"You are an admiral, aren't you?" I was bold enough to ask.
"Who told you that?" he wanted to know.
"My eyes," said I.
"They're bright ones," he retorted. "But I suppose I do look an old sea-dog—what? A regular old salt-water dog. But by George, it's hot water I've got into to-night. D'ye see that stout lady we're just passin'?—the one in the red wig and yellow frock covered with paste or diamonds?"
(If she could have heard the description! It was Lady Turnour, in her gold tissue, her Bond Street jewellery shop, and, my charge, her beautifully undulated, copper-tinted transformation.)
"Yes, I see her," I said faintly, as we waltzed past; and I wondered why she was glaring.
"I suppose you didn't notice me doin' the first dance with her? Well, I asked her because they said we'd all got to invite servants to begin with, and as the best were snapped up before I got a chance, I walked over to her like a man. Give you my word, where all are dressed like duchesses, I took her for a cook."
I laughed so much that I shook my feet out of time with the music.
"Did you treat her like a cook, too?" I gurgled. "Ask her to give you her favourite recipe for soup?"
"Heaven forbid, no. I treated her like a countess. One would a cook, you know. It was afterward I got into the hot water. I popped her down in a seat when we'd scrambled through a turn or two of the dance, and that was all right; but instead of stoppin' where she was put, she must have stood up with some other poor chap when my back was turned, and been plamped down somewhere else. Anyhow, I danced the end of the waltz with the Marquise de Roquemartine, when she'd finished doin' the polite to the butler, and when we sat down to breathe at last, for the sake of somethin' to say I asked if the fat lady in yellow was her own cook, or a visitor's cook. Anyhow, I was certain of the cook: fancied myself on spottin' a cook anywhere. Well, the marquise giggled 'Take care!' and nearly had a fit. And if there wasn't my late partner close to my shoulder. 'That's Lady Turnour, one of my guests,' said the marquise. Little witch, she looked more pleased than shocked; but 'pon my honour, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I hope the good lady didn't hear, but my friends tell me I talk as if I were yellin' through a megaphone, so I'm afraid she got the news."