A tiny figure splashed a web of cloth-of-gold over the balcony; and a tiny ermine and vermilion figure ascended, placing a tiny triple cross. Came in a stentorian megaphonic roar a proclamation by the Cardinal-Archdeacon, "I announce to you great joy. We have for a Pope the Lord George of the Roses of England, Who has imposed upon Himself the name of Hadrian the Seventh." He gave place to another tiny figure, silver and gold, irradiant in the sun. A clear thin thread of a voice sang, "Our help is in the Name of the Lord." Phonographs recorded the sonorous response, "Who hath made heaven and earth." Hadrian the Seventh raised His hand and sang again, "May Almighty God, ✠ ✠ ✠ Father, ✠ ✠ ✠ Son, ✠ ✠ ✠ and Holy Ghost, bless you." It was the Apostolic Benediction of the City and the World. CHAPTER IV Now things went briskly. There was a brain which schemed and a will to be obeyed. The hands began to realize that they would have to act manually. Dear deliberate Rome simply gasped at a Pontiff Who said "To-morrow" and meant it. The Sacred College found that it had no option. Naturally it looked as black as night. But the Cardinal-Archdeacon could not refuse point-blank to crown; and, when Hadrian announced that His incoronation would take place in the morning on the steps of St. Peter's, futile effort suggested difficulty preventing possibility. That was the only course open to the opposition. Three cardinals in turn alleged that there would not be time to give notice of the ceremony, to arrange the church, to issue tickets of admission. Hadrian swept these ideas aside, as rubbish. Another courted catastrophe saying that there was no time to summon the proper officials. He heard that there were sixteen hours in which to summon those who actually were indispensable. A fifth said that, owing to the antichristian tendencies of the times, no representatives of the King of France, of the Holy Roman Emperor, of the First Conservator of the Roman people, were forthcoming; and he politely inquired how the quadruplex lavation could be performed in their absence? The Pope responded that He was capable of washing His hands four times without any assistance, in the absence of legitimate assistants: but the General of the Church was not to seek: the modern Syndic of Rome was the equivalent of the ancient First Conservator: the Austrian Ambassador could represent the Empire: while, as for wretched kingless unkingly France--let someone instantly go out into the streets of Rome and catch the first Christian Frenchman there encountered. Anyhow, the quadruplex lavation was accidental. The essential was that the Supreme Pontiff should sing a pontifical mass at the high altar of St. Peter's, and should receive the triple crown. These things would be done at eight o'clock on the following morning. All the doors of the basilica were to be fixed open at midnight; and so remain. No official notice need be published. And that was all.