"Was you mad when you says, 'Dance away and be damned'?" said the Emperor.
"Sir!" cried Mr. Harrison, cold with surprise.
"Was you mad when you says to Mrs. Lite, 'Go to blazes'?"
"Oh, most decidedly—oh, undoubtedly I was, sir!"
"And when you tells me to give a bullock sulphur?"
"Did I, sir?" said Mr. Harrison, beaded with perspiration.
"Mr. Harrison, you did," said the Emperor, with pathetic impressiveness; "and that I was to keep my hair on, look after the sheep and again be damned, Mr. Harrison."
"It was madness, sir; it was indeed, it must have been; oh, not a doubt of it! There can be no question—a bullock, sulphur, dance and be——Oh dear! oh dear! It was madness—oh, most certainly."
"Enough, Mr. Harrison!" said the Emperor with benign condescension. "Enough! Mrs. Lite and me, believing that you was driven mad, will overlook the expressions which should not have come from you to such as us. Enough, Mr. Harrison, enough!"
If Mr. Harrison, touched to the quick by this sublime expression of pardon, fell at his master's feet, who shall blame him? Who shall call him servile? Only greatness and gratitude can properly worship greatness. In the council of war which followed potentate and subject consulted together on equal terms as to what should be done in consequence of the dreadful circumstances which had arisen in the palace from Lady Drake's hereditary instinct for suppers. Measures were concerted, plans were laid, and the groom of the chambers retired from the presence at about ten o'clock, primed with so many orders and injunctions that the madness to which he had falsely sworn seemed not unlikely soon to come upon him in stern reality.