_Nutts._ Wonder what artillery he’ll take, for there never was a marriage that will smell so much of gunpowder. Daresay they’ll marry him in a hollow square of soldiers, with charged bayonets; and, moreover, that he’ll have a suit of armour under his marriage clothes, and cannon with lighted fusees at the church door. _Tickle._ The Spanish Parliament, I see, has addressed the Queen, and wished her joy. And the Queen says (_reads_), “I receive with profound emotion the felicitations which you address to me on the occasion of my marriage with my august cousin, and that of my dear sister with the noble (_esclareido_) Duke de Montpensier. I have not only consulted _my own domestic happiness_, but also the welfare and prosperity of the nation.” _Nutts._ (_After a long whistle._) I wonder what would come of state affairs, if it wasn’t for the lying that holds ’em together! Why, lies to some governments seem like mortar to houses of bricks; couldn’t, it seems, stand at all without ’em. Consulted her own domestic happiness! poor soul! Consulted her parrot, perhaps. _Tickle._ That’s a nice old gentleman, Louis Philippe, isn’t he? Well, my blood as a Briton does bile a little to think that he has, so to speak, gammoned our gracious Sovereign, after all his embracing and kissing her at _Yow_,[2] and at Windsor Castle, and I don’t know where; and all the time, when he know’d that he meant to jockey us, and marry his son to that precious Infant. I do repeat it, my blood biles---- _Nutts._ It was shabby, certainly, and like a king. Nevertheless, think as I will upon the matter, my blood’s as mild as mutton broth. To be sure, I do think the little gal had better have married a Spaniard, ’specially as there’s a prince or two in the family. And if there hadn’t been a prince, at all events she ought to have married a countryman. _Slowgoe._ What! marry a princess to a husband with no royal blood! Do you know the consequence? What would you think if the eagle was to marry the dove? _Nutts._ Why, I certainly shouldn’t think much of the eggs. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. _Nutts._ (_Laying down newspaper and taking up razor._) It’s a great blessing it’s all over, and no signs yet of a revolution. Wonderful, isn’t it? Come, Mr Limpy, here’s a razor that ’ud take off the beard of a thistle. (_=Limpy= sits_.) Wonderful, isn’t it, what a deal o’ bad taste, as it’s called, Englishmen will stand, and quietly sleep upon, after all? Didn’t folks prophesy a riot at only the notion of putting the Wellington Idol--as I’m bold to call it--upon the top of the arch, and what’s the end of it? There’s Mrs Nutts, my wife, had made her mind up to a revolution, made her mind up to it as if it was a new gown, and no woman was ever more disappointed.