THE BUN EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT HOME.
As the rabbit, in moments of danger, has a passion for the little
hole into which it darts with the speed of lightning, so, in moments
both of safety and danger, has the properly-constituted Englishman a
passion for "the home." Even the most middle-class owner of a tiny
semi-detached "villa residence," looking out over a network of railway,
is prepared to defend it and its clothes-line, and that mysterious
barrel which always stands on end at its back-door, with his heart's
best blood. Now, this is very creditable. But even a very beautiful and
noble instinct may be carried too far. And the Englishman's passion for
the home was, in the Bun Emperor's case, carried very far indeed.
Mr. Lite was a remarkable man in many subtle ways. Of course he had
risen from the gutter. Everybody does do that nowadays. There is
nothing original in the feat. His gutter was an exceedingly small, and
exceedingly dingy, pie-shop in Camberwell, the sort of miscellaneous
pie-shop which exhibits to the street a terrace on which things of meat
and things of jam, the saveloy and the marmalade puff, air themselves
side by side in a fly-blown amity of meek endurance. And it was this
fact which had eventually obtained for worthy Mrs. Lite, who had
assisted in the shop, the sobriquet of "the raised pie," a title
suitable to her changed social condition.
In the old days, Mr. Perry Lite had been devoured by a passion for
the Camberwell home. He had worshipped the terrace on which the pies
lethargically leaned. He had adored the stuffy back-parlour, divided
from the shop by a half-glass door, on which a cracked bell tinkled.
The man who had dared to invade the privacy of that parlour would have
found himself face to face with a fury, inflexibly set on ejection.
The small bedroom above-stairs was, at that time, Mr. Lite's idea of
heaven, and he considered the attic in which the servant—had there
been one, which there was not—would have slept a fit receptacle for a
goddess. In fact, Mr. Lite's heart sent out tendrils, which climbed,
like creepers, all over the Camberwell pie-house. But in due time he
had to cut the creepers down.
Either Mrs. Lite was unusually clever at making pies, buns, sweetmeats,
and cakes, or Mr. Lite had extraordinary business capacity, or Fortune
was determined that there should be a Bun Emperor in Britain, and that
Mr. Lite looked the part better than anybody else. In any case, money
came, and with it changes. The Camberwell residence was exchanged for
Bayswater; Bayswater was given up, in its turn, for Oxford Street.
Then followed Piccadilly, with branch establishments all over the
place. And, finally, Mr. and Mrs. Lite found themselves settled in
the palace near Ascot which was known far and wide to a wondering
world as Ribton Marches. And it was in Ribton Marches that Mr. Lite
allowed the old passion to develop into a disease. At Camberwell he
had been very fond of the home. At Sunninghill he adored it with his
whole heart and body, preferring it to Windsor Castle, and strong in
a belief that her Most Gracious Majesty, who occasionally passed near
his gates while on her afternoon carriage expeditions, sickened with
envy when her royal eyes beheld the cupolas which made the roof-tree of
the palace bulbous in every imaginable direction. Ribton Marches had
been built according to Mr. Lite's own ideas, which took the form of a
huge erection combining many of the peculiar merits of the Leicester
Square Alhambra and the Crystal Palace. Wherever you expected to find
stone you came upon glass; wherever you anticipated glass you came upon
stone. If you looked for a flat roof, your eye met a cupola; if you
glanced up in search of a cupola, you probably missed it and saw a flat
roof. The palace continually "had" you. It was full of winter gardens,
and in all these winter gardens there were talking parrots. The palace
was crammed with echoes, and as you explored it, under the careful
and most suspicious supervision of Mr. Lite, its mighty walls seemed
to breathe out to you from every side such mysterious expressions
as "Hallelujah! Bow-wow-wow!" "Polly, go to bed!" and "Polly very
drunk; naughty Polly!" the latter statement being usually succeeded
by a loud noise as of the drawing of dozens of champagne corks. There
were several libraries in the palace, and several boudoirs; but the
boudoirs were on the ground-floor, and the libraries were upstairs. In
the picture-gallery the Dutch-oven school was well represented, and
in the purple drawing-room there was a new species of orchestrion, to
the hullabaloo of which Mr. and Mrs. Lite were wont to fall gently
asleep each evening after dinner. A remarkable feature of the palace
was the large number of machines, constructed on the penny-in-the-slot
principle, which stood about in the different apartments, prepared
to yield to the influence of the enquiring copper an assortment of
cigars, stamps, cigarettes, surprise packets, chocolate drops, Dutch
dolls, perfume squirts, luggage-labels, and other like necessaries.
