"So you're come at last!" the Emperor sulkily remarked, as the Professor and the children took their places. It was evident that he was very much out of temper: and we were not long in learning the cause of this. He did not consider the preparations, made for the Imperial party, to be such as suited their rank. "A common mahogany table!" he growled, pointing to it contemptuously with his thumb. "Why wasn't it made of gold, I should like to know?"
"It would have taken a very long" the Professor began, but the Emperor cut the sentence short.
"Then the cake! Ordinary plum! Why wasn't it made ofof" He broke off again. "Then the wine! Merely old Madeira! Why wasn't it? Then this chair! That's worst of all. Why wasn't it a throne? One might excuse the other omissions, but I ca'n't get over the chair!"
"What I ca'n't get over," said the Empress, in eager sympathy with her angry husband, "is the table!"
"Pooh!" said the Emperor.
y 2
