And the prince, in his rage, stalked to the door. Suddenly he stopped.
"What is the state of the thermometer to-day?" said he.
The valet flew to the window and examined the little thermometer that hung outside.
"Sixty degrees, your highness."
"Sixty degrees!" sighed the prince. "Then I dare not go to the coach-house. Is the coach mounted on the wheels?"
"No, your highness."
"Then let the upholsterer have the carriage brought to my room, with the drawings and his tools. Be off! In ten minutes all must be here!"
Just ten minutes later the door opened, and in came a handbarrow, upon which stood the body of the coach. It was one mass of bronze, plate-glass mirrors, and gilding. Behind it appeared the upholsterer, pale with fright, carrying on one arm a bundle of satin and velvet, and in his right hand holding the drawings of the prince. "Set it down in the centre of the room," said Kaunitz, imperiously, and then turning a look of wrath upon the unhappy upholsterer, he said, with terrible emphasis: "Is it true that you have the audacity to say that you cannot work after my drawings?"
"I hope your highness will forgive me," stammered the upholsterer, "but there is not room in the inside of the coach for all the bows and rosettes. I would have been obliged to make them so small that the coach would have looked like one of the patterns we show to our customers. "
"And you dare tell me that to my face? Do you suppose that I do not know your miserable trade, or do you mean that it is easier to govern an empire than to trim up a coach? I will prove to you that I am a better upholsterer than you are. Open the door, and I will decorate the coach myself."
The upholsterer opened the richly-gilded glass door, and Kaunitz, as much in earnest as when he had been giving and taking a kingdom, entered the coach and seated himself.