"I'll keep my hands from you, but come in you shall!"
"Sir!" said Mr. Harrison, preparing to make conditions.
"Come in, I say, and I'll keep my hands off you!"
"And Mrs. Lite, sir?" said the cautious menial. "She will not attempt to injure me—oh dear no, on no account whatever!"
The Empress gave her word, and Mr. Harrison proceeded to the front door, and was quickly in the audience parlour. Now, extreme fear lends to some men brains. Mr. Harrison's fear was extreme, so extreme that, during his passage from the pond to the parlour, his mind became brilliant, and he formed a plan of campaign, which he at once proceeded to carry out with the skill of an accomplished general and actor. Instead of merely entering the parlour then, he burst into it with this remarkable utterance:
"Lord, sir, Lord! The doings of the Londoners! Lord, sir! The behaviour of them as is in your place! Their goings on! Their treatment of your inventions! Their tampering with Mrs. Lite's parrots! Their violence to me! Their manners with the telephone—Lord! Lord! To see them with the orchestrion! Only to see them! It is awful! Lord, sir, Lord! Their proceedings of a night-time! Sweet-eating! Getting at your labels! Flying at me with your button-hooks! Assaulting of me because I carry out your orders! Lord, sir, Lord! If I am driven mad, it is no wonder—oh no, indeed! by no means, on no account whatever!"
And he sank down upon a chair, as if in the very extremity of horror, as indeed, from other causes than those mentioned, he truly was. The Emperor and Empress turned ghastly pale as they surveyed him, and they, too, sat down abruptly.
"The worst has come!" said the Emperor, in a broken voice. "Henrietta, the worst has come along!"
"And worse than that, sir, you may depend upon me," said Mr. Harrison, plucking up courage and invention as he perceived the success of his wily ruse.