Of these Mr. Lite was very proud: their mechanism, which no fellow
was ever able to understand, was devised by him, and was different in
important respects from that of the graceful erections which have been
so artistically placed in many of the more beautiful parts of England.
Whenever any guests came to lunch with him—he seldom had anyone to
stay the night—he would always invite them to set his machines in
motion, and the disappearing pennies went to assist in the founding of
the Lite Home for Elderly Bun-makers who had got past their work.
In the centre of the palace was a large hall, baronial here and
there, containing a staircase which had been conveyed at a vast cost
from somewhere abroad, an oak ceiling, an organ, and other necessary
furniture. At the first glance this hall looked rather more suitable
for the accommodation of Handel Festivals than for a simple home
life. But the Bun Emperor and Empress, looking—as to size—like a
couple of peas in the vast immensity of unutterable space, often took
afternoon tea there in sweet domestic solitude, or sat there by the
hour listening to the distant voices of the parrots resounding from the
adjacent winter gardens. Other inhabitants of the palace were certain
pugs—Dinah, Sam, Gog and Magog—retained by Mrs. Lite to give an air
of aristocracy to the establishment; various footmen, powdered and
unpowdered; and a very large and scorbutic individual, by name Mr.
Harrison, who enjoyed the title of "groom of the chambers," and the
advantage of doing nothing whatsoever from morning till night.
On a certain evening in June the Bun Emperor and Empress rose at about
eight o'clock from their late dinner in the cedar-wood dining-parlour,
decorated with the heads of stags shot by nobody knows who, engravings
of popular pictures, and china from different portions of the habitable
globe, and proceeded to the purple drawing-room to listen to the
cooling orchestrion, whose tremendous strains so soothed their souls
and stimulated their digestive processes. They went arm-in-arm,
preceded by a footman, and followed by the pugs in waddling procession.
The Bun Emperor was short, with exceedingly rounded contours, features
resembling those of the first Napoleon, fierce dark eyes, and the
gait of a man who has won a great many battles. His Empress was also
short and rounded, with grey hair elaborated into many little curls
about her forehead, neat features of the nut-cracker type, and, as a
general rule, a slightly fatuous expression of eager self-complacency.
To-night, however, her face was decorated with the flames of temper,
and she gained the purple drawing-room on rather tremulous feet.
Arrived there, she sharply withdrew her hand from the Emperor's fat
arm, sat down in a brocaded chair, and turned upon the respectful
flunkey who had shown the way.
"Frederick," she said, "turn on the orchestrion."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And set it at 'They Never do That to Me.'"
She darted a glance at the Emperor as she said the last words.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Frederick.
The pugs sat down. Frederick obeyed orders, and in a moment the big
room was crammed with the beautiful and classical strains of the song
already alluded to, given out by the expensive instrument with an
unflinching power and a stentorian sweetness that must surely have
compelled the most unmusical person to do homage, if not to melody,
at least to strength. Frederick made his exit, and the Bun Emperor
collapsed in silence by his wife's side. He looked less violent than
usual, and, indeed, the expression upon his face might almost have
been called an expression of apprehension. The song ran on. The
pugs declined from a sitting into a sidelong posture, and with four
simultaneous sighs gave way to the charms of snoring with open eyes.
