He paid the fine immediately, but he had to pay it over double before the day was over, for he could not restrain his laughter when he bethought him of the near-approaching _denoument_ of this humorous masquerade.
And at last rosy Whitsun Day, most comical of days, arrived.

Karpathy had ordered a great and costly supper to be laid in the park beyond the Danube, to which he invited every one who was at all intimate with Mike.
What a splendid joke it will be to present the hero of so many a triumph to the company as--a lackey! Master Jock would not have parted with his joke for an empire.
The clock had just struck a quarter to four.

According to the compact, the Whitsun King ought now to be waiting there in the antechamber, and Master Jock ordered him to be shown in.
"What new sort of manners do you call this ?" cried Mike as he entered the room, flinging himself into an armchair; "why do you keep an honourable man waiting ten minutes in your antechamber ?" There was a pipe in Master Jock's mouth, and he was engaged at that moment in filling it with tobacco.
"Halloa! Mike my son!" said he with infinite slyness, "just you get out of that chair and light my pipe for me--d'ye hear ?" "Light it yourself!" replied Mike; "the flint and steel is close beside you." Master Jock stared at him with all his eyes.

The lad himself had clearly forgotten what day it was.

All the more piquant then to startle him out of his insolent security.
"Then, my beloved little brother, are you not aware that to-day is red Whitsun Day ?" "What's that got to do with me?
I am neither a parson nor an almanac-maker." "Eh, eh! Recollect that at a quarter to four your Whitsun Kingship ceases!" "And what then ?" inquired Mike, without the slightest perturbation, polishing the antique opal buttons of his _attila_ with his silken handkerchief.
"What then ?" cried Jock, who was beginning to get warm; "why, from this instant you cease to be a gentleman." "What am I then ?" "What are you, sirrah?
I'll tell ye.