The Carnival in Florence was a meagre affair compared with the same fete in Rome.  During the afternoon, however, there was goodly procession of masks in carriages on the Lung’ Arno, and in the evening there was a feeble moccoletti display.  The grand masked ball at the Casino about this time presents an irresistible attraction to the floating population in Florence.  I was foolish enough to go.  All were obliged to be dressed in character or in full ball-costume:  no dominoes allowed.  The Casino, I was told, is the largest club-house in the world; and salon after salon of that immense building was so crowded that locomotion was nearly impossible.  The floral decorations were magnificent, the music was excellent, and some of the ten thousand people present tried to dance, but the sets formed were soon squeezed into a ball.  Then they gave up in despair, while the men swore under their breath, and the women repaired to the dressing-rooms to sew on flounces or other skirt-trimmings.  Masks wriggled about, and spoke to each other in the ridiculously squeaky voice generally adopted on such occasions.  Most of their conversation was English, and of this very exciting order:  “You don’t know me?” “Yes I do.”  “No you don’t.”  “I know what you did yesterday,” etc., etc., ad nauseam. How fine masked balls are in sensational novels! how absolutely flat and unsatisfactory in fact!  There was on this occasion a vast display of dress and jewelry, and among the babel of languages spoken the most prominent was the beautiful London dialect sometimes irreverently called Cockney.  I lost my cavalier at one time, and while I waited for him to find me I retired to a corner and challenged a mask to a game of chess.  He proved to be a Russian who spoke neither French nor Italian.  We got along famously, however.  He said something very polite in Russian, I responded irrelevantly in French, and then we looked at each other and grinned.  He subsequently, thinking he had made an impression, ventured to press my hand; I drew it away and told him he was an idiot, at which he was greatly flattered; and then we grinned at each other again.  It was very exciting indeed.  I won the game easily, because he knew nothing of chess, and then he said something in his mother-tongue, placing his hand upon his heart.  I could have sworn that it meant, “Of course I would not be so rude as to win when playing with a lady.”  I thought so, principally because he was a man, for I never knew a man under such circumstances who did not immediately betray his self-conceit by making that gallant declaration.  Feeling sure that the Russian had done so, when we placed the pieces on the board again I offered him my queen.  He seemed astounded and hurt; and then for the first time I thought that if this Russian were an exception to his sex, and I had not understood his remark, then it was a rudeness to offer him my queen.  I was fortunately relieved from my perplexing situation by the approach of my cavalier, and as he led me away I gave my other hand to my antagonist in the most impressive manner, by way of atonement in case there had been anything wrong in my conduct toward him.