The Emperor's two thumbs began rapidly to revolve one over the other.
"Don't do that, Perry," said the Empress; "it spoils the music."
The Emperor desisted, apparently very much to his wife's vexation, for
she pursed her lips, screwed her brow, and arranged her curls with
a trembling hand. "For they nev-arr do that _to_ me!" shouted the
orchestrion for the dozenth time.
"D'you hear that, Perry?" said the Empress viciously.
The Emperor jerked an affirmative with his head.
"And d'you feel it?" pursued the Empress. "D'you feel it as you ought?"
"My dear!" said the Emperor. "My dear!"
"Oh, I daresay," said the Empress, flaunting her head passionately
sideways. "I daresay. But what's the good of that? What's the good of
affection, and 'my dear' this, and 'my dear' that, when it's done and
can't be undone?"
"I can't go back upon my word, Henrietta."
"Then why give it? That's what I say. Why give it?" cried the Empress.
"And all for a paltry bit of bun-praise that won't sell half a million
of buns when all's said and done!"
And she kicked Magog sharply in his third rib. The dog sent forth a cry
of anguish, but the Empress was in no way concerned; on the contrary,
the utterance seemed to nerve her for fresh exertions.
"No, nor a quarter of a million," she continued. "Let it be in every
paper in Christendom."
"I think you underrate Lady Sophia's influence, Henrietta," said the
Emperor meekly; "I do indeed. She will have great weight in infant
circles, I feel sure—very great weight, my dear. That 'they should be
nourishing' will go home to the mothers, too. Oh, there can be no doubt
at all about it, no doubt in the world."
"That's what you think?"
"It is, my darling, it is indeed!"
"Well, and if she does sell half a million, or a million either, it
ain't worth it. No, Perry, it ain't!"
At this juncture the Empress was visibly affected. Her "ain't" was
really tragic, not merely on account of the stress with which it was
given out, but still more on account of its employment by the lady;
for both the Emperor and Empress were in calm moments very particular
in speech. They not merely refrained from dropping their h's and from
putting them in wrongly, they went further than that. They dealt very
tenderly and impressively with aspirates, sounding them in a marked
and highly deliberate manner when they occurred, and even leaving them
out when they did not occur, in a way that could scarcely escape the
attention of the keen grammarian or finished orator. The Emperor was
greatly moved by his wife's avoidance of the customary "is not." But
he was a tenacious man, and still held to his point.
"If I had not secured Lady Sophia's bun-praise when I had the
opportunity, my dear," he said, "it would have haunted me to the
last day of my life. It would have been going against the principles
of a lifetime; them as have—those which have made us what we are,
Henrietta. Go for the names—that has been my motto in the trade. Go
for the names."
"Yes; go for the names, and go out of the home!" cried the Empress.
"Oh, Perry, Perry!"
The orchestrion drowned her wail, but the Emperor felt it, divined it,
nevertheless. He was sincerely moved.
"Don't, my dear, don't!" he ejaculated.
"I will! I must!" said the Empress. "To leave the old home at our time
of life! To be turned out into the streets! Oh! oh!"
This statement of the Empress contained at least two fallacies, which
might almost be called thumping lies. For Ribton Marches was only
about five years old, and the fishing-cottage to which Mr. Rodney had
persuaded the worthy couple presently to retire was backed by a pine
wood and fronted by a charming little pond, generally called "the
lake." However, the Emperor did not contradict his spouse. He only
patted her gently on her heaving back, while his own features became
contorted with agitation at the prospect conjured up by her pictorial
remarks.
"And these Londoners," continued the Empress, very nearly qualifying
them with the contemptuous epithet "'ere,"—"these Londoners! Oh, what
may they not do to the home! What may they not do! I can't bear it! No,
I can't!"
The Emperor's face assumed an expression such as may well have been
observed upon Napoleon's immediately before the battle of Waterloo.
