"I really can't enjoy my food, Sidney," she complained in an undertone, "with every mouthful I take watched by all those members of the nobility!"
Suddenly she coloured with annoyance as she found she was being addressed in a gruff, strangled voice from a quarter it was difficult at first to locate. "Mr. Troitz," she demanded, "who is that ill-mannered person who seems to be trying to talk to Me with his mouth full?"
"The voice, your Majesty," he replied in the most matter-of-fact tone, "appears to proceed from the boar's head."
"How dare you try to impose on me by such a story? It's that wretched little astrologer man. Ventriloquism and Conjuring always go together, and I'll be bound he's underneath the table now!... Well," she said, after she had satisfied herself by looking, "if he's not there, he's somewhere in the room!"
The Court Chamberlain assured her that the Astrologer Royal was not only absent, but incapable of such a liberty; it really was the boar's head that had spoken, as animals in Märchenland would on rare occasions—even after suffering decapitation.
"There was Falada, Mummy," cried Ruby eagerly. "Don't you remember? The horse that talked poetry after its head had been cut off and nailed over the arch! Miss Heritage can tell you all about it."
But Miss Heritage could not—she was far too deeply engaged in wrestling with an inward demon of unholy mirth that threatened at any moment to gain the mastery.
The head began again. But whatever felicitations, predictions, or warning it was striving to utter were rendered practically inarticulate by a large lemon that had been unfeelingly inserted between its jaws.
"Have the boar's head removed at once, Mr. Troitz," ordered Queen Selina. "I cannot and will not have it interrupting the conversation like this. It couldn't happen at all in any civilised country. Why, we shall have the cold tongue beginning next, I suppose!..."
It was here that poor Daphne's demon got the upper hand.