# The King's Day Off

Extracted from Windsor magazine, v.57, 1922-23, pp. 349–358. Illustrations may be omitted.
THE KING'S DAY OFF
By OWEN OLIVER
ORDINARY people are better off than kings. They have only one ruler, and a king has several.
The King of Contendia had three—although it was only a small kingdom—his Private Secretary, his Prime Minister, and his Queen. The Secretary's rule was unobtrusive. The Prime Minister excused his by "the principles of the constitution." The Queen simply exercised hers. It was constitutional—to her!
The King saw nothing wrong in this arrangement until the question of a new uniform for the army came under consideration. Then he found his three leaders pulling three different ways. The King's private feeling was most in favour of the Secretary's views, and least in favour of those of his royal consort; but he was more afraid of the Prime Minister than of the Secretary, and more afraid of the Queen than of the Prime Minister. That exactly balanced things, and left the King in equilibrium, until all three joined forces to tell him that the question must be settled, and he must settle it.
"You are the Sovereign, sir," the Secretary said respectfully, "and it is for you to decide. I venture to suggest that Her Majesty is governed by æsthetic considerations, and his lordship by financial considerations, whereas the fundamental considerations are military. As an old soldier——"
"I know," said the King, "I know."
"In the last resort," the Prime Minister stated deferentially, "under the principles of the constitution "—the King sighed—"we come to the personal decision of the monarch, aided by the advice of his constitutional advisers. It is a matter which no lady—not even your talented consort—can properly judge, and upon which a soldier is naturally prejudiced. As the mouthpiece of your subjects——"
"I know," said the King, "I know."
"Be a man," the Queen told him, with the usual amount of wifely reverence, "and decide for yourself. I have told you what to do."
"I know," said the King again, "I know."
He gave personal thought to the matter, and decided to offer a compromise which should satisfy all three of his rulers, giving the colour and material to the Secretary, the number of suits to the Prime Minister, and the buttons and other trimmings to the Queen; but this only put all three against him. He dared not be angry with the Prime Minister or the Queen. So, after the meeting, he was angry with the Secretary.
The Secretary disarmed him by being reproved unresistingly, and then took the opportunity further to urge his views (which were in favour of two uniforms).
"You know, sir," he protested, "you can't alter facts. No single uniform can be suitable for all the purposes of a soldier. Peace is different from war, as you well know."
"No, I don't," the King snapped. "They wouldn't let me go and fight." It was his standing grievance that he was not allowed to lead the Contendian Army in the Great War. For though he was a quiet and peaceful little man, he was a brave one.
"If Your Majesty will take it from me," the Secretary declared, "a soldier's work is as varied as—as life."
"And that's infernally monotonous!" the King cried. "Bowing and bowing, and signing and signing. How many things did I put my signature to this morning?"
"One hundred and thirty-seven, Your Majesty, and forty-two initials."
"For variety," the King observed grimly. "Look here, Verodala, I'm sick of the royal treadmill. I'm going to have a day off."
"But, sir—"
"Don't argue with me!" the King thundered. "I don't care what you say, or the Prime Minister, either."
"No, sir," the Secretary agreed. "I wasn't thinking of us."
He looked at the King, and the King looked at him.
"You were thinking of motoring with Her Majesty, perhaps?" the Secretary suggested.
"Don't be a fool!" the King snapped. "I said a day off. And if I say a thing—— It is I who am the Sovereign. The Queen is only—had better not know anything about it."
"Her Majesty," the Secretary observed, "generally finds out about things. She has the royal gift of penetration. Perhaps, if Dr. Sonada suggested a day's mountain climbing?"
The King nodded. Her Majesty was growing a trifle stout, and so was unlikely to wish to join in mountaineering.
"I will speak to the doctor," the Secretary said briskly, "and arrange about the guides and the luncheon and——"
"Wait, wait!" the King cried. "The climbing is to be prescribed, not to be—er—climbed. It is merely a—-er—an explanation, to avoid any anxiety to our royal consort."