"Do to the home!" he said, striking one fat hand down upon his knee.
"Let them try it on! Mr. Harrison has his orders."
The Empress looked up.
"What d'you mean, Perry?" she asked.
"What I say, Henrietta. Mr. Harrison has his orders."
Had the Emperor been speaking of certain secret commands laid by
him upon a professional assassin his voice could not have been more
fiercely sinister. The blood of the Empress almost ran cold.
"No, they never do that to me!" bellowed the orchestrion.
"What orders, Perry? Orders to do what?"
"Ah!" said the Emperor, wagging his massive head passionately from one
side to the other, while his eyes stared as if in contemplation of some
terrible picture. "Let them try it on! Let them only try it, and they
will repent it, Henrietta, to the last day of their natural lives!"
"Perry!" said the Empress impressively, "what are you going for to do?"
"My duty to you and to the home."
"What! then the Londoners ain't coming?"
"Are not, my dear," said the Emperor in courtly correction. "Yes, come
they must, for I've given my word to the fiddle-faced feller. But, as I
say, Mr. Harrison has his orders to keep his eye on them, day in, day
out, morning, noon and night."
"Night, Perry!" ejaculated the Empress. "What—the ladies?"
"Only till they retire, Henrietta, of course. If they damage the
bedrooms they shall answer for it, though!"
The Emperor delivered the last sentence with the sudden rapidity and
power of a thunder-clap. The Empress, who was now beginning to take a
back seat, looked admiringly at her lord.
"Ah, Perry, what a man you are!" she murmured.
"They shall find out what sort of a man I am, if they try on any of
their tricks here," said the Emperor. "If so much as a bit of wood's
chipped off, or so much as a parrot's missing, they'll regret it—to
their lives' end, they will!"
But now, with the inconsistency of woman, the Empress returned to her
former complaining.
"Yes, I daresay," she said, in a whining voice; "but having it out of
them in the end won't make up to us for all we have to go through.
Think of it, Perry! You and me not able to be in the home, not able to
sit at tea in the hall, not able to hear that"—she waved her plump
hand sorrowfully at the orchestrion—"of an evening! Oh, Perry, think
of the silence—think of the silence!"
And here the Empress wept as women weep at the silence of the grave.
The Emperor looked at the orchestrion.
"We might take it with us, perhaps," he said musingly. "It would be a
comfort to us, Henrietta, that can't be denied."
"It's too big for the cottage," wept the Empress. "No, it must be left
for the Londoners to hear; they'll listen to 'em, Perry—to all our
tunes. They'll hear 'em sitting where we sit now—'What's the Odds as
Long as we're Young?' and 'I Didn't Go for to Cheese my Pal,' and 'My
Old Dutch,' and all the rest of 'em! And we shall be sitting, you and
me, and nothing but silence for us to hear!"
The poor lady became epic. She beat her hands in her emblazoned lap,
and her features seemed to disappear behind her expression as the
features in an agonised face sometimes do.
"It's only for six days," faltered the Emperor, almost overwhelmed by
the realisation of what was before them.
"It'll seem six years—it'll seem a lifetime! And the size of the
cottage, too! Why, it was only made to hold a fisherman!"
This argument was so unanswerable that the Emperor could only say:
"My dear, the house in Camberwell was small."
"And so was we when we lived there," retorted the Empress. "But we're a
bit bigger now, I hope."
Who could stand up against such merciless logic? Not the Emperor,
certainly. He began to feel as if they would have to spend their
week in the fishing-cottage crouching upon all-fours, in attitudes
formed to attract the cramp. And meanwhile that pernicious race, "the
Londoners," as the Empress always called them in the voice of one
alluding to the Hairy Ainu, or any other peculiarly savage tribe—the
Londoners would be couching in the partially baronial hall, wandering
through the vistas of boudoirs, reading in the libraries, listening to
the light conversation of the parrots in the winter gardens, dining
among the stags' heads in the cedar-wood parlour, possibly even
dancing, or dicing, or following some other cannibal custom in the
purple drawing-room. All these ideas, thronging upon him in a grisly
crowd, so weighed upon the Emperor's spirit that he let his head drop
on his breast, and allowed to escape from him this awful sentence of
self-condemnation:
"I do believe I've been a fool!"
