noon
And Max was flattered , as your man of words and not of deeds always is flattered when the attributes which belong by rights to his betters are ascribed to him . Nevertheless , in this instance the epithet was well earned , for these secret potations of Max were having their effect upon the King 's brain ; they reproduced in facsimile the cerebral excitement which had followed upon his fall , and touching the same spot kindled in him a curious mental ardor , which sent him to his Council a different person altogether , one whom his ministers were finding it difficult to recognize and still more difficult to reconcile to their plans . Only when the effects had died down towards the end of each day did the King become himself again . Obstreperous till noon , he would then quiet down by degrees till , at six o'clock , his spirits had reached a strange nadir of depression . Had Brasshay only caught him then , in that period of reaction , he would have found him unformidable as of old ; but Brasshay did not know . And then , night after night , came Max with his tangle of words and whipped him into fresh revolt . He still carried the memory of that last conversation -- that chapter which Max had composed into the echoing cavities of his brain -- when he next encountered the Lord Functionary .