hair… It is wonderful to think how long that beautiful old

life lasted. In the Roman times and long ages before ever the

rumour of the Romans had come into these parts, men drove their

cattle up into these places as the summer came on… How haunted

is this place! There have been quarrels here, hopes, children

have played here and lived to be old crones and old gaffers, and

died, and so it has gone on for thousands of lives. Lovers,

innumerable lovers, have caressed amidst this golden broom…'

He meditated over a busy mouthful of bread and cheese.

'We ought to have brought a tankard for that beer,' he said.

Firmin produced a folding aluminium cup, and the king was pleased

to drink.

'I wish, sir,' said Firmin suddenly, 'I could induce you at least

to delay your decision--'

'It's no good talking, Firmin,' said the king. 'My mind's as

clear as daylight.'

'Sire,' protested Firmin, with his voice full of bread and cheese

and genuine emotion, 'have you no respect for your kingship?'

The king paused before he answered with unwonted gravity. 'It's

just because I have, Firmin, that I won't be a puppet in this

game of international politics.' He regarded his companion for a

moment and then remarked: 'Kingship!-what do YOU know of

kingship, Firmin?

'Yes,' cried the king to his astonished counsellor. 'For the

first time in my life Iam going to be a king. Iam going to

lead, and lead by my own authority. For a dozen generations my

family has been a set of dummies in the hands of their advisers.

Advisers! Now Iam going to be a real king-and Iam going

to-to abolish, dispose of, finish, the crown to which I have

been a slave. But what a world of paralysing shams this roaring

stuff has ended! The rigid old world is in the melting-pot again,

and I, who seemed to be no more than the stuffing inside a regal

robe, Iam a king among kings. I have to play my part at the head

of things and put an end to blood and fire and idiot disorder.'

'But, sir,' protested Firmin.

'This man Leblanc is right. The whole world has got to be a

Republic, one and indivisible. You know that, and my duty is to

make that easy. A king should lead his people; you want me to

stick on their backs like some Old Man of the Sea. To-day must

be a sacrament of kings. Our trust for mankind is done with and

ended. We must part our robes among them, we must part our

kingship among them, and say to them all, now the king in every

one must rule the world… Have you no sense of the magnificence

of this occasion? You want me, Firmin, you want me to go up

there and haggle like a damned little solicitor for some price,

some compensation, some qualification…'

Firmin shrugged his shoulders and assumed an expression of

despair. Meanwhile, he conveyed, one must eat.

For a time neither spoke, and the king ate and turned over in his

mind the phrases of the speech he intended to make to the

conference. By virtue of the antiquity of his crown he was to

preside, and he intended to make his presidency memorable.

Reassured of his eloquence, he considered the despondent and

sulky Firmin for a space.

'Firmin,' he said, 'you have idealised kingship.' 'It has been

my dream, sir,' said Firmin sorrowfully, 'to serve.'

'At the levers, Firmin,' said the king.

'You are pleased to be unjust,' said Firmin, deeply hurt.

'I am pleased to be getting out of it,' said the king.

'Oh, Firmin,' he went on, 'have you no thought for me? Will you

never realise that Iam not only flesh and blood but an

imagination-with its rights. Iam a king in revolt against that

fetter they put upon my head. Iam a king awake. My reverend

grandparents never in all their august lives had a waking moment.

They loved the job that you, you advisers, gave them; they never

had a doubt of it. It was like giving a doll to a woman who ought

to have a child. They delighted in processions and opening things

and being read addresses to, and visiting triplets and

nonagenarians and all that sort of thing. Incredibly. They used

to keep albums of cuttings from all the illustrated papers

showing them at it, and if the press-cutting parcels grew thin

they were worried. It was all that ever worried them. But there

is something atavistic in me; I hark back to unconstitutional

monarchs. They christened me too retrogressively, I think. I