"Why will you excite yourself in this way, when I tell you that all will most easily be arranged? The Brigadier only asks to see you,--to ascertain, in fact, that you are really ill, and unable to be removed--" "To jail--to the common prison, eh?" "Oh, I must not talk to you, if it irritates you in this fashion; indeed, there is now little more to say, and if you will just permit the Brigadier to come in for a second, everything is done." "I 'm ready for him," said I, in a tone that showed I needed no further information; and Cary left the room. After about five minutes' waiting, in an almost intolerable impatience, the Brigadier, stooping his enormous bearskin to fully three feet, entered with four others, armed cap-à-pic, who drew up in a line behind him, and grounded their carbines with a clank that made the room shake. The Brigadier, I must tell you, was a very fine soldier-like fellow, and with fully half a dozen decorations hanging to his coat. It struck me that he was rather disappointed; he probably expected to see a man of colossal proportions and herculean strength, instead of the poor remnant of humanity that chicken broth and the lancet have left me. The room, too, seemed to fall below his expectations; for he threw his eyes around him without detecting any armory or offensive weapons, or, indeed, any means of resistance whatever. "This is his Excellency?" said he at last, addressing Cary; and she nodded. "Ask him his own name, Cary," said I. "I'm curious about it." "My name," said he, sonorously, to her question,--"my name is Alessandro Lamporeccho;" and with that he gave the word to his people to face about, and away they marched with all the solemnity of a military movement. As the door closed behind them, however, I heard a few words uttered in whispers, and immediately afterwards the measured tread of a sentry slowly parading the lobby outside my room. "That's another _formality_, Cary," said I, "is n't it?" She nodded for reply. "Tell them I detest ceremony, my dear," said I; "and--and "--I could n't keep down my passion--"and if they don't take that fellow away, I'll pitch him head and crop over the banisters." I tried to spring up, but back I fell, weak, and almost fainting. The sad truth came home to me at once that I had n't strength to face a baby; so I just turned my face to the wall, and sulked away to my heart's content. If I tell you how I spent that day, the same story will do for the rest of the week. I saw that they were all watching and waiting for some outbreak, of either my temper or my curiosity. They tried every means to tempt me into an inquiry of one kind or other. They dropped hints, in half-whispers, before me. They said twenty things to arouse anxiety, and even alarm, in me; but I resolved that if I passed my days there, I 'd starve them out: and so I did.