"My land!" exclaimed Lady Beauvayse, stimulated by the undisguised enjoyment of Brayham, Courtley, and Franky, "if that don’t take the team and waggon, with the yella dog underneath it, an’ the hoss-fly sittin’ on the near-wheel mule’s left ear!" She added: "No wonder your Kaiser thinks himself the hub of this little old universe—being nourished from infancy on flapdoodle of that kind." She added, dropping the saw-edged artificial accent, and reverting to the agreeable, drawling tones familiar to her friends: "But, last fall, when King George and Queen Mary were allowing to spend the day with us at Foltlebarre Abbey, and see the Gobelins tapestries after Teniers that were restored by our great American dye-specialist, Charlotte B. Pendrill of New York—and I had a dud head with neuralgitis, and couldn’t have bobbed a curtsey without screaming like peacocks before a wet spell—Lord Beauvayse just sent a respectful note of excuse over by fast car to the place in our county where their Majesties were spending a week-end, and got a kind, cosy little line by return, making an appointment for a more convenient day." "_Es mag wohl sein_," said von Herrnung stiffly, repeating an apparently favourite phrase. "It may be so—in Great Britain. But in Germany the trivial happenings of ordinary existence are not permitted to interfere with the Imperial plans." "Mustn’t spoil Great Cæsar’s shoot by letting a natural sorrow dim your eye, in case you’re unexpectedly informed of a family bereavement," said Brayham to Lady Beauvayse. "So now you know what to expect in case the Kaiser should take it into his head to pop in on you at Foltlebarre somewhere about July." "I surmise I’d expect a visitor of mine, whether he’s the Kaiser, the King, or the President," retorted Lady Beauvayse, "to be a gentleman!" Her beautiful eyes blazed with genuine ire as she gave back von Herrnung’s dominating stare. She continued, reverting more purposefully than ever to the exaggerated New York accent, mingling cutting Yankee humour with bitter irony in the sentences that twanged, one after another, off her sharp American tongue: "And I guess, Count von Herrnung—though between your father and Amos J. Sculpin of Madison Avenue, New York, and Sculpin Towers, Schenectady, there’s considerable of a social gulf—if your Emperor had been a house-guest of my parpa’s, and my elder brother"—she lifted an exquisite shoulder significantly ceilingwards—"had happened to get the hoist—parpa’d just have said: ’Your Imperial Majesty, I am unexpectedly one boy short, and far from feeling hunkey. My cars are waiting at my door to convey you right-away to your hotel. Look in on us after the interment, when Mrs. Sculpin has had time to get accustomed to her mourning. And as my _chef_ had orders to serve a special dinner in honour of your Majesty, I shall be gratified by your taking the hull menoo along—outside instead of in!’" The Goblin cackled. Ecstatic Brayham shrieked: