THE INCREDIBLE THING HAPPENS

I

Since the break-up of his plans the King had been finding consolation in his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was still abroad. Consolation is, perhaps, hardly the right word; it had distracted him in more ways than one; partly, and in a good sense, from his own personal depression over things gone wrong, but more with a scared apprehension of the terrible hubbub that would arise when its contents became known. The title, Government and the Governed, was sober enough, and the post-diluvian motto once threatened by Max had been omitted; but the contents were of a highly revolutionary character, and the bland "take-or-leave me" attitude of the author toward the public he would some day be called upon to rule was on a par with that statement of her prison doings which Charlotte was preparing for the delectation of Hans Fritz Otto, Prince of Schnapps-Wasser. In neither case did it seem likely that such a confession would draw parties together.

And so before the King had even finished reading he felt it his duty to write imploring his son not to publish.

Before an answer could reach him important events supervened. The reverberations of the bomb brought Max flying back to the bosom of his family; and then the Charlotte episode had followed, over which Max had not been at all sympathetic, for in spite of his emancipated views about things in general, he had still the particular notion that revolution belonged only to men, and that women, incapable of conducting it efficiently, had far better leave it alone.

And so it was that only when things had begun to resettle themselves was any fresh reference made to the book's forthcoming publication.

As soon as the subject was broached Max presented a face of polite astonishment.

"I thought you knew, sir," he said.

"Knew what?"

"The most important event in recent history; I even thought you might have instigated it."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Then I must break the news. My book has been burned to the ground." He spoke as though it had been an edifice. "I am told, for my consolation, that it burned extremely well—'fiercely,' the papers said—and gave the firemen a lot of trouble. Your letter and the news reached me almost simultaneously; I knew, therefore, that you would be glad."

"No, no, don't say 'glad,'" protested the King; "in a way I am sorry, even. I only wanted it to be anonymous. One can do things anonymously. How did it come about?"

"It was the work of an incendiary."

"How do you know that?"

"There was absolute proof,—something which refused to burn,—a box of matches made in Jingalo, or some other fire-resistant of a similar kind. The perpetrator got off. Yes—the House of Ganz-Wurst certainly seems at the present moment particularly to attract the attentions of these obscurantists in politics. Who knows whether the hand which threw the bomb at you had not already been dipped in the petrol which had given so flaming an account of my claims to authorship?"

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Reprint, I suppose, as soon as I can afford it, or do you still wish me not to? You hold almost the only copy that is left."

The King shook his head. "As I told you, Max, I think publication would be very unwise; you would be sure to regret it afterwards. Remember that some day you will come to the throne; and what you think you can do now you can't do then. All at once it becomes impossible."

And then the King gave a queer consternated gasp, for he himself remembered something—something he had conditionally promised, believing that the conditions would never be fulfilled; and now fate had brought them about; and if Max so willed it a thing would presently be taking place much more disturbing to the institution of royalty than the publication of a mere book.

To the King's last remark Max merely replied: "At present, sir, it is you who are upon the throne and not I—a circumstance over which I have very particular reasons for being glad. And now, sir, something has just occurred to me: do not think that I am going to anticipate the date you fixed, that is not till next week, but when all is settled, as it so soon will be if I remain of sane mind, then I will present all the preserved copies of my book to the lady whom you so disapprove of, and she shall do with them exactly as she wishes—order a new edition, or put them on the fire to help her make soup for the poor. That is a little device of mine, sir, for bringing her into your good graces; for if I know anything of her mind she will maintain that to publish such a book without a full intention of putting its principles into practice is a mere parade of insincerity and foolishness. And so—from your point of view—she will be saving the monarchy from a danger which no one else can avert; for I am not prepared to surrender my power to do mischief into any hands but hers. A copy of the book, you may be interested to hear, has already gone to her; and her silence about it warns me that the epoch it so strenuously makes for is not the one that she desires."

"You are still talking like a book, Max," said the King sarcastically, wishing to divert discussion for the time being from that which he was referring to.

"Ah, yes," said Max; "as a bird who mourns his mate. Why, for a while, should I not indulge my grief? I shall never write another; all I had it in me to say was said there. In future—though you may hear in my voice an echo of that lost romance—I am going to be a man not of words but of deeds."

The King smiled.