"Exactly," the Secretary agreed, "exactly! And what would Your Majesty wish me to arrange?"
"Nothing," said the King. "I am going to have a day off—a day 'on my own.' That's the phrase, isn't it?"
"Er—yes, Your Majesty, You mean that we will not have the court photographer, or reporters, or cinema people? We might——"
"There's no 'we,'" the King said firmly. "We are going to be I. Me! You understand?"
"But, Your Majesty"—the Secretary raised his hands in horror—"you can't—— I don't know quite what is in your Majesty's mind, but——"
"Why should you?" the King demanded. "I don't ask what you do in your spare time, do I? Or where the servants go on their evenings out? I'll tell you what you can do, Verodala. Motor me ten miles out, at six to-morrow morning, and fetch me at six to-morrow evening. The time between is my day off."
No argument could move the King from this position.
That was how it came to pass that, early on a windy June morning, the King, dressed in the least new clothes which he could find, was walking alone down a country road, swinging a stick and trying to whistle, an accomplishment which he had always envied and never been able to acquire, though he and his brother (now Field-Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces) had practised it surreptitiously when they played at being beggar boys. His royal mother caught them once and spanked them with her own royal hand, he remembered. "Was that for trying to whistle? Or was it for trying to turn a somersault?" he pondered. "Carlos did turn over once without getting his head on the ground, but I never managed it. Well, I'm too old now, but I feel like it! I wonder whether the lower orders ever turn somersaults in later life? It would be interesting to know that, and how they live and look at things—possibly even instructive. The steam-engine came from watching a kettle. I was never allowed in the kitchen, or I might have invented something. … Yes, I must mix with the people. In these old things I shall pass for one of themselves—say, a tramp! "
The King did not know what a tramp was exactly, but he believed that he was the least subject to rule of all persons in those grades of society which did not come to court, and therefore the most likely to be instructive—the tea-kettle of a royal inventor.
He paused and leaned on a gate to watch a horse caught for the day's duties, and presently a buxom milkmaid came over the field with a dozen cows, which she was taking to the farm to milk. "Come up, Jeannette! Now, Marygold! Steady, Flora!" The King opened the gate for her.
"Good morning, my dear," he said.
The girl dropped a curtsy nearly to the ground.
"Good morning, my lord!" said she.
"Eh?" said the King. "What? I'm not a lord. I'm—er—a tramp, you know!"
The girl laughed at him over her shoulder, and he heard her laugh again as she walked on.
"I suspect," he decided, "that the clothes are not old enough, though I must have worn them at least four or five times. I suppose that is a tramp."
He turned to a slouching young rustic who was coming along the lane.
"Excuse me," he asked politely, "but are you a tramp?"
The rustic stopped and looked him up and down.
"Are you a loony," he inquired, "or asking to have your blooming head knocked off? Or what? What d'yer mean by calling me names? Eh?"
"I am new to these parts," the King apologised. "We don't have tramps where I come from."
"You're lucky," said the rustic. "Well, if you mean it for a civil question, mister, a tramp is a chap that never does no work and never won't, and takes whatever he can lay hands on; and if you come across one, mind as he don't take them beautiful clothes of yourn! His'll be what some scarecrow has left off!"
He walked on, and the King stroked his chin and considered.
"I gather," he concluded, "that a tramp's apparel is even worse than that young man's. I shall never reach the hearts of the people unless I first assume their exterior appearance."
So he crawled through bushes, and rolled in some dust, and rubbed earth on any clean places which remained, and kicked his soft hat along the road (he had always wished they would let him play football) until he considered his appearance sufficiently tramply. Then he trudged along again, lustily trying to whistle, till he reached a farm.
He found that his disguise was now satisfactory. The farmer threatened to set the dogs on him if he did not depart. He was departing, laughing at the success of his disguise, when the farmer's wife called him back.
"Here!" she said. "Are you hungry?"
"Er—yes, madam," the King declared. A tramp, he reflected, probably would be.
"Hungry enough to do some work for a breakfast?" she asked.
The King considered, and decided that it would be interesting to learn what work was like.
"Yes, madam," he said, "if it will not occupy too long."
"It won't," she told him, "if you put your back into it. Here, Annette, take the man into the kitchen and give him enough to eat, and make him brush himself."
Luckily the girl did not insist upon the brushing, so the King was able to preserve his disguise. He ate a good breakfast of fat pork and dark-coloured bread, and drank tea swamped with new milk. Then he went to his task, which was to carry a number of faggots into a store. He enjoyed it immensely—never having been privileged to do anything of the kind before—and worked so well that the good woman gave him a franc when he was going. (He has the franc still.)
"If you're round here any time," she said, "and feel like a job, you come to me, I'll see that my good man gives you one."
"And she will," the maid told him. "Don't you waste time on the guy'nor. He's under the overseer's thumb and Stefan's, who keeps the accounts. But the missus is too much for the three of them!"
Hence the first note in the little book which the King carried that day.
The lower orders govern their households in the same way as the King governs the State.
After looking at this for some time, he added a second note—
Work and recreation are really the same thing. It is work when you have to do it, and recreation when you haven't.
He walked on for some way, whistling again, until he neared a village. There he met the padre, a portly and benevolent-looking old gentleman, who stopped him.
"Excuse me," the padre said, "but do you know what you are whistling?"
"Yes," said the King. "You recognised it, eh? That's surprising."
He rubbed his hands with delight to find that he was acquiring the art of whistling.
"It certainly surprised me," the padre confessed, "to find a—shall we say a gentleman of the road——"
"Certainly," the King agreed. "Certainly."
He rubbed his hands again. The disguise was evidently satisfactory.
"A gentleman of the road whistling the Prize Song from the 'Meistersingers.' It suggested to me that you were an educated man who—pardon me—had come down."
"Don't mention it," said the King. He decided mentally that he must try to think of something more vulgar to whistle, something that he had heard at a music-hall, perhaps; but he had only been to such a place four times, twice officially and twice unofficially (with Verodala). Unfortunately the Queen had heard of the last visit. That was what made it the last.
"It occurred to me," the padre continued, "that possibly there might be some way in which I could give you a help up. It is what we are all in the world for, from king to peasant, or tramp even, working the same plan in different material and judged by the workmanship. Only, friend, a man should choose the best material that he can get; it permits finer work. For example"—he smiled through his spectacles—"a violin can render the delicacies of the Prize Song better than a whistle. A peasant governs his home, and the King—God bless him!—governs the kingdom."
"He doesn't," the King stated feelingly. "At least, other people govern him."
"As other people govern the head of a house in a way," the padre said. "For example, my niece—she keeps house for me—turns me round her little finger in hundreds of things. But when you come to the big point, friend, the head of the house is the head of the house. And the King is the King! … Well, he should be!"
"Ah," said the King, "perhaps you don't know many court officials, and prime ministers, and queens—especially queens!"
"Many queens," the padre asserted. "Every woman is a queen to one man, and in her heart she wishes him to be king of her, I think. But women are not very easy to understand."
"I have noticed that," the King observed. "Yes, yes. … But about the question of one's lot in life. That is what you are driving at. Now, I was thinking that the finer the material, the greater the worry. A tramp has more happiness and more freedom than a king. For one thing, he needn't be married. A king practically must be."
"What do you reckon as happiness?" the padre asked. "Have you forgotten the happiness of duty well done? What do you mean by freedom? Is he unfree who is bond-slave to goodness? My dear friend"—he laid his white hand on the King's shoulder—"we can make a lot of controversy about right and wrong, but in our hearts we always know which is which. Obviously you are not in your rightful sphere—the sphere of duty in which God placed you. Is it impossible for you to get back to it?"
