LITMIR.BIZ

      He roared out the last words for the benefit of Uggug, who had just come into the room, and was now standing, with his hands spread out, and eyes and mouth wide open, the very picture of stupid amazement. ‘Oh, my!’ was all he could gasp out.

      The Keeper pretended to be adjusting the bear’s collar, which gave him an opportunity of whispering, unheard by Uggug, ‘my fault, I’m afraid! Quite forgot to fasten the door. Plot’s ruined if he finds it out! Keep it up a minute or two longer. Be savage!’ Then, while seeming to pull it back with all his strength, he let it advance upon the scared boy: my Lady, with admirable presence of mind, kept up what she no doubt intended for a savage growl, though it was more like the purring of a cat: and Uggug backed out of the room with such haste that he tripped over the mat, and was heard to fall heavily outside—an accident to which even his doting mother paid no heed, in the excitement of the moment.

      The Vice-Warden shut and bolted the door. ‘Off with the disguises!’ he panted. ‘There’s not a moment to lose. He’s sure to fetch the Professor, and we couldn’t take him in, you know!’ And in another minute the disguises were stowed away in the cupboard, the door unbolted, and the two Conspirators seated lovingly side-by-side on the sofa, earnestly discussing a book the Vice-Warden had hastily snatched off the table, which proved to be the City-Directory of the capital of Outland.

      The door opened, very slowly and cautiously, and the Professor peeped in, Uggug’s stupid face being just visible behind him.

      ‘It is a beautiful arrangement!’ the Vice-Warden was saying with enthusiasm. ‘You see, my precious one, that there are fifteen houses in Green Street, before you turn into West Street.’

      ‘Fifteen houses! Is it possible?’ my Lady replied. ‘I thought it was fourteen!’ And, so intent were they on this interesting question, that neither of them even looked up till the Professor, leading Uggug by the hand, stood close before them.

      My Lady was the first to notice their approach. ‘Why, here’s the Professor!’ she exclaimed in her blandest tones. ‘And my precious child too! Are lessons over?’

      ‘A strange thing has happened!’ the Professor began in a trembling tone. ‘His Exalted Fatness’ (this was one of Uggug’s many titles) ‘tells me he has just seen, in this very room, a Dancing-Bear and a Court-Jester!’

      The Vice-Warden and his wife shook with well-acted merriment.

      ‘Not in this room, darling!’ said the fond mother. ‘We’ve been sitting here this hour or more, reading—’ here she referred to the book lying on her lap, ‘—reading the—the City-Directory.’

      ‘Let me feel your pulse, my boy!’ said the anxious father. ‘Now put out your tongue. Ah, I thought so! He’s a little feverish, Professor, and has had a bad dream. Put him to bed at once, and give him a cooling draught.’

      ‘I ain’t been dreaming!’ his Exalted Fatness remonstrated, as the Professor led him away.

      ‘Bad grammar, Sir!’ his father remarked with some sternness. ‘Kindly attend to that little matter, Professor, as soon as you have corrected the feverishness. And, by the way, Professor!’ (The Professor left his distinguished pupil standing at the door, and meekly returned.) ‘There is a rumour afloat, that the people wish to elect an—in point of fact, an—you understand that I mean an—’

      ‘Not another Professor!’ the poor old man exclaimed in horror.

      ‘No! Certainly not!’ the Vice-Warden eagerly explained. ‘Merely an Emperor, you understand.’

      ‘An Emperor!’ cried the astonished Professor, holding his head between his hands, as if he expected it to come to pieces with the shock. ‘What will the Warden—’

      ‘Why, the Warden will most likely be the new Emperor!’ my Lady explained. ‘Where could we find a better? Unless, perhaps—’ she glanced at her husband.

      ‘Where indeed!’ the Professor fervently responded, quite failing to take the hint.

      The Vice-Warden resumed the thread of his discourse. ‘The reason I mentioned it, Professor, was to ask you to be so kind as to preside at the Election. You see it would make the thing respectable—no suspicion of anything underhand—’

      ‘I fear I ca’n’t, your Excellency!’ the old man faltered. ‘What will the Warden—’

      ‘True, true!’ the Vice-Warden interrupted. ‘Your position, as Court-Professor, makes it awkward, I admit. Well, well! Then the Election shall be held without you.’

      ‘Better so, than if it were held within me!’ the Professor murmured with a bewildered air, as if he hardly knew what he was saying. ‘Bed, I think your Highness said, and a cooling-draught?’ And he wandered dreamily back to where Uggug sulkily awaited him.

      I followed them out of the room, and down the passage, the Professor murmuring to himself, all the time, as a kind of aid to his feeble memory, ‘C, C, C; Couch, Cooling-Draught, Correct-Grammar,’ till, in turning a corner, he met Sylvie and Bruno, so suddenly that the startled Professor let go of his fat pupil, who instantly took to his heels.