"You look incredulous, sir; but I have already startled that Commission you put me on, and compelled it to include in the scope of its inquiry things which it did not want to inquire into at all. Believe me, sir; if we get before us all the evidence that I intend we shall find ourselves forced into making a very unpopular report—far more unpopular than my book would have been, and far more subversive of the established order of things than at present you can have any idea. Even your coats, sir—exorbitant though their price now is—are going to cost you more as a result of this Commission, unless we can so arrange that in future a little less shall be paid for the 'cut' and a little more for the needle and thread that join the cuttings together. I am going to have it said in this report of ours—for I have discovered it to be a fact—that the very clothes which are your daily wear (and mine) are put together by men and women paid at something less than twopence-half-penny an hour. And I am going to get it put in that scandalously personal way (your clothes and mine—the clothes we go to open Parliament in, and set the fashions in, and when we have worn them some half-dozen times hand on to charity), I am going to have it thus put that all may be conscious and ashamed when they see us so exhibiting ourselves, and no longer think a well-cut coat under modern commercial conditions a fit adjunct for royalty. That, sir, will do a great deal more harm to 'trade' than my book would have done. The public conscience does not like to have these things brought home to royalty itself; we and the 'social evil' are in no way to be connected with each other, lest it should be seen that we help to make its ways easy. Only the other day I was credibly informed that a man who headed with twenty thousand pounds the list of a charity bearing my mother's name, has been allowed by the police to get out of this country scot free—though guilty of infamous conduct,—merely because the contribution of that tainted donation to a royal fund would not have 'looked well.'"

"Oh, stop talking to me, Max!" cried the King, made irritable by his increased sense of helplessness. "Go and do what you like, say what you like, report what you like; you've got the Commission to play with; run it for all it is worth; but for Heaven's sake let me have peace for a while! Why should you trouble me? You know that I can do nothing."

"You have done a great deal," said Max, whose admiration for his father had grown very considerably during the past year.

"I have missed doing a great deal; but of that you know nothing, and I'm not going to tell you." And then he could stand it no more. "Do you imagine I should have made you that idiotic promise," he cried, "if I had supposed for a moment that I should still be here when you came to claim it?" And so saying he got up and, diplomatic in retreat, hurried out of the room.

Max, left to his own surmisings, opened wide and wondering eyes. "Did he throw that bomb at himself?" he murmured in astonishment. "It looks very much as if he did."

II

Parliament opened again without any difficulty in the middle of December; and the enormous popularity of the King and Queen was greatly enhanced by the circumstance of their reappearance within so short a time for an occasion so closely similar. Only another bomb could have increased the favorable impression made upon the populace by their affable return to the charge—if a slow walking-pace may be so described—within three weeks of the attempted outrage.

As the Prime Minister had promised the police spared no pains to insure their safety, and behind the hoardings of the new Government offices detectives were packed like herrings in a barrel, with special eye-holes bored through so that they might note the actual passing of the royal carriage, and have it well under observation at the point of danger which was, presumably, that at which the last explosion had occurred. Then the whole police force held its breath, and the coach got past without any difficulty; and immediately the waiting multitude in Regency Row became violently demonstrative as though some great acrobatic feat had been achieved. And the piebald ponies came stepping like rope-dancers each held by a groom; and everything—except the fresh bomb for which so many stage preparations had been made—went off with all the success imaginable.

The King did not read his own speech: he had a sore throat for the occasion, and only with his ears did he swallow the bitter pill of that foreshadowed scheme which he had so long and vainly resisted; for now he was bound by his own promise, and could no longer "stand in the way."

And so, by the mouth of the Lord High Commissioner, the Bishops heard under its smooth-sounding title the plan for their approaching doom read out from the steps of the Throne, and as soon as the King and the Queen had retired, budding members on the ministerial side in both Houses rose up to congratulate the Cabinet and the country on those wise and statesmanlike proposals, and hardened veterans upon the other, the Archbishop included, rose up to condemn them. And after that, for three or four days a general wrangling—all leading to nothing—went on.

But while Parliament talked vacuously within, outside came rumblings of storm; the discontent of certain sections of the community with conditions unsettled or unattended to was gathering to a head. And on the third day after the session had opened, Charlotte said to her father with rather a tragic look, "Papa, do you know what is going to happen to-night?" And then she told him.

It was those Women Chartists again.

The King had been true to his word, he had made inquiries; in a way he had even "looked into the matter," and had received from the right and official quarter bland assurances that there was nothing in it—merely a general obstreperousness and a wish to cause trouble to the police. But his conscience, which so often ran away with him, was still troubled; and so when the evening came he sent once again for the newly appointed Home Minister; and in reply to rather anxious questions was given confidently to understand that the police arrangements were quite adequate for the occasion, that everything would be done as quietly and as leniently as possible; and that no edge of the disturbance would in any case be allowed to overflow in the direction of the royal palace. As he listened to the cocksure tone of this new minister, and the almost patronizing air with which he exposed his official fitness for the post so recently conferred on him, the King ceased to ask questions—let the man talk himself out,—and then, when silence seemed to give consent, got rid of him.

