"Long live the king!" they shouted, every fool and zany raising a tankard, save the dwarf and the young woman, the former continuing to glare vindictively upon the usurper, and the latter to all intent remaining oblivious of the ceremony of installation. Poised upon a chair, she idly thrust her fingers through the gilded bars of the cage that hung from the rafters and gently stroked the head of the now complaisant bird.
"Poor Jocko! Poor Jocko!" she murmured.
"La!—la!—la!—" sang the parrot, responsive to her light caress.
"Your Majesty's wishes! Your Majesty's decree!" exclaimed the monastic wit-worm.
"Hear! hear!" roared Brusquet.
"Silence!" commanded Marot. "His Majesty speaks."
"Toot! toot! toot!" rang out the flourish of a trumpet, a clarion prelude to the fiat from the throne.
The new king in motley arose; heedless, devil-may-care, very erect in his preposterously pointed shoes.
"I appoint you, Thony, treasurer of the exchequer, because you are quick at sleight-of-hand," he began.
"Good," laughed Marot. "An he's more light-fingered than his predecessor, he's a master of prestidigitation!"