The Prince, at their head, ran up to the window, and with all courtesy helped in the astonished Cardinal, and turning to the servants said, "Scoundrels! is it thus you pay respect to the sacred person of the Cardinal Bernis? Is it thus, by your negligence, that you compel his Eminence, when coming to my wife, to venture his precious life upon a slight ladder and force him through the window in this miserable plight?" Conceive the situation of the bald-pated, cloakless, and tattered Cardinal, as he stood ashamed and terrified before the jeering Prince and his twenty torchbearers. His trembling knees could scarcely support him, as, half dead with fright, shame, and disappointment, he sneaked out of the room, still lighted by the torches and bowed out by the Prince, who continued to apologize for the carelessness of his servants, much to the annoyance of the poor Cardinal, whose misery was heightened by one stroke more; for, as he was huddling off, he just caught the face of the Princess, peeping through the opening of a door with some friends, all almost convulsed with laughter.
End of Project Gutenberg's Points of Humour, Part I (of II), by Anonymous