It was now time that he should go to dress for dinner, but the motive force was absent. He stood for a while considering, then went to the window, and opening it let in the distant hum of the city traffic.

All sounded as usual, pleasant, busy, peaceable. Yet if what his daughter told him was true, within half-an-hour those quietly-sounding streets would be thronged with thousands upon thousands waiting for the arrival of the women to claim their old historical right of petition; and serried lines of police—thousands of them also—would be standing to bar their way, whatever direction they might go in quest of the governing authority. And in the hands of these women would be petitions personally addressed to himself; yet never had any minister put to him the question whether he would be willing to receive them and hear what they had to say; such an idea seemed not to have entered their heads—or was it the fear lest such a reception might give the cause too great an importance in the public eye? Here, once again, then, proof met him of the conspiracy of modern government constantly going on to bring about disconnection between the Crown and the real life-needs and aspirations of the people. Suffocating traditions closed him round making a cypher of him—to himself a scorn and a derision, and a monster unto many—just as much, by this denial of petition, a breaker of his Crown oath as those who in the past had paid penalty for it with their lives!

There outside, in the nipping wintry air, he could hear the sounds of a liberty he no longer shared: the trotting of cab-horses, the cry of newsboys, the whiffle and hoot of motor-cars. Up through the bare trees of the park swam a soft radiance of light from the lamps below, and emergent like a full moon on a misty sky the face of the great Parliament clock dawned luminous to his gaze.

So long he stood, and listened, and waited, that before he closed the window again the clock had told the three-quarters to eight. Then he hesitated no more; passing out of his study and down to a lower corridor he came presently to the cloak lobby, and selecting a rough full-length overcoat, a motor cap, and from a drawer a pair of clouded snow-glasses, arrayed himself in these, and with flaps drawn down and coat collar turned high, passed out by a small side-entrance which led on to the terrace.

Chill air and a bosom of darkness received him; through the thick barrier of trees skirting the walled precincts scarcely a light winked; only the large domed conservatory behind him threw a pale radiance before his feet as he crossed the terrace and moved off by a winding path in the direction of a small postern concealed in shrubbery.

As he quitted the grass, the sound of his own footfalls upon firm gravel made him guiltily afraid; and it was not without some moral effort that he, a king in his own domain, kept himself from stepping back secretively to the turfed edge. Suppressing the inclination, he proceeded at a smart pace, and coming presently to the door with a slip-latch on its inner side he opened it and passed through.

At the sound of opening a policeman stationed outside turned and stood passively regarding him; his muffled appearance seemed sufficiently in keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as though there subsisted between the habitués of that door and himself a sort of understanding.

To make a quicker escape from the man's scrutiny and the glare of the lamp commanding the entrance, the King crossed the road, and took up his course along the more dimly lighted footway on the further side. At this hour the park row in which he found himself was almost deserted; now and again single pedestrians went by, and as he received from none of these more than a cursory and inattentive glance, his sense of incognito increased, and he stepped out more confidently to the task that lay ahead.

Presently he was passing along the palace front and under the eyes of sentries standing motionless at their posts; and again he had satisfaction in perceiving that as he went by there was no inclination on the part of any one of them to present arms. He glanced up at the palace façade, with its windows softly lighted through blinds. He could pick out his own sitting-room, and the Queen's, where probably she was now reading the note he had sent to inform her that urgent business called him away. There were the lights of the smaller dining-hall, within which a table richly adorned with gold and silver plate stood even now waiting its twenty accustomed guests—the minister-in-attendance and the higher permanent officials of the Court. No one else from outside was coming to-night except Prince Max. That was fortunate, Max would take his place.

As soon as he was outside the borders of the park the King quitted the main thoroughfare for narrow and dimly lit alleys, avoiding the streets of wide pavements and shops which had scarcely yet begun to close; and before long found that he had lost his way.

The fact was sufficiently absurd; here within a stone's throw of his own palace, and stretching almost to the doors of the House of Legislature whereto he went in so much state every year, lay an unknown territory which he had never thought to explore. The intricacy of back streets was quite unknown to him, and he seemed at almost every corner to be stepping into yards and cul-de-sacs, from which he had perforce to turn back again. In a short time all sense of the points of the compass was gone.

