“Unless she is more careful, she’ll go paddling once too often,” the Duke replied, contemplating with interest, above the moonlight-coloured daffodils upon the table board, one of the button-nosed belles of Queen Thleeanouhee’s suite. The young creature, referred to cryptically among the subordinates of the Castle, as ‘Tropical Molly,’ was finding fault already it seemed with the food. “Take it away,” she was protesting in animated tones: “I’d as soon touch a foot-squashed mango!” “No _mayonnaise_, miss?” a court-official asked, dropping his face prevailingly to within an inch of her own. “Take it right away.... And if you should _dare_ sir! to come any closer...!” The Mistress of the Robes fingered nervously the various Orders of Merit on her sumptuous bosom. “I trust there will be no contretemps,” she murmured, glancing uneasily towards the Queen of the Land of Dates, who seemed to be lost in admiration of the Royal dinner-service of scarlet plates, that looked like pools of blood upon the cloth. “What pleases me in your land,” she was expansively telling her host, “is less your food, than the china you serve it on; for with us you know there’s none. And now,” she added, marvellously wafting a fork, “I’m for ever spoilt for shells.” King William was incredulous. “With you no china?” he gasped. “None, Sir, none!” “I could not be more astonished,” the king declared, “if you told me there were fleas at the Ritz,” a part of which assertion Lady Something, who was blandly listening, imperfectly chanced to hear. “Who would credit it!” she breathed, turning to an attaché, a young man all white and pensieroso, at her elbow. “Credit what?” “Did you not hear what the dear king said!” “No.” “It’s almost _too_ appalling ...” Lady Something replied, passing a small, nerveless hand across her brow. “Won’t you tell me though,” the young man murmured gently, with his nose in his plate. Lady Something raised a glass of frozen lemonade to her lips. “Fleas,” she murmured, “have been found at the Ritz.” “.............!.............?.......!.....!!!” “Oh and _poor_ Lady Bertha! And poor good old Mrs Hunter!” And Lady Something looked away in the direction of Sir Somebody, as though anxious to catch his eye. But the British Ambassador and the Duchess of Varna were weighing the chances of a Grant being allowed by Parliament for the excavation of Chedorlahomor. “Dear little Chedor,” the Duchess kept on saying, “I’m sure one would find the most enthralling things there. Aren’t _you_, Sir Somebody?” And they were still absorbed in their colloquy when the King gave the signal to rise. Although King William had bidden several distinguished Divas from the Opera House to give an account of themselves for the entertainment of his guests, both King Jotifa and Queen Thleeanouhee with disarming candour declared that, to their ears, the music of the West was hardly to be borne.