"You never spoke a truer word, Perry," rejoined the pitiless Empress.
"And if I'd been at the Crystal Palace that night things would have
been different. All I say is, don't let that Mr. Rodney come near me,
or I may forget as I'm a lady, and let him feel on his face what I
think of him."
"He over-persuaded me. He said, Lady Sophia's word would bring in every
mother in the kingdom."
"May it prove so," said the Empress, with biting sarcasm—"may it prove
so, Perry! Do they bring their own linen?" she added sharply, "or do
they sleep between our very sheets?"
"I'm afraid, my love, that we have to provide everything, excepting
food. They pay extra for that—and drink."
The Empress lay back in a suffering position, as one who thinks of a
strange and unknown tribe sleeping between her private sheets, and
resting their dreadful heads upon her gently-nurtured pillow-slips.
This announcement of the Emperor's seemed to be the last straw.
She struggled no more; she resorted no longer to the weapons of
argumentative brilliancy, cunning sarcasm, fiery logic, or tender
pathos. She simply lay back and endured the devastating blows of Fate,
as prepared for her by the husband to whom she naturally looked for
tenderness and protection. And the Emperor, gazing furtively upon his
consort, was wrung to the very heart. And all the time the orchestrion,
as if in a mood of diabolic raillery, thundered out persistently "They
Never do That to Me!" The noise of the refrain got upon the Emperor's
nerves. It seemed to chide him for a base deed. For had he not done
the wrong thing by the Empress in striking his fearful bargain among
the glittering steel knives with Mr. Rodney? Surely, surely, yes. But
we do not like to have our faults brought home to us by a machine. The
Emperor suddenly stamped his foot furiously upon the floor. This motion
rang an electric bell let into the carpet beside his armchair. The
powdered Frederick instantly appeared.
"Stop it!" cried the Emperor in a fearful voice—"stop it!"
"Sir?"
"Stop that tune!"
Frederick induced the instrument to be quiet.
"And now," said the Emperor, throwing a compassionate and ashamed
glance upon his wife—"now set it at—let's see"—he paused, in deep
thought—"at the 'Dear Old Home.'"
Frederick obeying, the purple drawing-room was quickly pervaded
by a strain so soft and heartrending that it might have melted an
actor-manager to modesty, or persuaded a tigress to be tame. It had
its effect even upon the Empress. She started, glanced around her with
agitation as the melody smote—or rather glided—upon the porches of
her ears, composed herself to inflexibility, started again, regarded
the orchestrion with an air of distracted enquiry, turned to the
Emperor, and finally, with a wild and poignant cry of "Oh, Perry,
Perry, that it should come to this!" fell upon his breast, and bedewed
his frilled shirt-front with wifely tears.
There are scenes that must not be described, circumstances that must
not be depicted, situations that must not be intruded upon. One of the
chief of these is surely an Emperor and Empress in hysterics. Let the
veil close. Let privacy immerse the prostrated couple.
Yet we must meet them again in circumstances perhaps even more tragic.
We must follow them through ways foggy with misfortune.
