ay, disgusted
by the appearance of his attendants.

"Not a man--not a man," answered the followers, with a drunken shout,
"we are none of us traitors to the Emperor of Merry makers!"

"And are all of you turned into brutes, then?" said the Prince.

"In obedience and imitation of your Grace," answered one fellow; "or, if
we are a little behind your Highness, one pull at the pitcher will--"

"Peace, beast!" said the Duke of Rothsay. "Are there none of you sober,
I say?"

"Yes, my noble liege," was the answer; "here is one false brother,
Watkins the Englishman."

"Come hither then, Watkins, and aid me with a torch; give me a cloak,
too, and another bonnet, and take away this trumpery," throwing down
his coronet of feathers. "I would I could throw off all my follies
as easily. English Wat, attend me alone, and the rest of you end your
revelry, and doff your mumming habits. The holytide is expended, and the
fast has begun."

"Our monarch has abdicated sooner than usual this night," said one
of the revel rout; but as the Prince gave no encouragement, such as
happened for the time to want the virtue of sobriety endeavoured to
assume it as well as they could, and the whole of the late rioters began
to adopt the appearance of a set of decent persons, who, having been
surprised into intoxication, endeavoured to disguise their condition by
assuming a double portion of formality of behaviour. In the interim the
Prince, having made a hasty reform in his dress, was lighted to the door
by the only sober man of the company, but, in his progress thither, had
well nigh stumbled over the sleeping bulk of the brute Bonthron.

"How now! is that vile beast in our way once more?" he said in anger and
disgust. "Here, some of you, toss this caitiff into the horse trough;
that for once in his life he may be washed clean."

While the train executed his commands, availing themselves of a fountain
which was in the outer court, and while Bonthron underwent a discipline
which he was incapable of resisting, otherwise than by some inarticulate
groans and snorts, like, those of a dying boar, the Prince proceeded on
his way to his apartments, in a mansion called the Constable's lodgings,
from the house being the property of the Earls of Errol. On the way, to
divert his thoughts from the more unpleasing matters, the Prince asked
his companion how he came to be sober, when the rest of the party had
been so much overcome with liquor.

"So please