“So I blazed away with ol’ Betsy, and dang if that ball didn’t cut off both the ol’ tom’s ears and shave the hair clean off his skull, as slick as if I’d done it with a razor. And the critter never stirred nor knew he’d lost his ears ’til he tried to scratch ’em. So I says to Mike …”

As the frontiersman continued to regale his admirers with this flagrant, if innocuous, “whopper,” a peculiar sense of serenity began to suffuse every fibre of my being. I was, of course, acutely aware that Crockett and I had been invited as guardians, not guests. We had been charged with the gravest imaginable responsibility—viz. to maintain a tireless watch over our hostess, so as to ensure that no harm befell her in the course of her fête. In contradistinction to the other masqueraders, mere personal enjoyment was—for us—a subsidiary, if not wholly immaterial, concern.

Nevertheless, so convivial—so pleasing—so surpassingly benign—was the entire atmosphere of the ball that my sense of foreboding had, by slow degrees, begun to evaporate. The perfumed air—the delectable food—the transporting sight of my Sissy’s enchanting visage—all conspired to induce within my bosom a mood of singularly unwonted relaxation and contentment.

All at once, however, I became cognizant of an angry commotion emanating from Crockett’s direction. Casting my glance thitherward, I saw that the frontiersman had abruptly broken off his recitation and was engaged in an acrimonious debate with another individual, whose identity was obscured by the surrounding masqueraders. A stab of intense apprehension pierced the innermost core of my bosom. I quickly rose to my feet and—standing upon tip-toe—perceived at once that my premonition was founded on solid fact. The personage with whom Crockett was arguing was none other than the Comte de Languedoc! At that instant, Mrs. Nicodemus could be seen bustling towards the circle of onlookers, who parted to make way for the visibly dismayed hostess. Patting my lips with my linen napkin, I placed it on the table beside my depleted cup of punch, and instructed Sissy to await my return. Then, I hurriedly made my way towards the scene of the clamor, and—following in the wake of Mrs. Nicodemus—soon found myself standing beside the two deeply incensed antagonists.

Clasping her hands to her capacious bosom, Mrs. Nicodemus looked beseechingly from Crockett to the Count, and then back again. “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” she cried. “I am very much distressed at this unseasonable outburst. What in heaven’s name has happened?”

“I’m powerful sorry for putting you in a lather, Miz Nicodemus,” answered Crockett. “But I’ll be hanged if this-here impudacious scoundrel hasn’t riled me up hotter than blazes.”

Mrs. Nicodemus cast a bewildered look at the Frenchman.