’Guests!  What nonsense!  The Emperor and all the Royal Family!  As if it were like any other party.  Such a thing, probably, never happened before, and never will happen again.  If you don’t go, Damask, I must; and I will.’  Sir Damask, after groaning and smoking for half a minute, said that he would go.  He made many remonstrances.  It was a confounded bore.  He hated emperors and he hated princes.  He hated the whole box and dice of that sort of thing!  He ‘wished to goodness’ that he had dined at his club and sent word up home that the affair was to be off.  But at last he submitted and allowed his wife to leave the room with the intention of sending for a cab.  The cab...