This knowledge was the straw which decided me; I would chance it. Hastily I drew on the rich blue and red over my old gray, adding the dress sword I had discovered in a closet, and then, wondering curiously what sort of figure I might cut in all these fine habiliments, sought a glance at myself within a mirror hanging upon the bedroom wall. Faith! but it was God's mercy that I did!

Such a face as grinned at me from that glass, peering over the high- cut, decorated collar, would surely have created a genuine sensation in those rooms below. Serious as my situation was, I laughed at the thought of it until tears ran down my cheeks, leaving white streaks the full length of them; for no chimney-sweep in the full tide of his glorious career was ever worse sooted and begrimed. I thought of the elegantly dressed lieutenant and the blonde young lady upon the stairs --surely they would have supposed the very devil himself was coming down.

It took me nearly a quarter of an hour to get myself tolerably clean, and I could not have done that had I not used some grease that was upon the stand. At the end, however, I stepped back from the glass confident that with good luck I should run the gantlet safely.