“Hurry, then! the dancing’s begun. I have just come that way. What! that your ball-dress? Ha! ha! ha!” screamed Saint Vrain, seeing me unpack a blue coat and a pair of dark pantaloons, in a tolerable state of preservation.
“Why, yes,” replied I, looking up; “what fault do you find? But is that your ball-dress?”
No change had taken place in the ordinary raiment of my friend. The fringed hunting-shirt and leggings, the belt, the bowie, and the pistols, were all before me.
“Yes, my dandy; this is my ball-dress: it ain’t anything shorter; and if you’ll take my advice, you’ll wear what you have got on your back. How will your long-tailed blue look, with a broad belt and bowie strapped round the skirts? Ha! ha! ha!”
“But why take either belt or bowie? You are surely not going into a ball-room with your pistols in that fashion?”
“And how else should I carry them? In my hands?”
“Leave them here.”
“Ha! ha! that would be a green trick. No, no. Once bit, twice shy. You don’t catch this ’coon going into any fandango in Santa Fé without his six-shooters. Come, keep on that shirt; let your leggings sweat where they are, and buckle this about you. That’s the costume du bal in these parts.”
“If you assure me that my dress will be comme il faut, I’m agreed.”
“It won’t be with the long-tailed blue, I promise you.”