AT the Grand Babylon a great ball was given that night in the Gold Room, a huge saloon attached to the hotel, though scarcely part of it, and certainly less exclusive than the hotel itself.

Theodore Racksole knew nothing of the affair, except that it was an entertainment offered by a Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi to their friends.

Who Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi were he did not know, nor could anyone tell him anything about them except that Mr Sampson Levi was a prominent member of that part of the Stock Exchange familiarly called the Kaffir Circus, and that his wife was 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.