The Other Professor looked thoroughly puzzled. `Well, well!' he said. `Try some cowslip wine!' And he filled a glass and handed it to Bruno. `Drink this, my dear, and you'll be quite another man!'

`Who shall I be?' said Bruno, pausing in the act of putting it to his lips.

`Don't ask so many questions!' Sylvie interposed, anxious to save the poor old man from further bewilderment. `Suppose we get the Professor to tell us a story.'

Bruno adopted the idea with enthusiasm. `Please do!' he cried eagerly. `Sumfin about tigers--and bumble- bees--and robin-redbreasts, oo knows!'

`Why should you always have live things in stories?' said the Professor. `Why don't you have events, or circumstances?'

`Oh, please invent a story like that!' cried Bruno.

The Professor began fluently enough. `Once a coincidence was taking a walk with a little accident, and they met an explanation--a very old explanation--so old that it was quite doubled up, and looked more like a conundrum--' he broke off suddenly.

`Please go on!' both children exclaimed.

The Professor made a candid confession. `It's a very difficult sort to invent, I find. Suppose Bruno tells one, first.'

Bruno was only too happy to adopt the suggestion.

`Once there were a Pig, and a Accordion, and two jars of Orange-marmalade--'

`The dramatis personæ,' murmured the Professor. `Well, what then?'

`So, when the Pig played on the Accordion,' Bruno went on, `one of the Jars of Orange-marmalade didn't like the tune, and the other Jar of Orange-marmalade did like the tune--I know I shall get confused among those Jars of Orange-marmalade, Sylvie!' he whispered anxiously.

`I will now recite the other Introductory Verses,' said the Other Professor.

Little Birds are choking
   Baronets with bun,
   Taught to fire a gun:
Taught, I say, to splinter
Salmon in the winter--
   Merely for the fun.

Little Birds are hiding
   Crimes in carpet-bags,
   Blessed by happy stags:
Blessed, I say, though beaten--
Since our friends are eaten
   When the memory flags.

Little Birds are tasting
   Gratitude and gold,
   Pale with sudden cold:
Pale, I say, and wrinkled--
When the bells have tinkled,
   And the Tale is told.

`The next thing to be done,' the Professor cheerfully remarked to the Lord Chancellor, as soon as the applause, caused by the recital of the Pig-Tale, had come to an end, `is to drink the Emperor's health, is it not?'

`Undoubtedly!' the Lord Chancellor replied with much solemnity, as he rose to his feet to give the necessary directions for the ceremony. `Fill your glasses!' he thundered. All did so, instantly. `Drink the Emperor's health!' A general gurgling resounded all through the Hall. `Three cheers for the Emperor!' The faintest possible sound followed this announcement: and the Chancellor, with admirable presence of mind, instantly proclaimed `A speech from the Emperor!'