"Periquito, do you like me? Why do you wear a mask? You don't want one. You are not taken with faces, and there you are right. Look here and look there. Eh? Ta-ta, ta-ta, Periquito."
"Hollo, Delaunay! Hollo, monsieur! How goes the aerial tramway? What will you have next? What a long head you have! It is a pity you are so unfortunate. They say you are not a practical man, but you knew how to settle the 'Rat's' daughter. Good-by. Good-by."
"And here's Sinforoso. When are they going to give you Cipriana's hand? They treat you very badly. Why don't you threaten to go back to the Club?"
It was a party of ladies in black dominoes who cut these jokes, which were at times too strong. The majority of them were old, for the younger ones liked to show their faces and the turn of their figures in some historical costume. There were costumes of Venetian and Roman ladies, costumes of the lower empire, costumes of the time of Louis XV, of the Directory, of Philip II, and others, down to the most recent period. There were also gitanas, necromancers, slaves, and many other fanciful and romantic costumes not admitting classification. There was one representing a starry night, another a tulip, and another a carrier pigeon with a letter at her neck.
The men, as a rule, were not in costume. They wore the long, full frock coat which only came out on such occasions. Nevertheless, some wore a domino, which permitted them to talk to the girls they admired without fear of being interrupted by the mama.
A party of young fellows belonging to the Cabin conceived the happy idea of dressing up Don Jaime Morin as a bib-and-tucker young lady. When dressed up like this they told him that he would be better disguised with paint than with a mask, and he concurred with the suggestion. A young fellow then took up a box of paints and a brush, and pretending to dip it into several colors, he passed the brush several times over his face, but it had only been dipped in water.
Morin asked to see himself in a looking-glass, but the mischievous youths took good care not to give it to him. They all cried out: "But how capital you are, Don Jaime! How grotesquely you are painted! Your own mother would not know you!" Upon the strength of these words the good Morin allowed himself to be carried off to the Lyceum, where his young friends advised him to joke certain young ladies, to which he replied that his jokes would prove a shock to their nerves. And in effect, no sooner was he in the salon than he cried out to a young lady, in a falsetto voice:
"Hollo, Rosarita! what have you done with Anselmo? We know that you throw him a letter out of the window every night at ten o'clock."
"But, Don Jaime!" exclaimed the girl, looking at him in surprise, "how did you find that get up?"
"The devil! She knew me," said the good Morin, withdrawing. He then turned to another of the fair sex, with the same result. "It is strange," he said at last, "they all know me at once. It must be the voice, because although I am painted with a vengeance—"