The Sunday immediately preceding the Monday of Ascot week was a
black-letter day indeed for Mr. and Mrs. Lite. No potentates on the
eve of being thrust out from their kingdom ever suffered under a sense
of greater indignity than did they as they saw their boxes being
packed by valet and maid for departure, and wandered through the
palace taking a last farewell of the many objects that they loved so
dearly. Mrs. Lite was become entirely lachrymose under the weight of
unmerited misfortune, but her husband could in almost all circumstances
rely with certainty upon the support of his naturally violent temper,
and on this, as on many other less terrible occasions, it buoyed
him up, and prevented him from sinking into a condition of unmanly
despondency. Instead of being simply sad, he was also furious, and
although depression unutterable attacked his bleeding heart as the hour
drew near when he must leave the home, the passionate antagonism which
he increasingly felt against "the Londoners" kept him from breaking
down, and even assisted his habitual vitality till it burnt with the
fierceness of a flame fed by petroleum. Especially hot was his wrath
against poor innocent Mr. Rodney, the unsuspicious cause of all this
trouble. And one circumstance which increased the Bun Emperor's anger
against the gentle owner of Mitching Dean was that Lady Sophia Tree's
bun-praise, although it had been duly advertised in almost every paper
in the kingdom, had not as yet occasioned any very unusual rush of
infants upon the provender by the sale of which the Emperor and Empress
lived. The sale had kept up, had even slightly increased, but that
was all that could be said. Therefore the Emperor's troubled waters
were not mingled with a sufficient quantity of oil to quiet them. And
on this fateful Sunday his passion mounted to a climax. The veins
of his ample forehead were already swelled at breakfast—in Winter
Garden number one. His cheeks were flushed at lunch-time, and as the
afternoon drew on he seemed perpetually on the verge of an ebullition
of ungovernable fury. His large, gipsy-like eyes stared about him at
all the familiar objects which he had collected in the home, objects
hitherto only beheld by the very few persons—aristocratic bun-praisers
and others—whom the Emperor honoured with his personal friendship. He
held in one fat hand, and frequently referred to, a list, forwarded
according to agreement by Mr. Rodney, of the members of the vile tribe
who on the morrow were to take possession of his beautiful palace. The
list was as follows:
Mrs. Verulam.
The Duchess of Southborough.
The Lady Pearl McAndrew.
Hon. Miss Bindler.
Lady Drake.
Mr. Van Adam.
Mr. Hyacinth Rodney.
The Duke of Southborough.
Mr. Ingerstall.
Mr. James Bush.
Over and over again did the Emperor con this list, and endeavour to
conjure up an idea of what manner of women and men these unknown
strangers might be. Over and over again did he read the names aloud
to the Empress with a hard and guttural intonation. The only members
of the tribe personally known to him were the Duke and Duchess of
Southborough and Mr. Rodney. The latter he now loathed with all his
soul. The two former he respected as thoroughly useful and efficient
bun-praisers. What of the others? What of Mrs. Verulam, the Lady Pearl,
Miss Bindler? What of Mr. Van Adam, Mr. Ingerstall, and Mr. James
Bush? Names are sometimes suggestive, and call up pictures before the
eyes of the imaginative. The Bun Emperor became imaginative under the
combined influences of sorrow and temper, and, summoning the Empress
to him in the hall built for the accommodation of Handel Festivals, he
proceeded to go through a performance that was somewhat like a public
school "call-over," without any answers from the boys.
"Sit down, Henrietta," he said in a loud and quivering voice.
The Empress sat on a chair just under the great organ, and in the
shadow of the enormous staircase. The Emperor remained standing, as if
at a desk.
"Mrs. Verulam!" he cried, and looked from his list to the Empress,
consulting furiously her intuitions.
The Empress shook her curly head.
"You don't like it, Henrietta?" said the Emperor anxiously.
"It's a silly-sounding name," said the Empress.
"It is, my dear. She's the one that pays the rent."
The Empress pursed her lips, and two tears trickled slowly over her
rounded cheeks.
"That don't make her name any less silly-sounding," she gulped. "Oh, to
think——"
"Mr. Van Adam!" cried the Emperor hastily, consulting the list again.
This time he did not ask the Empress for her opinion, but gave his own.
