the presumption that it had enjoyed a smaller popularity than other offerings at Leventhal’s, lessor of garments; partly I was influenced by its exceptional qualities for concealment. There appeared to have been, among the gentlemen who would have been supposed to have obtained one of those tickets in advance, a peterman similar to me in height and familiarly known as “Beets”--I am not sure of the spelling, perhaps an “a” appertained--who had affected the monastic in earlier revels. He was, fortunately, a taciturn individual; so nobody expected me to talk much; and nobody talked much to me.