"No," the King owned, "I can get back there."
"Can I help you to do so?"
"No," said the King again.
"Then——" The old gentleman touched his arm again.
"I think," the King said, "you have made it easier. God bless you, sir. You will see me again, not as a tramp."
"Good!" The padre beamed. "Very good! Excellent! Now, perhaps a little monetary help might be—er—just a temporary assistance, eh?"
"Thank you," the King acknowledged, "but I assure you it is unnecessary. I would like just a card with your name and address—something to remember a friend by."
"The Padre of Beneventa," the good man said. "That's equal to name and address; but as a memento——" He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a little gold pencil-case, and wrote on the back of his card—
If you're a king, be a good king.
If you're a priest, be a good priest.
If you're a master, be a good master.
If you're a servant, be a good servant.
Anyhow, he as good as you can.
"There," he said, "that's what I preach to others, and fall short of, but I try to live up to it. Good luck, my friend!"
He held out his hand. The King grasped it.
When the King had left the good padre, he put the card in his notebook. He made another entry in that, and underlined it—
To shake hands with a good man is an honour to the King.
"I am learning a great deal to-day," he told himself, "but it doesn't solve the question of the uniform. I must think that out."
As it was warm, he sat down under a hedge to think, and thought himself asleep. When he woke, he fancied that he had slept for a good while; but when he was going to look at his watch, he found none. It had been unhooked from the chain and taken.
"Ha, ha!" he said. "If you're a thief, be a good thief! I wonder what my friend the padre would say to that!" He laughed at his joke. "If I weren't a king," he vowed, "I believe I might have been a humorist! What fun I could have made of the royal speeches! Well, well, a sense of humour is a great thing in a king. It helps him to avoid it. Ha, ha!"
He walked along a little further and heard angry voices, two women speaking shrilly and excitedly, and a man speaking quietly but obstinately. As he rounded a bend, he saw a big young police-guard talking to two gipsy women, a wicked-looking, shrivelled crone and a full-blooded, handsome wench with flashing eyes.
"You must give it to me," the guard said.
"I won't!" cried the girl. "It's more mine'n yourn. Picked it up, I tell you."
"Then I've got to take you to the guard-house," the guard said.
"What's the colour of her eyes, dearie?" the crone asked him. "Make a nice lady's watch, a little 'un like that! To the guard-house! Ha, ha! 'Tain't there you'll take it!"
"You'll see it go there and be handed over all right," the man told her. "You're coming with me, the pair of you. Picked it up, indeed! You tell that to the sergeant! If you ask me, you'll both see the inside of one of His Majesty's prisons."
"It's all the hospitality he provides," the crone raved, "ain't it? It's fine to be a king! Lives on the people, sucks the life out of 'em. And a palace for him, and for them—His Majesty's prisons! And His Majesty's police-guards! And His Majesty's police-guards' gals, what gets what he robs a poor homeless gipsy of! You swine!"
"That'll do, mother," the guard advised. "Best come along quiet."
"She didn't have it!" the girl cried. "Don't you touch her, or I'll knife you! Look here, you let grandmother be, and I'll come quiet. You wouldn't be hard on a poor gal, ducky?"
She sidled up to him, and suddenly her right arm darted out.
"No, you don't!" The guard grabbed her arm. "Thought you'd got a knife there! Now, look here, my gal. I don't want to be hard on no woman, but I've got my duty to do. Come along quiet, and I'll say nothing about what you tried to do to me. That's my affair. This other's the law's, and I've got my duty to do."
The King nodded approvingly. The guard was a good guard.
"What's the matter, officer?" he asked. "Not making a trouble about my watch, are you? I gave it to these poor people. I wanted to do something for them, and found I'd left my money at home. I've been hunting for birds' eggs, and got a bit dirty, eh?"
The guard looked at the King—who stood holding out his watchless chain—and pursed his lips.