"I call that a low name," he said. "Bible names I never could abide
since I was done by Ezekiel. You remember how I was done by Ezekiel
over the pork pies?" The Empress nodded miserably. "Never trust a man
with a Bible name," continued the Emperor impressively. "If you do,
he'll round on you. Ezekiel, Adam, Hezekiah—they're all alike, as
downy as they're made. Give a child a Bible name, and he'll grow up a
hypocrite. The Duchess of Southborough!"
"She's better."
"Yes; her Grace does know a good bun," rejoined the Emperor. "'Your
buns are exquisite'—you remember, Henrietta? That bit of bun-praise
did us more good than ever that Lady Sophia's will, I'll lay. Hon. Miss
Bindler?"
No response from the Empress. No comment from the Emperor.
"Lady Drake!"
Ditto.
"Mr. Hyacinth Rodney! Fiddle-faced beast! Mr. Ingerstall! What d'you
think of him, my dear?"
"Not much," said the Empress. "Not much, Perry. He sounds to me like
one of those nasty little fellers that go worming themselves about in
places where they've no business."
"He'd better let Mr. Harrison catch him worming himself about when he's
here!" cried the Emperor with a sudden explosion of passion. "There
shall be no worming here, Henrietta, if I have to go against my word
and turn them all out neck and crop into the street."
In moments of emotion the imperial minds instinctively returned to
early Camberwell days, and fell into the dear old Cockney habit of
supposing that on making an exit from any building whatsoever, the
person so doing must immediately find himself in a street. As a matter
of fact, Ribton Marches stood majestically in its own grounds of some
sixty acres, or thereabouts.
"Mr. James Bush!" cried the Emperor, partially recovering self-control.
There was a long pause, during which the couple regarded each
other with staring eyes, that seemed turned inward in vehement
self-examination. It appeared as if this name, the last on the list,
carried with it a strange luggage of perplexity and confusion.
"Bush," the Emperor said at length—"James Bush. Well, Henrietta?"
"I don't know what to think of it," said the Empress. "I don't like it,
Perry, I can't say I do. It's not a name I should have ever cared to
marry, even when I was a foolish thing, before I took up with you and
the pie-shop. No, it's not a name to marry."
The Emperor seemed greatly struck with these illuminative remarks. Yet
he passed over the matrimonial demerits of Mr. Bush's name, and, with
that power of coming straight to the point so characteristic of great
minds, said:
"Is it a name to have in the home, Henrietta? That's the thing for us.
Is it a name to have sleeping in our beds, eating off our linen, and
listening to the instrument of an evening?"
The Empress wagged her head morosely in reply.
"Ah!" she said, "is it?"
"I have my doubts," the Emperor continued. "Shall we ask Mr. Harrison,
my dear? We can always rely on him. He is a man that has seen the
world, and can judge of a name at a first hearing."
"We might do worse," responded the Empress lachrymosely.
The Emperor pommelled the bell.
"Request Mr. Harrison to step this way," he said firmly to the footman.
In about five minutes the groom of the chambers appeared within the
precincts of the hall. Mr. Harrison was remarkably well grown, and of
a certain age. His hair had left him in his youth, but he retained a
very red complexion, a heavy manner, and a habit of throwing out his
feet, like a horse, on either side of him as he went along, which he
seldom did, since he was peculiarly addicted to repose. Apparently he
had been disturbed while in the active enjoyment of this peculiarity,
for he entered the presence with half-open eyes, a somewhat touzled
and distressed whisker, and one side of his face an entirely different
colour from the other. Where ordinary menials have their "day out," Mr.
Harrison had his day in bed. This day was the Sabbath; and it must be
confessed that he looked ill-pleased at the tour which he had been so
unexpectedly obliged to take.
"Mr. Harrison," the Emperor said, casting on the groom of the chambers
a searching glance, "I believe you are a man of the world."
"I am, sir," said Mr. Harrison, half allowing and half suppressing
a yawn, a circumstance which made his countenance suddenly full of
contradictory expressions.
