a stout lady with an aquiline nose and many diamonds, and that
they were very rich and very hospitable. Theodore Racksole did
not want a ball in his hotel that evening, and just before dinner he
had almost a mind to issue a decree that the Gold Room was to be
closed and the ball forbidden, and Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi
might name the amount of damages suffered by them. His reasons
for such a course were threefold - first, he felt depressed and
uneasy; second, he didn't like the name of Sampson Levi; and,
third, he had a desire to show these so-called plutocrats that their
wealth was nothing to him, that they could not do what they chose
with Theodore Racksole, and that for two pins Theodore Racksole
would buy them up, and the whole Kaffir Circus to boot. But
something wamed him that though such a high-handed proceeding
might be tolerated in America, that land of freedom, it would
never be tolerated in England. He felt instinctively that in England
there are things you can't do, and that this particular thing was one
of them. So the ball went forward, and neither Mr nor Mrs
Sampson Levi had ever the least suspicion what a narrow escape
they had had of looking very foolish in the eyes of the thousand or
so guests invited by them to the Gold Room of the Grand Babylon
that evening.

The Gold Room of the Grand Babylon was built for a ballroom. A
balcony, supported by arches faced with gilt and lapis-lazulo, ran
around it, and from this vantage men and maidens and chaperons
who could not or would not dance might survey the scene.
Everyone knew this, and most people took advantage of it. What
everyone did not know - what no one knew - was that higher up
than the balcony there was a little barred window in the end wall
from which the hotel authorities might keep a watchful eye, not