“Why, what a beastly fellow is this?” said Lord Goldry in his brother’s ear. “His hairy hands reach down to his knees. A shuffleth in his walk like a hobbled jackass.” “I like not the dirty face of the Ambassador,” said Lord Zigg. “His nose sitteth flat on the face of him as it were a dab of clay, and I can see pat up his nostrils a summer day’s journey into his head. If’s upper lip bespeak him not a rare spouter of rank fustian, perdition catch me. Were it a finger’s breadth longer, a might tuck it into his collar to keep his chin warm of a winter’s night.” “I like not the smell of the Ambassador,” said Lord Brandoch Daha. And he called for censers and sprinklers of lavender and rose water to purify the chamber, and let open the crystal windows that the breezes of heaven might enter and make all sweet. [Illustration: THE LORDS JUSS, GOLDRY BLUSZCO, SPITFIRE, AND BRANDOCH DAHA.] So the Ambassador walked up the shining floor and stood before the lords of Demonland that sat upon the high seats between the golden hippogriffs. He was robed in a long mantle of scarlet velvet lined with ermine, with crabs, woodlice, and centipedes worked thereon in golden thread. His head was covered with a black velvet cap with a peacock’s feather fastened with a brooch of silver. Supported by his train-bearers and attendants, and leaning on his golden staff, he with raucous accent delivered his mission: “Juss, Goldry, and Spitfire, and ye other Demons, I come before you as the Ambassador of Gorice XI., most glorious King of Witchland, Lord and great Duke of Buteny and Estremerine, Commander of Shulan, Thramnë, Mingos, and Permio, and High Warden of the Esamocian Marches, Great Duke of Trace, King Paramount of Beshtria and Nevria and Prince of Ar, Great Lord over the country of Ojedia, Maltraëny, and of Baltary and Toribia, and Lord of many other countries, most glorious and most great, whose power and glory is over all the world and whose name shall endure for all generations. And first I bid you be bound by that reverence for my sacred office of envoy from the King, which is accorded by all people and potentates, save such as be utterly barbarous, to ambassadors and envoys.” “Speak and fear not,” answered Juss. “Thou hast mine oath. And that hath never been forsworn, to Witch or other barbarian.” The Ambassador shot out his lips in an O, and threatened with his head; then grinned, laying bare his sharp and misshapen teeth, and proceeded: “Thus saith King Gorice, great and glorious, and he chargeth me to deliver it to you, neither adding any word nor taking away: ‘I have it in mind that no ceremony of homage or fealty hath been performed before me by the dwellers in my province of Demonland——’”