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The curly-haired one darted about in the smoke like a trout in running water, incessantly talking and introducing people in terms of continually-rising panegyric. He seemed to think that life would not be worth having unless every single person in the crowded room was made acquainted with every other; and more especially unless they were one and all, jointly and severally, presented to his friend “Mynheer” with all due formality. Meantime the good professor sat dreamily at the piano, occasionally playing a chord or two, and listening in his absent-minded way to the conversation of two men at table near him, who were discussing with great intensity some points connected with the character of a “little widow” who was continually mentioned; but whether this term was applied to a lady of their acquaintance, a pony, or was merely a technical term of one of their games, he was quite unable to determine. There was a pause in the proceedings, and he was gradually forgetting all his surroundings in a dream of a gavotte in E flat, when the curly-haired one suddenly appeared through the mist of smoke (thick as in a battlefield), dragging a new arrival forward by the button-holes. “Oh, Mynheer!” he exclaimed in a tone of exultation, “allow me to introduce you to a great friend of