to[93] amuse, and begin to annoy. In vain he tries to shake them off. If one goes, the other remains.

[93]

After many futile efforts to free himself from his tormentors, he sees Mr. Follingsbee approach, and beckons him forward with a sigh of relief.

The two maskers, recognizing Uncle Sam as a fitting companion for Miss Columbia, reluctantly yield their ground and withdraw.

“Have those fellows been pestering you?” queries the lawyer, with a laugh.

“Only as they bade fair to prove a hindrance,” with an answering chuckle. “They’re such nice little lady killers: but I must get away from this in a very few minutes. My disguise has been very successful.”

“I should think so! Why, my boy, half the people here, at least those who have recognized me through my costume, think you are—ha! ha!—my wife!”

“So much the better.”

“Why, little Winnie French—she found me out at once—has been looking all through the card rooms for “Dear Mrs. Follingsbee.”” And the jolly lawyer laughs anew.

“Mr. Follingsbee,”—Stanhope has ceased to jest, and speaks with his usual business brusqueness—“Mrs. Warburton, I don’t know for what reason, wished to be informed when I left the house. Will you tell her I am about to go, and that I will let her hear from me further through you? I will go up to the dressing room floor, and wait in the boudoir until you have seen her.”

The boudoir opening upon the ladies’ dressing rooms, is untenanted. But from the inner room, Stanhope catches the hum of feminine voices, and in a moment a quartette of ladies come[94] forth, adjusting their masks as they move toward the stairway.

[94]

Suddenly there is a little exclamation of delight, and our detective, standing near the open window, with his face turned from the group, feels himself clasped by a pair of pretty dimpled arms, while a gay voice says in his ear:

“Oh! you dear old thing! Have I found you at last? Follingsbee, you look stunning in that costume. Oh!—” as Stanhope draws back with a deprecating gesture—“you needn’t deny your identity: isn’t Mr. Follingsbee here as Uncle Sam? I found him out at once, and didn’t Leslie and I see you enter together?”

Stanhope quakes 

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