F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 56
incessant tripping of feet, delicately encased in bright-colored
slippers; an ominous fluttering of gaudy silks and satins; an
inciting glare of borrowed jewelry, mingling with second-hand lace;
an heterogeneous gleaming of bare, brawny arms, and distended busts,
all lend a sort of barbaric splendor to that mysterious group
floating, as it were, into a hall in one blaze of light. A soft
carpet, over-lain with brown linen, is spread from the curbstone
into the hall. Two well-developed policemen guard the entrance, take
tickets of those who pass in, and then exchange smiles of
recognition with venerable looking gentlemen in masks. The hostess,
a clever "business man" in her way, has made the admission fee one
dollar. Having paid the authorities ten dollars, and honored every
Alderman with a complimentary ticket, who has a better right? No one
has a nicer regard for the Board of Aldermen than Madame Flamingo;
no one can reciprocate this regard more condescendingly than the
honorable Board of Aldermen do. Having got herself arrayed in a
dress of sky-blue satin, that ever and anon streams, cloudlike,
behind her, and a lace cap of approved fashion, with pink strings
nicely bordered in gimp, and a rich Honiton cape, jauntily thrown
over her shoulders, and secured under the chin with a great cluster
of blazing diamonds, and rows of unpolished pearls at her wrists,
which are immersed in crimped ruffles, she doddles up and down the
hall in a state of general excitement. A corpulent colored man,
dressed in the garb of a beadle,--a large staff in his right hand, a
cocked hat on his head, and broad white stripes down his flowing
coat, stands midway between the parlor doors. He is fussy enough,
and stupid enough, for a Paddington beadle. Now Madame Flamingo
looks scornfully at him, scolds him, pushes him aside; he is only a
slave she purchased for the purpose; she commands that he gracefully
touch his hat (she snatches it from his head, and having elevated it
over her own, performs the delicate motion she would have him