At this Prince Bismarck looked at Pacorrito with an expression of
such malignity and sarcasm that our illustrious hero was filled with
wrath. At the same instant this wretch of a chancellor aimed a bread
ball at Migajas, and fired it so accurately that the bridegroom came
near being blinded for life. But Migajas was a prototype of prudence
and circumspection, so he controlled his feelings and was silent. The
princess threw him a glance of love and gratitude.
"What fun I am having!" repeated the chancellor, clapping his wooden
hands together. "Before it is time to resume our place beside
the clock and listen to its unceasing tic-tac, let us fathom the
depths of pleasure and intoxication,--let us be happy! If the Señor
Pacorrito would favor us by calling the daily paper, we might laugh a
little."
"The Señor de Migajas," said the princess, kindly, "did not come here
to make us laugh. But there is no reason why we should not enjoy
hearing him call out the paper or even matches if he is willing to do
so."
The ragamuffin could find no words with which to answer his beloved.
He was sorely incensed at the proposition, which he judged to be a
fling at his dignity and decorum.
"Let him dance!" shouted the chancellor, impertinently; "let him
dance on the table! and if he refuse to do so, I move that he be
stripped of the fine clothes we dressed him in, and be left ragged
and barefooted as he was when he came."
Migajas felt all his blood rush to his heart. He was blind with rage.
"Do not be cruel, my dear prince," said the princess, smiling; "leave
him to me. I will take it upon myself to dispel the storm that is
rising within our good Migajas here."
A loud peal of laughter greeted this reply, and all the dolls,
and the most celebrated generals and emperors of the world,
simultaneously fell to pounding one another's heads like the Punch
and Judy puppets.
"Make him dance! make him call matches!" they clamored.
Migajas felt faint. The sentiment of dignity was so powerfully
developed in him that he would have died rather than have gone
through the suggested degradation. He was just about to reply
when the malignant chancellor, pulling a long thin straw from a
work-basket and wetting the end of it in his mouth, drove it into
Pacorrito's ear with such a quick movement that the latter did not
realize the familiarity of the act until he had suffered the nervous
shock produced by tricks of this sort.
Blind with rage, he put his hand to his belt and drew the
paper-cutter. The ladies shrieked and the princess fainted; but
the enraged Migajas, far from being pacified by this, seemed to be
growing more and more infuriated, and rushing upon his insolent
adversary, he began to deal blows right and left. The air was filled
with yells, threats, and imprecations. The parrots croaked and the
very birds moved their paper tails in sign of panic.
Nobody laughed now at the daring Migajas. A few moments later the
chancellor might have been seen going about gathering up his arms and
legs (a strange case which cannot be explained), and all the emperors
were noseless. They gradually, however, with a little glue and a
great deal of innate skill, mended one another,--a rare advantage,
this, of puppet surgery. The princess, having recovered from her
swoon through the virtue of smelling-salts, administered by her pages
in a filbert-shell, called the ragamuffin aside, and leading him to
her private apartments, spoke as follows:--