II
The Correspondent of the Court Journal
Journalism had become, like most other such things in England under the cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker, somewhat sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly due to the disappearance of party government and public speaking, partly to the compromise or deadlock which had made foreign wars impossible, but mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation which was that of a people in a kind of backwater. Perhaps the most well known of the remaining newspapers was the Court Journal, which was published in a dusty but genteel-looking office just out of Kensington High Street. For when all the papers of a people have been for years growing more and more dim and decorous and optimistic, the dimmest and most decorous and most optimistic is very likely to win. In the journalistic competition which was still going on at the beginning of the twentieth century, the final victor was the Court Journal.
For some mysterious reason the King had a great affection for hanging about in the Court Journal office, smoking a morning cigarette and looking over files. Like all ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond of lounging and chatting in places where other people were doing work. But one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of his day, he might have found a more bustling centre.
On this particular morning, however, he came out of Kensington Palace with a more alert step and a busier air than usual. He wore an extravagantly long frock-coat, a pale-green waistcoat, a very full and dégagé black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as Colonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. It was a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quickly across the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as he went, and flung open the door of the Court Journal office.
“You’ve heard the news, Pally—you’ve heard the news?” he said.
The Editor’s name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, which was an abbreviation of Paladium of our Liberties.
“Well, your Majesty,” said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried, gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard)—“well, your Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I—”
“You’ll hear more of them,” said the King, dancing a few steps of a kind of negro shuffle. “You’ll hear more of them, my blood-and-thunder tribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?”
“No, your Majesty,” replied the Paladium, vaguely.
“I’m going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines,” said the King. “Now, where are your posters of last night’s defeat?”
“I did not propose, your Majesty,” said the Editor, “to have any posters exactly—”
“Paper, paper!” cried the King, wildly; “bring me paper as big as a house. I’ll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off.” He began removing that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully at Mr. Hoskins’ head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself in the glass. “The coat off,” he said, “and the hat on. That looks like a subeditor. It is indeed the very essence of subediting. Well,” he continued, turning round abruptly, “come along with that paper.”
The Paladium had only just extricated himself reverently from the folds of the King’s frock-coat, and said bewildered—
“I am afraid, your Majesty—”
“Oh, you’ve got no enterprise,” said Auberon. “What’s that roll in the corner? Wallpaper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in the home, Pally? Fling it over here, and I’ll paint such posters on the back of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you’ll paste the original pattern against the wall.” And the King unrolled the wallpaper, spreading it over the whole floor. “Now give me the scissors,” he cried, and took them himself before the other could stir.
He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as a door. Then he took a big blue pencil, and went down on his knees on the dusty oilcloth and began to write on them, in huge letters—
“From the front.
General Buck defeated.
Darkness, danger, and death.
Wayne said to be in Pump Street.
Feeling in the city.”
He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and got up, with a sigh.
“Not quite intense enough,” he said—“not alarming. I want the Court Journal to be feared as well as loved. Let’s try something more hard-hitting.” And he went down on his knees again. After sucking the blue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily. “How will this do?” he said—
“Wayne’s wonderful victory.”
“I suppose,” he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking the pencil—“I suppose we couldn’t say ‘wictory’—‘Wayne’s wonderful wictory’? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it.”
“Wayne wins.
Astounding fight in the dark.
The gas-lamps in their courses fought against Buck.”
“(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else can we say? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;” and he added, thoughtfully, in smaller letters—
“Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck.”
“Those will do for the present,” he said, and turned them both face downwards. “Paste, please.”
The Paladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of an inner room.
The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing with treacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in each hand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positions over the front of the office.
“And now,” said Auberon, entering again with undiminished vivacity—“now for the leading article.”
He picked up another of the large strips