A small ragged urchin asked him the time, and that casual touch of communalism made him feel more at home. He took out his watch—it was already five minutes past eight: over those high narrow streets, with their thin strip of sky, the big clock of Parliament had boomed the hour and he had not heard it. Away scurried the urchin as though already late for something, excitedly calling on others to follow; and the King, with the presumption that these running feet would be sure to lead him in the direction where he wished to go, followed them round two corners. After that all trace of them was gone.

A sound of shrill singing now struck his ear. He was in a narrow asphalted way surrounded by workmen's tenements. Right in the middle, occupying the place of the non-existent traffic, ten or a dozen children were dancing a sort of figure, and singing the while. As he drew near he caught snatches of the words.

Of an elder child, who stood looking on, he stopped and asked the way. She told him, gesticulating as to which corners he was to pass, pointing all the time to the promised goal. Incautiously he dropped a coin into her hand; and, as kings do not carry coppers, immediately there was a cry. The singers stopped and surrounded him, stretching up clamorous palms; a whole dozen were now feverishly anxious to show him every step of the way.

"It's the 'Chartises' as you want to see, arn't it, mister?" inquired one. "I'll show you where they go; I know all of 'em."

The King pressed hurriedly on, hoping to get rid of them; but his flustered air appealed to the tormenting instincts of youth, and told them that here they had got some one capable of being worried into surrender. Still clamoring and thrusting up hands for backsheesh they kept pace with him. A few of them started singing again, and the rest joined in: perhaps singing was what the gentleman liked best—and so a better way for gaining their end. The shrill voices fell into chorus; and to a queer lilting tune the words rang clear.

"What's that?" cried the King, stopping short in his amazement; "what's that you say?" A new bewilderment seized on him. It was impossible—quite impossible that the children should know who he really was, yet there were the words with their implied accusation, as though personally directed at him, and at him alone.

The small street singers, taking the inquiry for an encore, sang it again; and this time the words had a curious flirtatious meaning which made them even worse. What was he being charged with?

"Where did you get that from?" he inquired, hot of face.

"One of the Chartises taught it us," said a child more ready of speech than the rest. "They all sings it now. It's one of their songs, that is!" So with reduplicating speech she conveyed intelligence to his mind.

Never before had any word of poetry struck him a blow like this. He had said that he did not understand poetry, but here was meaning only too clear; in this song—so gentle, pleading, and pathetic in character, he, John of Jingalo, stood publicly accused of all the injuries that were being done to women in that necessary defense of law and order against which, petition in hand, they were so obstinately setting themselves. What was all his popularity worth, if by the mouths of little children his name was to be thus cried in the streets? It was scandalous, indecent; and yet—was it altogether without justification?

To be rid of his small tormentors and free for his own meditations, he took the most practical means that suggested itself.

"There, there!" he cried. "Run away, run away, all of you!" and throwing a random coin into their midst moved hastily away. Behind him as he went he heard battle royal being waged; liberal though the donation, and sufficient to distribute sustenance to all, each was now claiming it as her own perquisite.

And so at his back the shrill sounds of wrath and contention went on till they became merged in a louder roar, the origin of which was presently made apparent.

He turned a corner and saw before him a huge crowd, and Regency Row packed with seething humanity from end to end.

III

For the first time in his life the King formed part of a crowd, and knew what it was like to feel his body and limbs packed in by the bodies and limbs of others and to have the breath squeezed out of him. In this crowd the proportion of men to women was as ten to one; from the physical point of view, therefore, the chances for these conflicting women were nil. All the same they were there in large numbers, and not for the first time; many of them were already sufficiently well known to the police.

A curiously corporate movement possessed this crowd; when it shifted at all it shifted in large sections—three or four hundred at once; a whole street-width of men driving forward at a lunge, before which the strongest barrier of police momentarily gave way. And wherever this kind of movement went on a few women formed the center of it.

Small bundles of humanity, they shot by in the grip of that huge force, mischievous and uncontrolled; tossed, tousled, and squeezed, shedding as they went small fragments of their outer raiment, lost momentarily to view in the surging mass of men, cornered, crushed back, held down as within a vise—emerging again like popped corks followed by a foaming rush of shouting youths, jeering or cheering them on; and still through all that pressure obstinately retaining their human form, and enduring with a strange silence what was being done to them by this great roaring mob which had come out "for fun."

Some went their way wide-eyed, with terror in their looks, yet still set to their end; some with rigid faces and eyes shut fast, as though scarcely conscious—their souls elsewhere, submitting passively to the buffetings of fate; and a few—strangest sight of all—smiling to themselves, almost with a look of peace, as though in the very violence by which they were assailed they discerned a triumph for their cause.

