At this rejoinder the voice appeared to become a raving lunatic. It poured forth a stuttering volley of impossible words, some peculiar to Camberwell, others borrowed from a more Whitechapel dialect, and others again that are in ordinary use among the groom race, the able-seaman tribe, and the aborigines of the British army in all parts of the world. Mr. Bush heard them with a relish that was almost voluptuous. He now began to regard the affair as a thundering good joke—the sort of joke that his rustic mind could well appreciate, and his desire was to urge the voice on to further efforts in the fine profession of blasphemy. He therefore applied himself heartily to the tube just as Chloe appeared, walking gingerly at the summit of the staircase. Seeing the flicker of Mr. Bush's candle, she extinguished hers exactly as he bawled this varied monologue:
"Keep your hair on! There's nought like pea-poddin'. Look after the sheep, and the sheep'll look after you. Never give a bullock sulphur, or you'll repent of it. Keep on dancin'. Go to blazes—go!"
Chloe's first idea was that Mr. Bush had gravely exceeded, and that he was now squatting somewhere below her in a basement of the palace, and delivering his soul to some imaginary recipient of such articles. She cautiously descended some steps, and perceived the paragon at the telephone, listening with a rapt attention to the voice's reply to his rural adjuration. It cannot be printed here. In truth, the imperial occupant of the fishing-cottage, who supposed himself to be conversing with Mr. Harrison, drew near to apoplectic convulsions with a rapidity which seriously alarmed the Empress.
"How's yourself?" continued Mr. Bush, making a strong intellectual effort. "Has the dancin' done for yer? Would you like to skin me now? Come on; I'm waitin' to be skinned. Yes, I am; I'm ready for it. Come and skin me—come!"
To Chloe these words were totally inexplicable. To whom this invitation was addressed so cordially she had no idea. She found herself entranced as by the progress of a nightmare, and was just racking her brain to summon a vision of the person who was at the other end of the telephone, when she heard above her a creaking footstep.
This was the groom of the chambers. Poor Mr. Harrison possessed that useful knowledge, the knowledge of which side his bread was buttered. He would almost as soon have died as have lost his post in the palace, which, usually so easy and agreeable, was now become so onerous and complicated, therefore he was intent on obeying as many of the Bun Emperor's increasing commands as possible. But Mr. Harrison, being human, was subject to fatigue. Naturally of a lazy habit, his present unwonted exertions were beginning seriously to tell upon him, and he had therefore disregarded his potentate's commands to watch all night, had set an enormous alarum clock to explode punctually at a quarter to three o'clock in the morning, and had then flung himself fully dressed upon his feather four-poster to refresh himself with a three hours' nap. The alarum, he surmised, would enable him to be at the telephone ready with a lie at the appointed hour. Unfortunately, his calculations, excellent in themselves, were vitiated by the malign proceedings of the alarum, which chose to misbehave itself and to remain silent till three thirty, at which time it made an ejaculation like the last trump. Without glancing at the clock, the trustful groom of the chambers extricated himself from the deep valley in which he had been reposing between two ranges of lofty mountains of heaped-up down, and hastened towards his post, inventing a great number of admirable lies as he went. As he arrived at the top of the stairs, Mr. Bush, now tiring of the joke, restored the tube to its place, and, perceiving that he had wandered into a strange portion of the palace, made slowly off in search of the baronial hall. Chloe, hearing approaching footfalls above her, crept down after him; and thus it happened that Mr. Harrison, wholly unaware of what had passed, presently gained the telephone, and, smiling to himself at the ingenious fable of his night-watch which he was about to unfold, stood listening for the Emperor's ring. It came with violence, and, lending ear, Mr. Harrison found himself welcomed with:
"If you don't come round, as sure as you're a living man, at the end of the week I'll tear you limb from limb, I will."
"Sir!" cried Mr. Harrison into the tube, with an accent of unmitigated terror.
"If you don't come round, I say, to-morrow by eight, at the end of the week I'll tear you limb from limb."
"But, sir, I shall be round, depend upon me; I shall be there to the moment. Oh, most decidedly—without fail I will be round; rely on me."