y breath of the Court, as rigidly and with as little
consciousness of humor as Linnaeus did his flowers.--"It can't be a Minor
Palace Luncheon of the Third Class," she mused, "and it isn't Grand
Court Mourning of the First Degree. Ha, I have it, He--that 'H' is a
capital, please, not as a sacrilege, but to be Ritualistic--He is out on
a voyage of the Minor Class, Small Service of Honor, Lesser Cortege. Now
then, all's comfortable; no room for plebeian misconceptions."

On they came, each rigidly after his kind, a Noah's procession of
Dignitaries with the August Sovereign first of all. To bring on the
majestic climax so early was illogical, of course, but dust having
happened to be created before precedence, the Cortege was changed the
other way round for a voyage, so that the First Category people breathed
what the August Sovereign kicked up and kicked up some additional for
the Second Category, and the Second did the same for the Third, and so
on down to the Ninth, or "And all others," who breathed the best they
could and paid the bill.

Nothing preceded the royal coach except the royal escort, and that by
exactly two hundred paces, in which interval a canonical obligation was
laid on the dust to settle. It was a particularly gallant royal escort.
The Empress's Own, or the Dragoons, or Lancers, or Guardsmen, or
Hussars, or whatever they were, were picked Mexicans; and they were
frankly proud of their rich crimson tunics; also, perhaps, of their
heavily fringed standard worked by Carlota herself. A cavalry detachment
in fur caps with a feather completed the body guard. Mexico is a hot
country, but that was no reason why an Austrian regiment should
sacrifice its furry identity.

"Belgians too!" exclaimed Jacqueline. "And the Mexican emigres! They
came back when we made it safe for them. But where, oh where, are the
French?"

"Everywhere," growled the Tiger, "in mountains and swamps, dying
everywhere, fighting for this Austrian archduke. But he doesn't like to
be seen with them."

Behind eight white mules of Spain, four abreast, rolled the coach of the
Emperor, solitary and marked as majesty itself. There were postilions
and outriders and footmen arrayed in the Imperial livery with the
Imperial crown. And on the coach door flashed Maximilian's escutcheon,
his archducal arms grafted on the torso of his new imperial estate.
There were the winged griffins with absurd scrolls for tails. They had
voracious claws, had the