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The Charles II. Court suit was very handsome, and consisted of red cotton tights, blue velveteen doublet, and a blue cloak lined with pale pink silk. A yellow wig went with this, and a jewelled sword which would not come out of the scabbard. It could be had for seven dollars a night. Hefty was still in doubt about it, and was much perplexed. Auchmuty Stein told him Charlie Macklin, the Third Avenue ticket-chopper, was after the same suit, and that he had better take it while he could get it. But Hefty said he’d think about it. The next day was his day for posing, and as he stood arrayed in the Marquis de Neuville’s suit of mail he chanced to see himself in one of the long mirrors, and was for the first time so struck with the ferocity of his appearance that he determined to see if old man Stein had not a suit of imitation armour which would not be so heavy and would look as well. But the more Hefty thought of it, the more he believed that only the real suit would do. Its associations, its blood-stains, and the real silver tracings haunted him, and he half decided to ask Mr. Carstairs to lend it to him.

But then he remembered overhearing Carstairs tell a brother artist that he had paid two thousand francs for it, and though he did not know how much a franc might be, two thousand of anything was too much to wear around at a masquerade ball. But the thing haunted him. He was sure if Miss Casey saw him in that suit she would never look at Charlie Macklin again.

“They wouldn’t be in the same town with me,” said Hefty. “And I’d get two of the prizes, sure. ”

He was in great perplexity, when good luck or bad luck settled it for him.

“Burke,” said Mr. Carstairs, “Mrs. Carstairs and I are going out of town for New Year’s Day, and will be gone until Sunday. Take a turn through the rooms each night, will you? as well as the studio, and see that everything is all right. ” That clinched the matter for Hefty. He determined to go as far as the Palace Garden as the Marquis de Neuville, and say nothing whatever to Mr. Carstairs about it.

Stuff M’Govern, who drove a night-hawk, and who was a particular admirer of Hefty’s, even though as a cabman he was in a higher social scale than the driver of an ice-cart, agreed to carry Hefty and his half-ton of armour to the G
arden, and call for him when the ball was over.

“Holee smoke!” gasped Mr. M’Govern, as Hefty stumbled heavily across the pavement with an overcoat over his armour and his helmet under his arm. “Do you expect to do much dancing in that sheet-iron?”

“It’s the looks of the thing I’m gambling on,” said Hefty. “I look like a locomotive when I get this stove- pipe on me head. ”

Hefty put on his helmet in the cab and pulled down the visor, and when he alighted the crowd around the door was too greatly awed to jeer, but stood silent with breathless admiration. He had great difficulty in mounting the somewhat steep flight of stairs which led to the dancing-room, and considered gloomily that in the event of a fire he would have a very small chance of getting out alive. He made so much noise coming up that the committee-men thought some one was rolling some one else down the stairs, and came out to see the fight. They observed Hefty’s approach with whispered awe and amusement.