And with all the screwing, pushing, and wrenching, the driving forward and the hurling back, scarcely one woman's arm was raised, except now and again to protect her breast from the lewd or wanton assaults of the crowd. Some held, tight clasped in their hands, crumpled bits of paper—the petition, presumably, over which all this trouble arose—stained, torn, almost illegible now, useless, yet still a symbol of the fight that was being waged. Now and then above the turmoil, in the dimness that lay between the lighted streets and the crowning darkness of night, went sudden flashes like sheet-lightning in storm; and at the stroke horses plunged, and youths screamed, facetiously imitating the voice of women. It was the work of photographers, securing, from some point of vantage overhead, flashlight records for the delectation of the music halls. Again and again, with pistol-like report, the monstrous dose was administered, the night took it at a gulp, and the rabble responded with noise and shoutings.

The genial voice of a mounted policeman working his way through the crowd sounded humanly above the din.

"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" There was a touch of humor in the cry; for it was like the voice of a showman advertising his wares to a pack of holiday-makers anxious to buy; and wherever he went pleasantness reigned, and an element of good temper and considerateness mingled itself with the crowd.

"Oh! I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" Away he went on his disciplined errand of mercy, a man of kindliness, good counsel, and understanding, carrying out his orders in as human a way as was possible.

"Now then! Now then! Now then! I'm coming. Oh, I'm coming!"

The roaring multitude swallowed him; his cry grew faint, merged in the general din.

By the gradual compression and movement of the multitude toward some fancied center the King had been borne a good many hundred yards from his original point. Presently he found himself in a large open space, with its low-railed inclosure guarded by police. Here the crowd was denser than ever and its sway harder to withstand. A woman's form was driven sharply against him. To avoid elbowing her off he offered the shelter of his arm; and she, finding herself up against something not immediately repellent, stayed to breathe. He saw the sweat pour from her skin, and as she panted in his arms she had the rank scent of a creature when it is hunted. Yet in her face there was no fear at all, only the white strain of physical exhaustion nearing its last point.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"The police; are they treating you properly?"

"I have nothing to complain of," she said.

"Won't you go home? You must see it is no use."

She turned away as though she had not heard him, and threw herself once more against the barrier she was unable to overcome. Into the shock of it she went, with "nothing to complain of," forgetful of self, forgetful of all but her blind unreasoning determination to gain her end. Her passive yet battling form was borne away from him in the huge eddies of the crowd.

"Hot work!" said a voice at his side; a little man, with keen, appetized face, ferreting this way and that, was hurriedly taking notes as though his life depended on it. The King looked at him in surprise, and wondered what it meant.

"Got any news?" inquired the man, still scribbling at his notebook.

"What kind of news?"

"I'm not particular; anything suits me. I'm the Press."

"The Press?"

"Yes, reporter." And, as one proud of his great connection, he named the King's favorite journal.

Never it is to be hoped to his dying day did that poor penny-a-liner know what a piece of news he allowed in that moment to slip by—news which to him would have meant almost a fortune; and here he was actually rubbing shoulders with it; and making no profit.

"How many arrested?" he inquired.

"I don't know."

"Any of the leaders yet?"

"I have not heard."

Unprofitable company; the man moved away. They were separated by a fresh movement of the crowd.

A royal mail-van drove through the square, the police with difficulty making way for it. And the crowd, mistaking it for something else, rushed off to gaze and cheer excitedly at the prisoners within. The postman who sat mounting guard over the netted window at the rear smiled wittily at the popular error which made him for a few brief moments so conspicuous a figure. No doubt the incident gave the newspaper-man some copy, and the van, having contributed its share to the general amusement, rolled on its way.

Again the crowd made a rush; on the other side of the square a woman had managed to get arrested, and a strong body of constables was escorting her across to the police-station. Captors and captive walked quickly, anxious to get the thing through. The woman had a scared yet triumphant look in her eyes: she had succeeded in making the police do what they did not want to do; and now for a fortnight, or a month, or for two months—according to what these men might swear to, or the magistrate think—she and a few score of others would find in a criminal cell that temporary goal at which they had aimed; and the press would quiet the public conscience by saying that they had done it "for notoriety."

Always friendliest when it saw a woman actually under arrest, the crowd broke into applause—dividing its cheers impartially between prisoner and police. For this was what it had come out to see: this was why it had paid tram-fares from distant slums, sacrificing its evening at the "pub" and its pot of beer. These men of hard toiling lives and dull imagination were there to see women of a class and education superior to their own break the law and get "copped" for it, just like one of themselves.

