"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.
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