"Well, you have, sir," he said; "in fact, if it weren't for your way of speaking—— However, I know a gentleman. But it's a funny story, sir."
"It is," the King agreed, "isn't it? If I told you the whole, you'd think it funnier."
"She said she picked it up," the guard remarked, kicking at the ground.
"She knew you wouldn't believe that anyone had given it to her," the King pointed out. "Sounds unlikely, eh? Unlikely! But there are some fools about, guard. Take me for one!"
The guard grinned slowly.
"There are," he agreed. "I know of another. Well, if a chap's folly takes the form of being sporting to a woman, I ain't got nothing much to say against it. Good day, sir. Good day, granny. Luck, Polly!"
"I'm coming a little way with you," the King told him.
When he had parted from the young guard, he stood at the roadside to make another note in his little book.
It is a shame to a king if he provides no guest-houses but prisons.
"Although," he reflected, "I'm afraid the old woman was a bad lot, and that black-eyed young hussy—— Not good! She ought to feel sorry for what she's done. But she's probably laughing at me for a soft fool."
Then suddenly there was a rustle in the hedge behind him, and someone said "Here!" and something hard was pushed into his hand. By the time that he had recognised his watch, the hedge was closing again, and he saw a red handkerchief, and occasionally some black hair that escaped it, departing hurriedly through the wood.
"Ah," he shouted, "that's excellent! That's capital! Now, you be a good girl, my dear!"
He heard a shaky laugh and then a rather husky voice—
"No fear!"
"But I'm not sure that she meant it," he told himself, "not at all sure. There's more good in people than you think. I shall note that in my book."
He made a fresh note accordingly—
Moral character of lower classes similar to that of high-born. Usually a mixture of good and evil. Either responds to similar characteristic in others. N.B.—You find good unexpectedly sometimes on giving proper occasion, N.B. 2.—Try on Prime Minister.
The recovered watch showed the King that it was past lunch-time. So he set out in search of an inn. On the way, however, he found a waggon the wheel of which had slipped into a ditch. Two carters were struggling to get the vehicle clear by urging the horse and whipping it.
"Here," the King cried, "you'll never do it like that. You're simply making your horse drag it harder into the bank, and frightening the poor thing out of his life. Harness the horse on to the side of the waggon to tilt it back straight, and we'll all lift at the wheel."
The King got down into the ditch—which, luckily, wasn't very damp—and lifted with the men till they extricated the wheel. Then he soothed the horse and helped harness it, and they drove him to the village.
"I never thought a gent had so much use," one of the waggoners complimented him. And the King made a note of this also in his book—
Even a king can be useful.
The landlord of the village inn took his disordered and muddy attire to be due to. his "sporting" help with the waggon. So he served him lunch in the parlour, and the King felt more appetite for it than he ever felt for the lunches at the palace. The landlord, he found, was regarded as the sage of the village. So he talked to him after lunch—which the landlord called dinner—with a view to acquiring knowledge of the masses from a reliable source. With royal wisdom he started with a compliment—called his host a wise man.
"Wise?" grunted the landlord. "Not me! And, to my mind, nobody ain't! They just look up to me because I'm a man that puts his foot down. That's how you've got to settle things. You never stand anywhere with your foot in the air. Plunk it down somewhere, and there you are! Doesn't matter where very often. You're standing!"
"Ah!" said the King. "Yes, but the trouble is to make other people stand in the same place." He thought of the question of the uniform and sighed. "Now, suppose you had three mothers with a child each, and all three had to be pressed alike——"
"Why should they be?" the landlord wanted to know.
"Well, suppose they had to be. Someone might have offered three suits of a pattern, you see."
"I see," the landlord agreed. "All boys or all girls, of course? Otherwise——"
"All boys," the King said; "and you were to choose the colours, and one mother wanted red, and another wanted blue, and another wanted drab. What would you do?"
"Black," said the landlord instantly. "More sensible and serviceable. Shouldn't listen to red or blue, anyhow. Not for a moment. Dark grey I might."
