The door creaked open and Ignatius appeared in his pirate finery.

“Ignatius!”

“I thought that you might react like that. Therefore I have kept all of this paraphernalia stashed at Paradise Vendors, Incorporated.”

“Angelo was right,” Mrs. Reilly cried. “You been out on the streets dressed up like a Mardi Gras all this time.”

“A scarf here. A cutlass there. One or two deft and tasteful suggestions. That’s all. The total effect is rather fetching.”

“You can’t go out like that,” Mrs. Reilly hollered.

“Please. Not another hysterical scene. You’ll dislodge all of the thoughts which are developing in my mind in connection with the lecture.”

“Get back in that room, boy.” Mrs. Reilly began beating Ignatius on the arms. “Get back in there, Ignatius. I ain’t fooling this time, boy. You can’t disgrace me like that.”

“Good heavens! Mother, stop that. I’ll be in no condition for my speech.”

“What kinda speech you gonna make? Where you going to, Ignatius? Tell me, boy?” Mrs. Reilly slapped her son flatly in the face. “You ain’t leaving this house, crazy.”

“Oh, my God, are you going mad? Get away from me this instant. I hope that you’ve noticed that scimitar dangling from my uniform.”

A slap struck Ignatius in the nose: another landed on his right eye. He waddled down the hall, pushed the long shutters open, and ran out into the yard.

“Come back in this house,” Mrs. Reilly screamed from the front door. “You ain’t going nowhere, Ignatius.”

“I dare you to come out in that shredded nightgown and get me!” Ignatius answered defiantly and stuck out his massive pink tongue.

“Get back in here, Ignatius.”

“Hey, knock it off, you two,” Miss Annie shouted from behind her front shutters. “My nerves is shot to hell.”

“Take a look at Ignatius,” Mrs. Reilly called to her. “Ain’t that awful?”

Ignatius was waving to his mother from the brick sidewalk, his earring catching the rays of the streetlight.

“Ignatius, come in here like a good boy,” Mrs. Reilly pleaded.

“I awready got me a headache from the goddam postman’s whistle,” Miss Annie threatened loudly. “I’m gonna ring up the cops in about one minute.”

“Ignatius,” shouted Mrs. Reilly, but it was too late. A taxi was cruising down the block. Ignatius flagged it down just as his mother, forgetting the disgrace of the shredded nightgown, ran down to the curb. Ignatius slammed the rear door right in his mother’s maroon hair and barked an address at the driver. He stabbed at his mother’s hands with the cutlass and ordered the driver to move along immediately. The taxi sped off, churning up some pebbles in the gutter that stung Mrs. Reilly’s legs through the torn rayon gown. She watched the red taillights for a moment, then she ran back into the house to telephone Santa.

“Going to a costume party, pal?” the driver asked Ignatius as they turned onto St. Charles Avenue.

“Watch where you’re going and speak when you’re spoken to,” Ignatius thundered.

During the ride the driver said nothing else, but Ignatius practiced his speech loudly in the back seat, rapping his cutlass against the front seat to emphasize certain key points.

At St. Peter Street he got out and first heard the noise, dim yet frenetic singing and laughing coming from the three-story stucco building. Some prosperous Frenchman had built the house in the late 1700s to house a menage of wife, children, and spinster tantes. The tantes had been stored up in the attic along with the other excess and unattractive furniture, and from the two little dormer windows in the roof they had seen what little of the world they believed existed outside of their own monde of slanderous gossip, needlework, and cyclical recitations of the rosary. But the hand of the professional decorator had exorcised whatever ghosts of the French bourgeoisie might still haunt the thick brick walls of the building. The exterior was painted a bright canary yellow; the gas jets in the reproduction brass lanterns mounted on either side of the carriageway flickered softly, their amber flames rippling in reflection on the black enamel of the gate and shutters. On the flagstone paving beneath both lanterns there were old plantation pots in which Spanish daggers grew and extended their sharply pointed stilettos.

Ignatius stood before the building regarding it with extreme distaste. His blue and yellow eyes denounced the resplendent façade. His nose rebelled against the very noticeable odor of fresh enamel. His ears shrank from the bedlam of singing, cackling, and giggling that was going on behind the closed black patent leather shutters.

Testily clearing his throat, he looked at the three brass doorbells and at the little white cards above each:

Billy Truehard

Raoul Frayle -3A

Frieda Club

Betty Bumper

Liz Steele -2A

Dorian Greene -1A

He jabbed a finger into the bottom bell and waited. The frenzy behind the shutters abated very slightly. A door opened somewhere down the carriageway, and Dorian Greene came walking toward the gate.

“Oh, dear,” he said when he saw who was out on the sidewalk. “Where in the world have you been? I’m afraid that the kickoff rally is fast getting out of hand. I have tried unsuccessfully once or twice to call the group to order, but apparently feelings are running rather high.”

“I hope you’ve done nothing to dampen their morale,” Ignatius said gravely, tapping his cutlass impatiently on the iron gate. He noticed somewhat angrily that Dorian was walking toward him a little unsteadily; this was not what he had expected.

“Oh, what a gathering,” Dorian said as he opened the gate. “Everyone is simply letting his hair down.”

Dorian did a rapid and uncoordinated pantomime to illustrate this.

“Oh, my God!” Ignatius said. “Stop that appalling obscenity.”

“Several people will be completely ruined after this evening. There’s going to be a mass exodus for Mexico City in the morning. But then Mexico City is so wonderfully wild.”

“I certainly hope that no one has tried to inflict any warmongering resolutions upon the gathering.”

“Oh, goodness, no.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. Heaven knows what opposition we may have to face even at the outset. We may have some ‘enemy within.’ Word may have leaked out to the whole military combine of the nation and, for that matter, the world.”

“Well, come along, Gypsy Queen, let’s get inside.”

As they walked down the carriageway, Ignatius said, “This building is repellingly flamboyant.” He looked at the pastel lamps concealed behind the palms along the walls. “Who’s responsible for this abortion?”

“I, of course, Magyar Maiden. I own the building.”

“I should have known. May I ask where the money comes from to support this decadent whimsy of yours?”

“From my dear family out there in the wheat,” Dorian sighed. “They send me large checks every month. In return I simply guarantee them that I’ll stay out of Nebraska. I left there under something of a cloud, you see. All that wheat and those endless plains. I can’t tell you how depressing it all was. Grant Wood romanticized it, if anything. I went East for college and then came here. Oh, New Orleans is such freedom.”

“Well, at least we have a gathering place for our coup. Now that I’ve seen the place, however, I would have preferred your renting an American Legion hall or something equally appropriate. This place looks more like the setting for some perverted activity like a tea dance or a garden party.”

“Do you know that a national home decorating magazine wants to do a four-page color spread on this building?” Dorian asked.

“If you had any sense, you would realize that that is the ultimate insult,” Ignatius snorted.

“Oh, Girl with the Golden Earring, you are driving me out of my mind. Look, here’s the door.”