I don’t know but what I should have forgotten the dutiful respect I owed his most Serene Highness if I had been called upon to behold what the Konrektor beheld. Right in the middle of the room there was a small platform resting on the necks of bottles, on top of that a sort of pavilion made of glass that came down to the floor, and roofed over with a light-blue silk tent, that looked like a parasol for fifteen persons, and in this remarkable affair sat his Highness in his innocent terror, clothed in a yellow silk dressing-gown, with a green silk nightcap on his head, and with a pair of shoes on his feet varnished with red sealing-wax. He looked for all the world like a handsome canary with a green top-knot, that had been put in a cage to sing a sweet song; and he might have begun singing at any moment if only he had felt less down at the mouth.
In his quality as sovereign lord he would doubtless have sung a right testy little song at the Konrektor for laughing, the more so as he had a crow to pick with him anyway for his matrimonial intentions,[6] had not a sudden stroke of lightning interrupted his Highness’s sing-song. “What nonsense are you——?” and now came the lightning, and he clapped his silk handkerchief over his eyes—“Mercy on us!” and he peeped out from behind the handkerchief, listening for the thunder, and when it came he stopped up his ears and exclaimed again, “Mercy on us!”
The Konrektor had stopped laughing by this time, and examined the cage from before and behind, and his Highness looked at him in an uncertain way, and asked at last—
“Well, what do you say? Will it do? Glass, silk, and”—here he raised one of his legs—“here is sealing-wax; and I have had everything taken out that’s made of metal.”
“Ay,” said the Konrektor, “I dare say it’s all right, your Highness; what man can do has been done; but, begging your pardon, the gold ducal crown that’s up on top of the throne you are sitting on you’ve forgotten.”
“Didn’t I tell you so? Didn’t I tell you so? That ass, Rand. Oh, mercy on us!” for it lightened again.
“Sheep-headed fool, you! bring another chair! I don’t want any ducal honours. When there’s such a storm as this I’m no more than another man—mercy on us!” and he held his hands over his ears. “Eh, Konrektor?”
The Konrektor said he believed it; but the throne with the crown on it might stay there; they could wrap up the crown in a silk handkerchief.
After that his Highness ordered Rand to go out and take a look at the weather. Rand did it, and came back: “The storm is over, but there’s another one all ready to burst, and it looks mighty grim.”
“Rand, bring another chair in my weather-temple for the Konrektor.”