"But suppose the mothers had to agree with you before the suits were supplied?"
"No suits till they did," the landlord told him. "That's all!"
"You are a wise man, landlord," the King complimented him.
"Only obstinate," the landlord declared. "For lots of things it serves the same purpose."
Wherefore the King made another note—
The wiser of the lower orders hold that prompt and firm decision is more important than the precise decision arrived at, and that those in authority should be firm in exercising it. N.B.—Try on Adela.
His royal consort's name was Adela. (The King hesitated for a long while and took a deep breath before he wrote it.)
It was four o'clock when the King left the inn, and he had some five miles to travel to the place where the Secretary was to meet him with the motor. So he took a short cut recommended by a rustic, as he had never, all his life, been permitted to take a short cut before.
This particular short cut had a disadvantage. It crossed or, at any rate, the King crossed, the territory of a bull. The bull objected to the King. The King ran. He had never exerted himself so much since he was born. He lost his hat and dropped his stick, and went knee-deep in a ditch to cross it. He did not notice that the bull remained on his own side, but pushed through a prickly hedge, and ran on and on, till at last, in a little lane, he sank exhausted, panting loudly. A big rough man came out from behind a bush and dragged him through a hedge and behind a haystack, and carried him into a sort of burrow which he had made in it, and covered the opening with hay.
"Don't hear no one," he said gruffly. "I should say you've slipped 'em. Don't try to talk till you've got your breath. I've been in the same boat myself. Hope 'tain't murder, mate; but I don't give you away, not whatever you've done. 'Tain't just pinching a hen, or a rabbit, or an egg or two, that they're after you for. Eh, mate? "
"No!" the King gasped. "No! … Oh, dear! … I must have run several miles." (It was half a mile really.) "I expected to be caught every moment. Even now——" He looked round apprehensively.
"Well," said the tramp—the King took him to be a genuine tramp, because he was the roughest and raggedest and dirtiest person he had ever seen, and one of the biggest—"you're least likely to be took here of anywhere; and if you're to be took, you'll be took. What's to be will be, I always say; and what's the use of worrying? … Look here, mate. I don't want to ask no questions, but——" The tramp looked at him curiously. "Ever heard the name of King?"
"What?" the King cried. "You know me?"
"Strike me!" the tramp cried. "Strike me! You're him! And there's fresh blood on your hands!"
"It must have been getting through the hedge," the King explained. "He was close on me, and if he had caught me—— You see, my friend, it was a matter of life and death. If he should find us here!"
"He won't find us," the tramp growled. "I've done what I've done. Enough to judge no man! But"—he shook his great fist—"I haven't come down to be company to the likes of you. Just because a woman nags you, you go and do—what you did!"
"But really——" the King protested.
"Shut up!" the tramp growled. "Not another word, or I'll smash your jaw!" He shook his great fist in the King's face. "Listen to me. I'm not going to turn you out. I never gave anybody away yet, and I won't, but I'm going myself."
"But——" the King began. He was still panting a little from his exertions.
The tramp threw him aside roughly, and was out from the haystack and through the hedge before the King could think what to say. Then he, too, got out and shouted.
"The bull!" he called. "Look out for the bull!"
The tramp stopped as if he had been shot, turned and looked over the hedge.
"Bull?" he asked. "What bull?"
"The one that chased me!" the King explained.
The tramp roared and slapped his leg.
"Blimey!" he cried. "I thought it was the police. Natural thing to suppose!"
"If you've any reason to run away from them," the King said. "I haven't."
"Come, come, mate," the tramp said. "It's no use expecting me to believe that; but now you're standing up I see you ain't the bloke. You don't run to more than five foot six, and by the description he's five nine."
"Who?" the King asked.
"Well," said the tramp apologetically, "I was thinking of Johan King, that they're after."
"What for?" the King wanted to know.
