half
past two
The steps of the Opera and the Plaza were covered with figures in dominoes , blue , red or black , many grotesque and bizarre costumes , and not a few sober claw hammers . The great flare of yellow light which bathed and flooded the shifting , many-colored throng , also lent a strangely weird effect to the now heavily falling snowflakes . Carriages and cabs kept arriving in countless numbers . It was half past two , and nobody who wanted to be considered anybody thought of arriving before that hour . The people poured in a steady stream through the portals . Groups of English and American students in their irreproachable evening attire , groups of French students in someone else 's doubtful evening attire , crowds of rustling silken dominoes , herds of crackling muslin dominoes , countless sad-faced Pierrots , fewer sad-faced Capuchins , now and then a slim Mephistopheles , now and then a fat , stolid Turk , ` Arry , Tom , and Billy , redolent of plum pudding and Seven Dials , Gontran , Gaston and Achille , savoring of brasseries and the Sorbonne . And then , from the carriages and fiacres : Mademoiselle Patchouli and good old Monsieur Bonvin , Mademoiselle Nitouche and bad young Monsieur de Sacrebleu , Mademoiselle Moineau and Don Cæsar Imberbe ; and the pink silk domino of `` La Pataude '' -- mais n'importe !