society, he would commence ha-ha-ha-ing at the top of his voice. At such
moments he was reflecting that in a very few days the much-befeted
cavalier would turn out to be nothing but his heyduke! Many a time he
would sit up in bed to laugh; nay, once, in the House itself, in full
session, when the galleries were filled with the _elite_ of society, and
the protocols were being read, the old gentleman, observing how the
ladies were regarding the handsome figure of Mike, as he stood amongst a
group of young nobles, with all their eyes--the old gentleman, I say,
was so overcome thereby that he burst into an irrestrainable fit of
laughter on the spot, for which he was called to order and fined. He
paid the fine immediately, but he had to pay it over double before the
day was over, for he could not restrain his laughter when he bethought
him of the near-approaching _denoument_ of this humorous masquerade.

And at last rosy Whitsun Day, most comical of days, arrived. Karpathy
had ordered a great and costly supper to be laid in the park beyond the
Danube, to which he invited every one who was at all intimate with Mike.
What a splendid joke it will be to present the hero of so many a triumph
to the company as--a lackey! Master Jock would not have parted with his
joke for an empire.

The clock had just struck a quarter to four. According to the compact,
the Whitsun King ought now to be waiting there in the antechamber, and
Master Jock ordered him to be shown in.

"What new sort of manners do you call this?" cried Mike as he entered
the room, flinging himself into an armchair; "why do you keep an
honourable man waiting ten minutes in your antechamber?"

There was a pipe in Master Jock's mouth, and he was engaged at that
moment in filling it with tobacco.

"Halloa! Mike my son!" said he with infinite slyness, "just you get out
of that chair and light my pipe for me--d'ye hear?"

"Light it yourself!" replied Mike; "the flint and steel is close beside
you."

Master Jock stared at him with all his eyes. The lad himself had clearly
forgotten what day it was. All the more piquant then to startle him out
of his insolent security.

"Then, my beloved little brother, are you not aware that to-day is red
Whitsun Day?"

"What's that got to do with me? I am neither a parson nor an
almanac-maker."

"Eh, eh! Recollect that at a quarter to four your Whitsun Kingship
ceases!"

"And what then?" inquired Mike, without the slightest pe