第19章

'Where is Bulbo?' said the King.'John, where is His Royal Highness?' John said he had a took hup His Roilighnessesses shaving-water, and his clothes and things, and he wasn't in his room, which he sposed His Royliness was just stepped trout.

'Stepped out before breakfast in the snow! Impossible!' says the King, sticking his fork into a sausage.'My dear, take one.

Angelica, won't you have a saveloy?' The Princess took one, being very fond of them; and at this moment Glumboso entered with Captain Hedzoff, both looking very much disturbed.

'I am afraid Your Majesty--' cries Glumboso.

'No business before breakfast, Glum!' says the King.' Breakfast first, business next.Mrs.V., some more sugar!'

'Sire, I am afraid if we wait till after breakfast it will be too late,' says Glumboso.'He--he--he'll be hanged at half-past nine.'

'Don't talk about hanging and spoil my breakfast, you unkind, vulgar man you,' cries the Princess.'John, some mustard.Pray who is to be hanged?'

'Sire, it is the Prince,' whispers Glumboso to the King.

'Talk about business after breakfast, I tell you!' says His Majesty, quite sulky.

'We shall have a war, Sire, depend on it,' says the Minister.

'His father, King Padella...'

'His father, King WHO?' says the King.'King Padella is not Giglio's father.My brother, King Savio, was Giglio's father.'

'It's Prince Bulbo they are hanging, Sire, not Prince Giglio,'

says the Prime Minister.

'You told me to hang the Prince, and I took the ugly one,' says Hedzoff.'I didn't, of course, think Your Majesty intended to murder your own flesh and blood! '

The King for all reply flung the plate of sausages at Hedzoff's head.The Princess cried out 'Hee-kareekaree!' and fell down in a fainting fit.

'Turn the cock of the urn upon Her Royal Highness,' said the King, and the boiling water gradually revived her.His Majesty looked at his watch, compared it by the clock in the parlour, and by that of the church in the square opposite; then he wound it up; then he looked at it again.'The great question is,' says he, 'am I fast or am I slow? If I'm slow, we may as well go on with breakfast.If I'm fast, why, there is just the possibility of saving Prince Bulbo.It's a doosid awkward mistake, and upon my word, Hedzoff, I have the greatest mind to have you hanged too.'

'Sire, I did but my duty; a soldier has but his orders.I didn't expect after forty-seven years of faithful service that my sovereign would think of putting me to a felon's death!'

'A hundred thousand plagues upon you! Can't you see that while you are talking my Bulbo is being hung?' screamed the Princess.

'By Jove! she's always right, that girl, and I'm so absent,' says the King, looking at his watch again.'Ha! there go the drums!

What a doosid awkward thing though!'

'Oh, papa, you goose! Write the reprieve, and let me run with it,' cries the Princess--and she got a sheet of paper, and pen and ink, and laid them before the King.

'Confound it! where are my spectacles?' the Monarch exclaimed.

'Angelica! go up into my bedroom, look under my pillow, not your mamma's; there you'll see my keys.Bring them down to me, and--Well, well! what impetuous things these girls are!'

Angelica was gone, and had run up panting to the bedroom, and found the keys, and was back again before the King had finished a muffin.'Now, love,' says he, 'you must go all the way back for my desk, in which my spectacles are.If you would but have heard me out...Be hanged to her! There she is off again.Angelica!

ANGELICA!' When His Majesty called in his LOUD voice, she knew she must obey, and came back.