see if there were somefin fit for a present for oo! And there isn’t nuffin! They’s all broken, every one! And I haven’t got no money left, to buy oo a birthday-present! And I ca’n’t give oo nuffin but this!’ (‘This’ was a very earnest hug and a kiss.)
‘Oh, thank you, darling!’ cried Sylvie. ‘I like your present best of all!’ (But if so, why did she give it back so quickly?)
His Sub-Excellency turned and patted the two children on the head with his long lean hands. ‘Go away, dears!’ he said. ‘There’s business to talk over.’
Sylvie and Bruno went away hand in hand: but, on reaching the door, Sylvie came back again and went up to Uggug timidly. ‘I don’t mind about the butter,’ she said, ‘and I—I’m sorry he hurt you!’ And she tried to shake hands with the little ruffian: but Uggug only blubbered louder, and wouldn’t make friends. Sylvie left the room with a sigh.
The Sub-Warden glared angrily at his weeping son. ‘Leave the room, Sirrah!’ he said, as loud as he dared. His wife was still leaning out of the window, and kept repeating ‘I ca’n’t see that pig! Where is it?’
‘It’s moved to the right—now it’s gone a little to the left,’ said the Sub-Warden: but he had his back to the window, and was making signals to the Lord Chancellor, pointing to Uggug and the door, with many a cunning nod and wink.
The Chancellor caught his meaning at last, and, crossing the room, took that interesting child by the ear—the next moment he and Uggug were out of the room, and the door shut behind them: but not before one piercing yell had rung through the room, and reached the ears of the fond mother.
‘What is that hideous noise?’ she fiercely asked, turning upon her startled husband.
‘It’s some hyæna—or other,’ replied the Sub-Warden, looking vaguely up to the ceiling, as if that was where they usually were to be found. ‘Let us to business, my dear. Here comes the Warden.’ And he picked up from the floor a wandering scrap of manuscript, on which I just caught the words ‘after which Election duly holden the said Sibimet and Tabikat his wife may at their pleasure assume Imperial—’ before, with a guilty look, he crumpled it up in his hand. [•]
Chapter 4
A Cunning Conspiracy
The Warden entered at this moment: and close behind him came the Lord Chancellor, a little flushed and out of breath, and adjusting his wig, which appeared to have been dragged partly off his head.
‘But where is my precious child?’ my Lady enquired, as the four took their seats at the small side-table devoted to ledgers and bundles and bills.
‘He left the room a few minutes ago—with the Lord Chancellor,’ the Sub-Warden briefly explained.
‘Ah!’ said my Lady, graciously smiling on that high official. ‘Your Lordship has a very taking way with children! I doubt if any one could gain the ear of my darling Uggug so quickly as you can!’ For an entirely stupid woman, my Lady’s remarks were curiously full of meaning, of which she herself was wholly unconscious.
The Chancellor bowed, but with a very uneasy air. ‘I think the Warden was about to speak,’ he remarked, evidently anxious to change the subject.
But my Lady would not be checked. ‘He is a clever boy,’ she continued with enthusiasm, ‘but he needs a man like your Lordship to draw him out!’
The Chancellor bit his lip, and was silent. He evidently feared that, stupid as she looked, she understood what she said this time, and was having a joke at his expense. He might have spared himself all anxiety: whatever accidental meaning her words might have, she herself never meant anything at all.
‘It is all settled!’ the Warden announced, wasting no time over preliminaries. ‘The Sub-Wardenship is abolished, and my brother is appointed to act as Vice-Warden whenever I am absent. So, as I am going abroad for a while, he will enter on his new duties at once.’
‘And there will really be a Vice after all?’ my Lady enquired.
‘I hope so!’ the Warden smilingly replied.
My Lady looked much pleased, and tried to clap her hands: but you might as well have knocked two feather-beds together, for any noise it made. ‘When my husband is Vice,’ she said, ‘it will be the same as if we had a hundred Vices!’
‘Hear, hear!’ cried the Sub-Warden.
‘You seem to think it very remarkable,’ my Lady remarked with some severity, ‘that your wife should speak the truth!’
‘No, not remarkable at all!’ her husband anxiously explained. ‘Nothing is remarkable that you say, sweet one!’
My Lady smiled approval of the sentiment, and went on. ‘And am I Vice-Wardeness?’
‘If you choose to use that title,’ said the Warden: ‘but “Your Excellency” will be the proper style of address. And I trust that both “His Excellency” and “Her Excellency” will observe the Agreement I have drawn up. The provision I am most anxious about is this.’ He unrolled a large parchment scroll, and read aloud the words ‘“item, that we will be kind to the poor.” The Chancellor worded it for me,’ he added, glancing at that great Functionary. ‘I suppose, now, that word “item” has some deep legal meaning?’
‘Undoubtedly!’ replied the Chancellor, as articulately as he could with a pen between his lips. He was nervously rolling and unrolling several other scrolls, and making room among them for the one the Warden had just handed to him. ‘These are merely the rough copies,’ he explained: ‘and, as soon as I have put in the final corrections—’ making a great commotion among the different parchments, ‘—a semi-colon or two that I have accidentally omitted—’ here he darted about, pen in hand, from one part of the scroll to another, spreading sheets of blotting-paper over his corrections, ‘all will be ready for signing.’
‘Should it not be read out, first?’ my Lady enquired.
‘No need, no need!’ the Sub-Warden and the Chancellor exclaimed at the same moment, with feverish eagerness.
‘No need at all,’ the Warden gently assented. ‘Your husband and I have gone through it together. It provides that he shall exercise the full authority of Warden, and shall have the disposal of the annual revenue attached to the office, until my return, or, failing that, until Bruno comes of age: and that he shall then hand over, to myself or to Bruno as the case may be, the Wardenship, the unspent revenue, and the contents of the Treasury, which are to be preserved, intact, under his guardianship.’
All this time the Sub-Warden was busy, with the Chancellor’s help, shifting the papers from side to side, and pointing out to the Warden the place where he was to sign. He then signed it himself, and my Lady and the Chancellor added their names as witnesses.
‘Short