"Done his wife in," said the tramp. "I dessay she had a tongue, and you may think me mighty pertickler, but——" He shook his rough head. "Going too far, I call it—too far! Of course, any chap beats his wife sometimes——"
"Oh!" cried the King. "Indeed no! Certainly I never have."
"How can you manage her, then?" the tramp wanted to know.
"I—er—can't," the King owned.
"There you are!" said the tramp.
An interesting discussion followed, the King holding that personal chastisement of wives was undesirable, and, at any rate, in the case of wives of the present-day upper class, out of the question, and the tramp urging that these most of all required it, "being hardest to hold in," though he admitted difficulties in applying his principles in cases of wives who were large and stronger than their husbands.
"Of course," he said, "there's a difference between a big man and a little one. What I say is, act as big as you can, and sometimes you'll come out bigger than you'd expect."
"That, my friend," said the King, "is one of the finest pieces of philosophy that I have ever heard. I shall make it my motto in future."
He wrote it down verbatim in his little book—
Philosophy of tramp: act as big as you can, and sometimes you'll come out bigger than you'd expect. N.B.—Applies to all classes, including kings. Shall try it.
The tramp piloted the King to his rendezvous. The King persuaded the tramp to accept sundry portraits of himself (stamped on coins), which the tramp did not recognise. They shook hands warmly on parting.
"A most interesting man, Verodala," the King pronounced, as they drove away. "A singularly interesting man, with almost knightly instincts. Particularly acute views on social questions. As a soldier you would appreciate his views upon the maintenance of discipline in domestic establishments. It appears that tramps are very strict with their wives."
"Ah!" said the Secretary. "Perhaps Your Majesty would like to put on this large driving coat? If the Queen should catch sight of you in your present attire——"
"It would merely precipitate what I have to say to Her Majesty," the King observed calmly. He sat back and folded his arms.
"I can't make out what has happened to His Majesty," the Secretary said, when he 'phoned to the Prime Minister that the King wished to see him immediately after dinner. "He seems a new man!"
That was what all three of his rulers thought when he spoke to them after dinner, for instead of asking for instructions he gave them.
He instructed the Prime Minister to have a scheme worked out for "King's Hostels" for the deserving poor of the realm—and especially tramps and gipsies—when travelling. "It is disgraceful," he declared, "that the King's only hospitality to his subjects should take the form of prisons. We must alter that."
He instructed the Secretary to arrange for a visit to the estimable Padre of Beneventa early in the next week. "You can take a selection of decorations," he said, "though I doubt if he will care for any,"
He instructed the Queen that he should like her to accompany him. "He knows a number of queens," he remarked, "women who are queens to their husbands. So I should like him to meet one who is a double queen."
The King bowed, not insincerely. In his heart he was very proud of his handsome and regal wife.
"Now," he said, "there is this question of the uniforms. I have carefully considered the main points, and have arrived at a decision. You should be able to come to agreement upon the details."
He delivered his decision, which was, upon the whole, in favour of the military view.
"And that is all," he concluded. "I wish the arrangements carried out rapidly."
The Secretary and the Prime Minister bowed and went out. The Queen sat and stared at the King. The King pulled himself together, and wished that he were six feet ten. Anyhow, he told himself, he was going to try to feel like it.
"Well!" Her Majesty cried at last. "Well! It is quite opposed to my views, and I'm sure you are wrong. But—you acted like a big man."
The King jumped up and walked over to his royal consort and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Help me to be one," he proposed. "Adela, let us do things together and be as big as we can."
"Yes," said the Queen. "Yes. It should give each of us the bigness of two."
"I shall make a note of that," he told her.
So it came to pass that the King made an entry at the end of the wisdom which his people had taught him upon his day off, a great discovery which he meant to teach to them—
When a man and woman are one, each has the greatness of two.
Which is the final moral, if a story may have morals, of this queer little fancy of the King's day off. At least, the King and the Queen and the other people are fancies. The morals are real enough to apply to you and me.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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