A long line of carriages files past the door of the old hostess.  An 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 imitate) to every visitor.  The least neglect of duty will incur (she tells him in language he cannot mistake) the penalty of thirty-nine well laid on in the morning.  In another minute her fat, chubby face glows with smiles, her whole soul seems lighted up with childlike enthusiasm; she has a warm welcome for each new comer, retorts saliently upon her old friends, and says—­“you know how welcome you all are!” Then she curtsies with such becoming grace.  “The house, you know, gentlemen, is a commonwealth to-night.”  Ah! she recognizes the tall, comely figure of Mr. Soloman, the accommodation man.  He did not spring from among the bevy of coat-takers, and hood-retainers, at the extreme end of the great hall, nor from among the heap of promiscuous garments piled in one corner; and yet he is here, looking as if some magic process had brought him from a mysterious labyrinth.  “Couldn’t get along without me, you see.  It’s an ambition with me to befriend everybody.  If I can do a bit of a good turn for a friend, so much the better!” And he grasps the old hostess by the hand with a self-satisfaction he rather improves by tapping her encouragingly on the shoulder.  “You’ll make a right good thing of this!—­a clear thousand, eh?”