the Devil.

A closer scrutiny informed me that it was Gussie Fink-Nottle, dressed as
Mephistopheles.



-2-


"What-ho, Gussie," I said.

You couldn't have told it from my manner, but I was feeling more than a
bit nonplussed. The spectacle before me was enough to nonplus anyone. I
mean to say, this Fink-Nottle, as I remembered him, was the sort of shy,
shrinking goop who might have been expected to shake like an aspen if
invited to so much as a social Saturday afternoon at the vicarage. And
yet here he was, if one could credit one's senses, about to take part in
a fancy-dress ball, a form of entertainment notoriously a testing
experience for the toughest.

And he was attending that fancy-dress ball, mark you--not, like every
other well-bred Englishman, as a Pierrot, but as Mephistopheles--this
involving, as I need scarcely stress, not only scarlet tights but a
pretty frightful false beard.

Rummy, you'll admit. However, one masks one's feelings. I betrayed no
vulgar astonishment, but, as I say, what-hoed with civil nonchalance.

He grinned through the fungus--rather sheepishly, I thought.