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 the three individuals were talking about related to us.
An uneasy feeling stole over me, which I could not shake off. I endeavoured to reason with myself that no end of mistakes took place at every masked ball, and that the two dominos who persisted in hovering near us were on the wrong scent. But this did not quite set my mind at rest. I took Peter aside and told him that I thought we were watched! "What fun! Let's go and ask them to dance!" was all the reckless man answered. No sooner said than done; he went up to the ladies and requested that honour for himself and friend, but they shook their heads in reply, and put themselves in the care of their tall friend. Peter, not a whit abashed, suggested that they thought themselves too respectable to do anything but look sarcastically on other people's folly, and departed in search of fresh adventure.
As the heat was stifling, I went out of the theatre and entered a restaurant close to it. What I saw there astonished me. There was the tall man who had been in conversation with the two dominos, without his mask, and he turned out to be the worthy individual who owed me the hundred pounds!
His remark, that if I lent him another ten pounds he might be able to do me another good turn, arose in my mind. It was strange he showed no surprise at seeing me enter his office.
Was it possible that my wife, who knew I had at one time business relations with this man, had sent to have me watched? Or, horror of horrors! had she followed me herself?
I was never quite satisfied about the noise outside the door when Peter Dodd first proposed the unfortunate trip to Boulogne.
I soon, however, learned the worst. The tall man, who apparently did not perceive me, was drinking with some persons at the bar, and was relating to them with great glee, how nicely I was being done; and Peter Dodd's wife and mine were the two dominos who had watched us, and who had engaged this drunken fellow to assist them!
Needless to say, these revelations came upon me like a thunderclap in a summer sky. I immediately rushed back to the theatre to inform Peter of the dreadful discovery I had made. To my utter amazement, I found him waltzing with his own wife, the other domino (my "better half") looking on!