"Quite right too! teach them to be'ave as they ought to," was the comment passed here and there—though as a matter of fact it had already been abundantly proved that it taught them nothing of the kind. But that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street; he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who, smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of prisoner and escort passed on its way.

"Three cheers for the Women's Charter!" cried a voice somewhere in the crowd; and there went up in response a genial roar, half of derision, half of sympathy.

"Give 'em hell!" cried a wild little man, his face contorted with rage and the lust which finds satisfaction in a blow. He went fiercely on, butting his shoulder against every woman he met. Nobody arrested him; nobody cried "shame." "Give 'em hell!" he cried.

"They're getting it!" laughed a pale youth with an underhung jaw.

Wherever the eye turned hell could be seen having its will, and deriving a curious satisfaction from its momentary power to do foul things under the public eye.

"Oh, save me! save me! save me!" whimpered a woman's voice. Down in the gulf below, buried under the shoulders of men, a small elderly figure was clinging to the King's arm.

"Oh, can't you do anything for me?" wailed the poor little Chartist, with nerve utterly gone.

"Why don't you go home?" inquired the King kindly.

"I want to go home!" she said. "Take me!"

"The first thing, then, is to get out of this crowd. Keep hold of my arm."

"No!" A perverse tag of conscience held her back. "I don't want to! I've got a petition; it has to go to the King. Oh, if he only knew!"

"Give it to me! I will see that he gets it."

"You? You'd only throw it away when my back was turned."

"No; I promise you I would not. Give it me! It shall really go to him."

"You are not making fun of me?"

"Indeed I am not. Here, where is it? Give it to me, quick!"

She put the precious crumpled document into his hand. Poor nameless soul, unconscious of what she had achieved—"I hope I've done right," she said.

A fresh movement of the crowd drove them against the railings. The elderly little woman cried out like a frightened child.

"Oh, oh! They are killing me!"

The King lifted her up and put her over into free space on the other side.

"Here! none of that!" cried a big voice beside him. A rough hand seized hold of him and wrenched him back; he turned round and found himself in a policeman's charge. Then another came and took hold of him on the other side.

Incredibly the thing had happened: he was arrested. Triumphantly, through a roaring, eddying crowd, the strong arm of the law bore him away.

THE KING'S NIGHT OUT

I

The King sat in a large square chamber with barred windows, awaiting his turn to be attended to.

The crowd of prisoners seated on benches round the walls had become attenuated; only about a score of them now remained. Women had been dealt with first, the residuum were men; the general charge against these was pocket-picking.

He had been sitting there for hours. It was now one o'clock.

"Now then, you!" said the voice of the sergeant in charge. His turn had come.

In an adjoining room he found his two accusers awaiting him. He was led up to a table where sat an official in uniform making entry of the names. A charge-sheet, nearly full, was spread on the table before him.

The policeman who had made the arrest gave in the charge.

"Name?" said the sergeant-clerk sharply, suspending the motion of his pen.

The King, still wearing his cap, took off his snow-glasses and turned down the collar of his coat.

It was no use. The officer looked at him without recognition.

"Name?" he said again; and the policeman upon his right, giving the King a rough jog, said, "Tell the sergeant your name!" And so, it appeared, the useless formality must go on.

The King gave the two essentials—first-christian and surname—out of a long string of appendices for which half the sovereigns of Europe had stood as godfathers.

But the three words "John Ganz-Wurst" meant nothing to the official ear. Over the patronymic he paused in doubt when only halfway through. "Spell it!" he said, and, at the King's dictation, altered his V into a W.

"Foreigner?" he grunted; Jingalese names he could spell properly.

"Of foreign extraction," said the King, "my great-grandfather came over to this country and was naturalized."

"Oh, we don't want to hear about your great-grandfather!" said the sergeant, cutting him short.

At this moment one of the higher inspectors came into the room.

"Address—occupation?" went on his interlocutor, busy with his form.

The King named the dwelling from which he emanated.

"Come, come!" said the official voice, "no nonsense here! What address?"

The inspector was now looking at the prisoner. He touched the sergeant upon the shoulder, and made a gesture for the two constables to stand back.

"Will you please to come this way, sir?" he said, in a tone of very marked respect.

The King followed him to an inner room.

The inspector closed the door. "I beg your Majesty's pardon," he said. "This is a most regrettable occurrence. Fortunately, none of those men know."

The King smiled. "I tried not to give myself away before I was obliged to," he said.

"Your Majesty must think we are all quite mad."

"Not at all. So far as I know, every man I have encountered has merely done his duty. Your methods of arrest are a little—arbitrary, shall I say?"

