“It’s the looks of the thing I’m gambling on,” said Hefty.  “I look like a locomoteeve when I get this stovepipe 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 committeemen 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 amazement.

“Wot are you?” asked the man at the door.  “Youse needn’t give your real name,” he explained, politely.  “But you’ve got to give something if youse are trying for a prize, see?”

“I’m the Black Knight,” said Hefty in a hoarse voice, “the Marquis de Newveal; and when it comes to scrappin’ wid der perlice, I’m de best in der business.”

This last statement was entirely impromptu, and inspired by the presence of Policeman McCluire, who, with several others, had been detailed to keep order.  McCluire took this challenge calmly, and looked down and smiled at Hefty’s feet.

“He looks like a stove on two legs,” he said to the crowd.  The crowd, as a matter of policy, laughed.

“You’ll look like a fool standing on his head in a snow-bank if you talk impudent to me,” said Hefty, epigrammatically, from behind the barrier of his iron mask.  What might have happened next did not happen, because at that moment the music sounded for the grand march, and Hefty and the policeman were swept apart by the crowd of Indians, Mexicans, courtiers, negro minstrels, and clowns.  Hefty stamped across the waxed floor about as lightly as a safe could do it if a safe could walk.  He found Miss Casey after the march and disclosed his identity.  She promised not to tell, and was plainly delighted and flattered at being seen with the distinct sensation of the ball.  “Say, Hefty,” she said, “they just ain’t in it with you.  You’ll take the two prizes sure.  How do I look?”

“Out o’ sight,” said Hefty.  “Never saw you lookin’ better.”

“That’s good,” said Miss Casey, simply, and with a sigh of satisfaction.

Hefty was undoubtedly a great success.  The men came around him and pawed him, and felt the dents in the armor, and tried the weight of it by holding up one of his arms, and handled him generally as though he were a freak in a museum.  “Let ’em alone,” said Hefty to Miss Casey, “I’m not sayin’ a word.  Let the judges get on to the sensation I’m a-makin,’ and I’ll walk off with the prizes.  The crowd is wid me sure.”

At midnight the judges pounded on a table for order, and announced that after much debate they gave the first prize to Miss Lizzie Cannon, of Hester Street, for “having the most handsomest costume on the floor, that of Columbia.”  The fact that Mr.  “Buck” Masters, who was one of the judges, and who was engaged to Miss Cannon, had said that he would pound things out of the other judges if they gave the prize elsewhere was not known, but the decision met with as general satisfaction as could well be expected.