He shut his ears distracted to a louder boom, and immediately was off again at a tangent—
“O Lady of Loretto, plead for thy servant!” (crash). “Mea maxima culpa—I will confess—if your Majesty will condescend to keep it to yourself—I am really a stupid man” (loud ring)—“well meaning, holy mother; well meaning, San Gennaro, but dull, as kings go, and surrounded by greater fools than myself. I have been seventeen times a father” (ring)—“at least” (loud ring), “and only once a husband” (groan). “Fool though I be, I have propagated my race for the glory of Holy Mother Church—and the confusion of the learned, her enemies. For the sake of my family, Madonna, succour me!”
He chattered so loud, racing up and down all the time, that I could hear his every word where I stood, awaiting events, by the door. Once, in a lull of the storm, he swooped round my way, and, suddenly becoming aware of me, stopped as if petrified, then rattled out, in a thick, gulping voice—
“Do you know who I am, madam? Do you know who I am?”
I curtsied profoundly.
“Sire,” I murmured, “—such a little cloud—to hide the sun of Majesty!”
He stared at me, and down at himself. “I am the king,” he muttered; “is it not so?”
The officer hurried to him, and whispered in his ear.
“Eh!” he exclaimed, “my wife’s physician? You find me very distraught, madam, very overtasked. I am so constituted I never could abide thunder”—and he was off again.
“Monsieur,” I whispered, “if we could get him prostrated on a sofa.”