"That is unavoidable, sir, when we have large crowds to deal with."

"I can understand that. A woman was being crushed; I helped her to get over the railings. I suppose that was wrong?"

The inspector smiled apologetically. "Men have been fined for it, before now, sir," said he.

"Very well, I will pay my fine," smiled the King. "And then, if you don't mind, I will go home."

His Majesty's kindly humor won the inspector's gratitude. "I'm sure it's very good of your Majesty to treat the matter so lightly."

"It was entirely my own fault," said the King. "How was I to be recognized?"

"You took us off guard, sir. We were not informed that your Majesty would be going anywhere to-night."

"Is that the rule?"

"It is always our business to inquire."

"I should not have told any one."

"It would still, sir, have been our business to find out."

"You surprise me!" said the King. It had never dawned upon him that he was so watched. "And so to-night, for the first time, I gave you the slip?"

"I take the blame, sir," said the inspector; his voice was grave.

"Why should you? No harm has been done. The only question now is how am I to get back?"

"I can get you a cab, sir, at once. Or would your Majesty rather I sent word to the palace?"

"No, certainly not. If I have not been missed, nobody need know."

"Your Majesty was missed by us four hours ago. That is what brought me here."

"You come from the palace?"

"Yes, sir. As head of the special department, I have to be there every night."

"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble."

"Oh, not at all, sir."

And then, a cab having been summoned, he led the way out.

No one was by; the street had not a soul in it, and the King knew that once more foresight and care were watching over him.

"I have paid the cabman, sir," said the inspector, as he closed the door. "And, sir, would you kindly say where he is to go?"

There was a hint of discretion in the man's tone.

"Ah, yes," said the King, "to be sure—yes. Tell him to stop at the park gates."

The inspector, saluting, gave the required direction, and the cab drove off. Arriving a few minutes later at his destination, the King got out, and passed in through the gates.

The palace was now shrouded in gloom; only in the guard-room, within the high-railed quadrangle, a light still burned. Dimly through the night a sentry could be seen pacing up and down.

By a subconscious instinct the King was returning along the same route that he had come. Only as he approached the postern in the wall did it occur to him that it would almost certainly be locked; and yet for no other door had he a key. Attended constantly by servants, and leading a scrupulously regular life, requiring neither secret passages nor late hours, he had never possessed a latch-key of his own.

How, then, was he to get in now without attracting attention?

Having come so far, however, he went forward on chance and tested the door. The attendant policeman was no longer there, the road-lamp had been turned low, giving only a glimmer.

He tried the handle, but found that it would not respond. A figure glided forward and inserted a key. "Allow me, sir," came the inspector's voice.

"You?" exclaimed the King, surprised.

"It was my duty to see your Majesty safe home."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure." He passed in, and the inspector followed.

"Pardon me for asking, sir. Was this the way your Majesty came out?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that accounts for it! We never thought of your Majesty coming this way, and the man put here was only on beat, not on point duty."

"He was here when I came out," said the King.

"He did not report, sir."

"Are they all bound to?"

"Oh, yes, sir, of course we have to know."

The King smiled. "I suppose he did not recognize me. Remember, I was not quite myself."

"All the same, sir, he should have known. It's what he is trained for."

The King's surprise grew. "I never guessed that I had to be guarded like this."

"Of course, sir, we try to keep it out of sight as much as possible. It isn't pleasant always to feel yourself watched."

"I make you my compliments," said the King; "I had not the remotest idea. Whereabouts are we now?"

The walls of the palace loomed black above them; the night was dark.

"Small stair entrance on the north side, sir. If your Majesty is without a key——"

"I have no key at all."

"Then kindly allow me, sir." And again to the inspector's pass-key a door opened.

The King entered, and the inspector still accompanied him. "There may be others locked inside," he said, by way of explanation.

They passed through a short corridor and ascended stairs; a small electric pocket-lamp of the inspector's showing them the way. Three doors he unfastened in turn. Having opened the last he switched on the light, then respectfully drew back, presuming to come no further. "This is where your Majesty's private apartments begin," said he; an indication that his task as conductor was over.

"Ah, yes," replied the King, "now at last I know where I am. Till this moment I felt myself a stranger. I have to thank you, Mr. Inspector, for the kind way in which you have done me the honors of my own house; and," he added, "of the police-station."

"I am very sorry, sir, that any such thing should have happened. I can promise it won't occur again."

"No," said the King, smiling, "I suppose not. But pray do not be sorry! I have seldom spent a more interesting time; or—thanks to you and others—had more things given me to think about."

