On such occasions as this, fools
dress as wise men, and wise men as fools; everybody goes about in
disguise."
"How would you go about to pick out the fools?"--curiously.
"Beginning with myself--"
"Thy name is also Candor!"
"Look at yonder Cavalier. He wabbles like a ship in distress, in the
wild effort to keep his feet untangled from his rapier. I'll wager
he's a wealthy plumber on week-days. Observe Anne of Austria! What
arms! I'll lay odds that her great-grandmother took in washing.
There's Romeo, now, with a pair of legs like an old apple tree. The
freedom of criticism is mine to-night! Did you ever see such
ridiculous ideas of costume? For my part, the robe and the domino for
me. All lines are destroyed; nothing is recognizable. My, my!
There's Harlequin, too, walking on parentheses."
The Blue Domino laughed again.
"You talk as if you had no friends here,"--shrewdly.
"But which is my friend and which is the man to whom I owe money?"
"What! Is your tailor here then?"
"Heaven forbid! Strange, isn't it, when a fellow starts in to pay up
his bills, that the tailor and the undertaker have to wait till the
last."
"The subject is outside my understanding."
"But you have dressmakers.
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