"Will you buy a pack of hareskins, brother Hummel?" asked a wandering pedlar.
"I thank you, brother," replied Hummel, fiercely; "you may let me have the ass's skin that your wife tore from your face in your last quarrel."
"There's the rough felt of our city," cried, pertly, a little clown, as he gave Mr. Hummel a blow upon the stomach with his wand.
This was too much for Mr. Hummel: he seized the diminutive clown by the collar, took his wand away from him, and held the refractory little fellow on his knee. "Wait, my son," he cried; "you'll wish you had a rough felt in another place than on your head."
But a burly Turk caught him by the arm. "Sir, how can you dare to lay hold of my son in this manner?"
"Is this chattel yours?" returned Hummel, furiously; "your blotting-paper physiognomy is unknown to me. If you, as Turk, devote yourself to the rearing of ill-mannered buffoons, you must expect to see Turkish bamboo on their backs, that is a principle of international law. If you do not understand this you may come to me to-morrow morning at my office; I will make the thing clear to you, and hand over to you a bill for the watch-crystal that this creature from your harem has broken for me."
Thereupon he threw the clown into the arms of the Turk, and the wand on the ground, and clumsily made his way through the masks who surrounded him.
"There is not a human soul among them," he growled; "one feels like Robinson Crusoe among the savages." He moved about the ball-room utterly regardless of the white shoulders and bright eyes that danced about him, and again disappeared. At last he caught sight of two grey bats whom he thought he knew, for it appeared to him that the masks were his wife and daughter. He went up to them, but they avoided him and mixed in the throng. They were undoubtedly of his party, but they intended to remain unknown, and they knew that would be impossible if Mr. Hummel was with them. The forsaken man turned and went into the next room, seated himself in solitude at an empty table, took his mask off, ordered a bottle of wine, asked for the daily paper, and lighted a cigar.
"Pardon me, Mr. Hummel," said a little waiter; "no smoking here!"
"You too," replied Mr. Hummel, gloomily. "You see there is smoking here. This is my way of masquerading. Matters are becoming wearisome. Every vestige of humanity and all consideration for others is being trodden under foot to-day; and that is what they call a bal masqué."