The inspector did not reply; he stood looking down, pensive and resigned—tired, perhaps, now that the anxieties of the last few hours were over.

"Good-night," said the King.

"Good-night, sir," replied the inspector. He withdrew and the King heard him locking the door after him.

II

The King went into his study, turned on a light, and sat down. He had, as he had told his guide, many things to think about. It was no use going to bed, for he knew that he could not sleep.

These last few hours had been the most wonderful, and the most crowded—yes, quite literally the most crowded—that he had ever experienced. At last he had really taken part in the life of his people, and had come into direct contact with things very diverse and contradictory, representing the popular will. He had talked with street urchins, and visionaries, had rubbed shoulders with men of brutal habit and vile character,—with knaves, cowards, fools; he had been shut up with drunkards and pickpockets, policemen's thumbs had left bruises upon his arms, and all his mind was one great bruise from the bureaucratic police system which had him fast within its grip.

Now at last he knew that he knew nothing; for only now did he realize it. To what was going on outside his ears had been stopped with official lies; morally, intellectually, and physically he was a prisoner, just as much as when, to the cry of "Old Goggles," from a jeering crowd, he had marched captive to the police-station. He knew now that even his private life was watched and spied on—always, of course, with the most benevolent intentions. This was the price he paid for modern kingship; and what was it all worth?

Out of his pocket he drew a small sheet of crumpled paper. In order to get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; and only by accident had he ever come to know of it!

Here, almost within a stone's throw of his palace, he had seen something taking place which to-morrow the papers would deride, and of which the official world would deny him all cognizance. Whether these women had truly a grievance, any just and reasonable cause for complaint, he did not know. But he knew now that, with the most desperate earnestness and conviction, that was their belief, and that in getting their petition to his hands they saw the beginning of a remedy.

He spread out the paper before him, and for the first time read the words—

"Humbly showeth that by your Majesty's Ministers law and justice are delayed, and prayeth that your Gracious Majesty will so order and govern that your faithful subjects' grievances may forthwith be sought and inquired into, and remedy granted thereto by Act of Parliament. And your petitioners will ever pray."

That was all. What the grievances might be was not stated. He knew that to hear argument for or against a given case was outside the functions of the Crown; but he knew equally well that to order inquiry to be made lay still within his right, though every minister in the Cabinet except one would seek to deny it to him. And so he sat looking at the crumpled sheet which meant so much to so many thousands of lives; and slowly the night went by.

Long before the first chitter of awakening birds, and before the first hint of light had crept into the east, he heard outside the slow stir of the city's life breaking back from short uneasy slumber. With stiffened limbs he got up from his chair, for the room had grown cold and his body ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from the other the two state drawing-rooms,—a broad half-story colonnade, with central opening and corners draped into shade.

Halfway across this elevation he paused to look down into the vast chamber below. At some point among its chandeliers burned a small pinhole of light that revealed in a strange dimness various forms of furniture, showing monstrous and uncouth in their night attire. Night-gowns rather than pajamas seemed the general wear; only a few legs were to be seen. In this, its sleeping aspect, the place was certainly more harmonious and more chaste than by day; mirrors and pictures loomed from the white walls with a mystery that would disappear when the lusters contained their light; and the King lingered to take in the pleasant strangeness of it all, and to wonder what was this new quality which so attracted him.

As he did so his ear caught from without a faint reverberation of muffled sound; even and regular in its beat, it drew near.

At the far end a door was thrown open; a flush of light entered the chamber, and there came following it a troop of men wearing felt slippers and long linen aprons, and bearing upon their shoulders brooms, feather-heads, wash-leathers, brushes, dusters, steps, vacuum-cleaners, and other mysterious instruments of an uninterpretable form.

With the regularity and precision of a drilled army, and with no word spoken, they moved forward to the attack. Curtains were drawn, cords pulled, blinds raised, steps mounted. Lusters jingled to the touch of feathers, cornices shed down their minute particles of dust to the Charybdian maw of traveling gramophone. Over the carpet metallic cow-catchers wheezed and groaned with a loud trundling of wheels, and departed processionally to the chamber beyond. Then by a triple process, simultaneously conducted, the furniture-sheets were lifted, drawn off, and folded; a large wicker-table on wheels received and bore them away. A cloud of light skirmishers followed after; and over every cushion and seat and polished surface plied their manicurist skill. Then a storming-party escaladed the gallery from below and the King, to avoid the embarrassment of an encounter with a body of servitors who had not the pleasure of his acquaintance, was at last obliged to retire.