"You can judge of a name at a first hearing, Mr. Harrison, I presume?"
said the Emperor.
"Sir?" said Mr. Harrison, still under the influence of slumber.
"You can tell what you think about a name the first time you hear it, I
say?" rejoined the Emperor, raising his voice.
"Oh, certainly, sir!" said Mr. Harrison, arranging the whisker
which had been next to the bolster with an unerring hand—"oh, most
certainly!"
"Very well, then. Now, Mr. Harrison, give me your attention, if you
please. I have here"—the Emperor pointed to Mr. Rodney's list—"the
name James Bush." The Emperor paused, and Mr. Harrison tried to emerge
from his last dream. "James Bush," repeated the Emperor.
"Indeed, sir!" said Mr. Harrison, feeling like a novice entangled in
some complicated game—"indeed!"
"Well, Mr. Harrison?" said the Emperor with growing emphasis—"well?"
The groom of the chambers felt that a statement of some kind about
something was undoubtedly required of him; he made a violent effort
to summon his mind, and, partially succeeding, was able presently to
exclaim with a good deal of determination:
"Not at all, sir—oh dear no; not at all—by no means!"
This seemed to him a remark that was adroit, and one that covered a
considerable number of interrogative possibilities. Unfortunately,
however, it did not appear to satisfy the requirements of the Emperor,
who with some ferocity remarked:
"And what d'you mean by that, Mr. Harrison? Hah!"
The groom of the chambers was at length fully aroused by the very
complex situation in which he now found himself, and, being really a
man of considerable resource, he put two and two together with the
swiftness of a Maxim gun.
"James Bush, sir," he said very emphatically; "oh dear no, sir! James
Bush—not at all—by no means—on no account whatever!"
He had not the smallest idea what he meant, or what he was being asked,
and nobody could have been more surprised than himself at the effect
which his vociferous jargon created. The Emperor turned to the Empress
with the manner of a man who has received his quietus.
"There, Henrietta!" he said hoarsely—"there! You see what Mr. Harrison
thinks of him! And that he should come into the home! A feller like
that—a feller that——" He broke off, and turned to the astounded
groom of the chambers. "Mr. Harrison," he said, "we depend upon you in
this affair entirely."
Mr. Harrison inclined himself in unutterable perplexity.
"Keep your eye upon him."
"Sir?"
"I say, keep your eye especially upon that feller James Bush."
"Certainly, sir."
"Don't let him be too much for you, Mr. Harrison. He may have ways;
he may be such a man as Ezekiel, there's no knowing. But I hold you
responsible—Mrs. Lite and me, we hold you entirely responsible for
everything that man may do in the home."
The groom of the chambers, having now gathered that a person of the
name of James Bush was coming into Ribton Marches, doubtless as a
member of the Londoners' tribe, and that he was to be specially watched
by order of the Emperor, was comparatively at ease. He inclined himself
again.
"I shall see to him, sir. Depend upon me."
"We do depend upon you, Mr. Harrison—we do, don't we, Henrietta?"
"Mercy knows—we do!" sobbed the Empress.
"I shall not disappoint you, madam," said Mr. Harrison. "I shall know
how to act."
"I believe that, Mr. Harrison," said the Emperor. "And I may add that
if you should cop—if you should catch this feller, James Bush, at any
of his games—you understand?"
"Certainly, sir."
"And if you should, as we expect, be one too many for him, we shall not
forget it. You will have no reason to regret hereafter any steps that
you may take. You understand?"
"Quite so, sir. I shall take them, sir, you may depend."
"Thank you, Mr. Harrison. You may go."
Mr. Harrison left the presence with dignity, and was soon back again
in bed. As he laid his whisker once more on the bolster, he said to
himself:
"I must take care to cop that there James Bush at some game or another,
or where does the perquisite come in? Where is it?"
And murmuring thus he slept.