Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/157

 "Ha!" said those who read, gleefully. "The old pouter pigeon has got his wings clipped!" Or, "Baron Provarsk? What does this mean? Continually he has tried to make us believe that King Karl is a blunderer. Now he sides with the king and becomes chancellor. Ayya! Ahem! We shall see what kind of a chancellor this high and mighty baron makes!"

Baron Von Glutz now Minister of War!

At that they laughed a little and expressed pity for the few score men who formed the king's standing army. They hoped the new minister would not alter the uniforms, because those new scarlet tunics and white trousers, pricked out with profuse gold braidings, were very effective.

Captain Philidor Paulo to be Minister of the Treasury.

"Well! Well! Well! That's something. The common people are at last beginning to be recognised!" They were flattered. They remembered, some of them, what a merry lad he was when his widowed mother conducted the charcuterie in the Alley of the Capuchins. Pity she had not lived to see her son a cabinet minister! What a lot of money he would have to count. He always was good at counting, stoutly asserted some of the old dames who had watched his growth.

They discussed it vigorously while eating. They had placid disputes about it after the shops [153]