And then His Serene Highness, Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, stepped on the wharf and graciously introduced himself to the representative of the people, who grasped him warmly by the hand with a cordiality untempered by awe; and the people shouted again as they saw the two great men together; and not one suspected the anguish hidden by that martial outside. For, of course, as such things will happen, the Envoy selected to carry the Emperor’s proclamation to this marine principality was a man who had never been to sea in his life, and who never would have made a sailor if he had been kept at sea until he was pickled. And for eighteen hours the unfortunate messenger of good tidings had been tossed about in the dark, close, malodorous little cabin of a fishing-smack on the breast of a chopping sea, beating up against a strong head wind. And, oh! had he not been sick? Sick, sick, sick, and then again sick--so sick, indeed, that he had had to hide his gorgeous clothes under a sailor’s dirty tarpaulin. This made him feel sicker yet; but, though in the course of the trip he lost his respect for mankind, including himself, for royalty, for religion, for life and for death, he still retained a vital spark of respect for his beautiful clothes. He stood motionless upon the wharf and returned the compliments of the Head Burgess in a husky voice that sounded in his own ears strange and far off. The Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, Envoy of his Imperial Majesty, was waiting for the ground to steady itself, for it was behaving as it had never behaved before, to his knowledge. It rolled and it heaved, it flew up and it nearly hit him in the face, then it slipped away from under him and rocked back again sidewise. Never having been on an island before, the King’s Envoy might have thought that the land was really afloat if he had not seen that the wine in the silver cup which the Burgess was presenting to him was swinging around like everything else without spilling a drop. Things began to settle a little after the Envoy had drunk the wine, and when he had found that there was actually a carriage to take him to the Town Hall, he brightened up wonderfully. He was much pleased to see also that the Town Hall was solidly built of brick, and that it was to a stone balcony that he was led to read his proclamation to the people. Grasping the balustrade firmly with one hand, he read to the surging crowd before him--he had heard of surging crowds before, but now he saw one that really did surge--the message of his Imperial Master. The proclamation was exceedingly brief, except for the recital of the titles of the Emperor. The body of the document ran as follows: