"Buttons! Buttons! Buttons! Help me! These confounded _I_talian wimmin! Take them away. Tell them to leave me be. Tell them I don't know them--don't want to have them hanging round me. Tell them _I'm your father_!" cried the Senator, his voice rising to a shout in his distraction and alarm.
About 970 people were around him by this time.
"Goodness!" said Buttons; "you are in a fix. Why did you make yourself so agreeable? and to so many? Why, it's too bad. One at a time!"
"Buttons," said the Senator, solemnly, "is this the time for joking? For Heaven's sake get me away."
"Come then; you must run for it."
He seized the Senator's right arm. The little Domino clung to the other. Away they started. It was a full run. A shout arose. So arises the shout in Rome along the bellowing Corso when the horses are starting for the Carnival races. It was a long, loud shout, gathering and growing and deepening as it rose, till it burst on high in one grand thunder-clap of sound.
Away the Senator went like the wind. The dense crowd parted on either side with a rush. The Opera-house is several hundred feet in length. Down this entire distance the Senator ran, accompanied by Buttons and the little Domino. Crowds cheered him as he passed. Behind him the passage-way closed up, and a long trail of screaming maskers pressed after him. The louder they shouted the faster the Senator ran. At length they reached the other end.
"Do you see that box?" asked Buttons, pointing to one on the topmost tier.
"Yes, yes."
"Fly! Run for your life! It's your only hope. Get in there and hide till we go."