He made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so casually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made.  He spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the governor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle the governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father.  He did not seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they dropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way.  By his first night’s account the governor merely attached him to the Maid’s military escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his uncle the governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear guard; the third night his father the governor put the whole command, Maid and all, in his special charge.  The first night the governor spoke of his as a youth without name or ancestry, but “destined to achieve both”; the second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the latest and worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of his as the lineal descendent of the whole dozen.  In three nights he promoted the Count of Vendome from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then brother-in-law.

At the King’s Audience everything grew, in the same way.  First the four silver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and by that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to lengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate them.  Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large way.

The first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and exaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third night he added illustration to description.  He throned the barber in his own high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court watched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment, expecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept permanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would follow.  He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever of excitement and anticipation, then came his climax.  Turning to the barber, he said: 

“But mark you what she did.  She gazed steadfastly upon that sham’s villain face as I now gaze upon yours—­this being her noble and simple attitude, just as I stand now—­then turned she—­thus—­to me, and stretching her arm out—­so—­and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a battle, ‘Pluck me this false knave from the throne!’ I, striding forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him aloft—­thus—­as it he had been but a child.” (The house rose, shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this magnificent exhibition of strength—­and there was not the shadow of a laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber hanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was a thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) “Then I set him down upon his feet—­thus—­being minded to get him by a better hold and heave him out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he escaped with his life.