day following our arrival. The proper thing to do was to hire two fancy costumes, and, duly masked, go to the ball at the theatre in the evening. We selected our dresses with great care. We were, indeed, laughable to look at—I dressed in a Turkish costume, and Peter, capitally got up like a Frenchman of the Paris boulevards. We flattered ourselves, however, that our most intimate friends would not have guessed who we were—feeling safe from detection even from our wives. [Pg 24] [Pg 24] After dejeuner on the jetty, I went in search of the man who owed me the hundred pounds. He was not in the least surprised to see me, which seemed strange; in fact, he looked as if he had rather expected me to drop in than otherwise. One thing he was not prepared with, and that was my money. Instead of offering to liquidate the debt to some extent, he, with all the coolness imaginable, proposed that I should lend him another ten pounds. I would not regret it, he said; he might be able to do me a good turn. His audacity made me angry, and I marched out of his office in anything but a pleasant temper. Meeting an acquaintance shortly afterwards, he told me not to expect to realise my hundred, that the man's wife had bolted with her husband's most intimate friend a few days before, and that he, my debtor, was fast drinking himself to ruin and death. Dismissing this miserable business from my mind, Peter and I, picturesquely arrayed, took a voiture to the theatre about eleven o'clock. The fun had not yet become fast and furious, but the signs of the mad revelry to come were visible on all sides. Much abler pens than mine have described the kaleidoscope lights and shades of a carnival ball, and I will confine myself to the very objectionable dilemma which occurred to me and my friend. Having flirted a little and danced once or twice, we took our unknown partners to the bar to get some refreshment, and were standing there, when my attention was arrested by the appearance of two ladies in black dominos on the scene who seemed to be greatly interested in our movements. They had a small piece of white satin ribbon attached to each of their shoulders for, I presumed, the purpose of recognition if they were accidentally separated. The volatile Peter was too busy whispering nonsense in his best French to the girl he had been dancing with to notice these inquisitive dominos. I was about to leave the buffet when a tall man in a hideous mask joined the two ladies, who evidently knew him, and, from the direction of their looks, it appeared that what
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