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But by far the most striking feature consisted in the amazing quantity of superb butterflies, large tropical swallow-tails, black, with scarlet or yellow eyes on their wings.
The landlord, in plain clothes, and bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the PORTIER, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight waiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their whitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves about these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear.
On all sides this was the verdict, one long-haired critic of international fame even claiming openly that Henshaw had not only equaled his former best work, but had gone beyond it, in both artistry and technique. It was a brilliant gathering. Society, as usual, in costly evening gowns and correct swallow-tails rubbed elbows with names famous in the world of Art and Letters.
This demonstration, too, was one of the few indications which have as yet met the public eye of a very real division of the Democratic party in this city into two sets of politicians, known familiarly as "Short-Hairs" and "Swallow-Tails" the former comprising the rank and file of the voters and the latter "the property-owners and substantial men," who are endeavoring to make Tammany an instrument of reform and to manage the city in the interest of the taxpayers.
In the drawing room there was singing, playing, and dancing. Waiters hired from the club were flitting distractedly about the rooms, dressed in black swallow-tails and dirty white ties. There was a continual hubbub and din of conversation.
My host said that Edward Atkinson, the well-known New England writer, philosopher, and sociologist, would address the meeting. When I arrived at the house I found Atkinson in despair. The audience were young ladies in full evening dress and young men in white vests, white neckties, and swallow-tails. There was also a band present.
That of gorgeous royal blue with black edging to the wings and dandyish swallow-tails, which wanders far and wide and flies high and swiftly, is Ulysses. This glorious morn the ruddy shrub is as lively as a merry-go-round with the feasting and antics of flitting gems, and there are others by the dozen attentive to less seductive fare.
Swallow-tails, of various colours, with tails almost as long, in proportion to their bodies, as those of their feathered namesakes; god-parents and 'eighty-eights, with the figures 88 plainly marked on the reverse side of their rich blue or crimson wings. In fact, if nature could by any possibility be gaudy, one might almost say that she is so in this part of the world.
It was curious for a humble author to walk these stately halls, convoyed by courteous officers in red swallow-tails, and to rub shoulders with civic millionaires.
She is not, therefore, to be fascinated by the display of blue no more lustrous than that of her own proud wings. He may flit and toss about her, but she seems to take scanty notice of his affected aerial limpings. Her raiment is just as brave, and she has swallow-tails too.
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