“Alas, no longer,” said a sad, bearded man.
“Poor chap,” said Lottie Crump, who always had a weak spot for royalty, even when deposed. “It’s a shame. They gave him the boot after the war. Hasn’t got a penny. Not that he ever did have much. His wife’s locked up in a looney house, too.”
“Poor Maria Christina. It is true how Mrs. Crump says. Her brains, they are quite gone out. All the time she thinks everyone is a bomb.”
“It’s perfectly true, poor old girl,” said Lottie with relish. “I drove the King down Saturday to see her … (I won’t have him travelling third class). It fair brought tears to my eyes. Kept skipping about all the time, she did, dodging. Thought they were throwing things at her.”
“It is one strange thing, too,” said the King. “All my family they have bombs thrown at them, but the Queen, never. My poor Uncle Joseph he blow all to bits one night at the opera, and my sister she find three bombs in her bed. But my wife, never. But one day her maid is brushing her hair before dinner, and she said, ‘Madam,’ she said, ‘the cook has had lesson from the cook at the French Legation’—the food at my home was not what you call chic. One day it was mutton hot, then mutton cold, then the same mutton hot again, but less nicer, not chic, you understand me—‘he has had lesson from the French cook,’ the maid say, ‘and he has made one big bomb as a surprise for your dinner party tonight for the Swedish Minister.’ Then the poor Queen say ‘Oh,’ like so, and since then always her poor brains has was all nohow.”
The ex-King of Ruritania sighed heavily and lit a cigar.
“Well,” said Lottie, brushing aside a tear, “what about a little drink? Here, you over there, your Honour Judge What’s-your-name, how about a drink for the gentlemen?”
The American, who, like all the listeners, had been profoundly moved by the ex-King’s recitation, roused himself to bow and say, “I shall esteem it a great honour if His Majesty and yourself, Mrs. Crump, and these other good gentlemen …”
“That’s the way,” said Lottie. “Hi, there, where’s my Fairy Prince? Powdering hisself again, I suppose. Come here, Nancy, and put away the beauty cream.”
In came the waiter.
“Bottle of wine,” said Lottie, “with Judge Thingummy there.” (Unless specified in detail, all drinks are champagne in Lottie’s parlour. There is also a mysterious game played with dice which always ends with someone giving a bottle of wine to everyone in the room, but Lottie has an equitable soul and she generally sees to it, in making up the bills, that the richest people pay for everything.)
After the third or fourth bottle of wine Lottie said, “Who d’you think we’ve got dining upstairs tonight? Prime Minister.”
“Me, I have never liked Prime Ministers. They talk and talk and then they talk more. ‘Sir, you must sign that.’ ‘Sir, you must go here and there.’ ‘Sir, you must do up that button before you give audience to the black plenipotentiary from Liberia.’ Pah! After the war my people give me the bird, yes, but they throw my Prime Minister out of the window, bump right bang on the floor. Ha, ha.”
“He ain’t alone either,” said Lottie with a terrific wink.
“What, Sir James Brown?” said the Major, shocked in spite of himself. “I don’t believe it.”
“No, name of Outrage.”
“He’s not Prime Minister.”
“Yes, he is. I saw it in the paper.”
“No, he’s not. He went out of office last week.”
“Well I never. How they keep changing. I’ve no patience with it. Doge. Doge. What’s the Prime Minister’s name?”
“Beg pardon, mum.”
“What’s the name of the Prime Minister?”
“Not tonight, I don’t think, mum, not as I’ve been informed anyway.”
“What’s the name of the Prime Minister, you stupid old man?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, mum. I didn’t quite hear you. Sir James Brown, mum, Bart. A very nice gentleman, so I’ve been told. Conservative, I’ve heard said. Gloucestershire they come from, I think.”
“There, what did I say?” said Lottie triumphantly.
“It is one very extraordinary thing, your British Constitution,” said the ex-King of Ruritania. “All the time when I was young they taught me nothing but British Constitution. My tutor had been a master at your Eton school. And now when I come to England always there is a different Prime Minister and no one knows which is which.”
“Oh, sir,” said the Major, “that’s because of the Liberal Party.”
“Liberals? Yes. We, too, had Liberals. I tell you something now, I had a gold fountain-pen. My godfather, the good Archduke of Austria, give me one gold fountain-pen with eagles on him. I loved my gold fountain-pen.” Tears stood in the King’s eyes. Champagne was a rare luxury to him now. “I loved very well my pen with the little eagles. And one day there was a Liberal Minister. A Count Tampen, one man, Mrs. Crump, of exceedingly evilness. He come to talk to me and he stood at my little escritoire and he thump and talk too much about somethings I not understand, and when he go—where was my gold fountain-pen with eagles—gone too.”
“Poor old King,” said Lottie. “I tell you what. You have another drink.”
“… Esteem it a great honour,” said the American, “if your Majesty and these gentlemen and Mrs. Crump …”
“Doge, tell my little lovebird to come hopping in … you there, Judge wants another bottle of wine.”
“… Should honour it a great esteem … esteem it a great honour if Mrs. Majesty and these gentlemen and His Crump …”
“That’s all right, Judge. Another bottle coming.”
“… Should esteem it a great Crump if his honour and these Majesties and Mrs. Gentlemen …”
“Yes, yes, that’s all right, Judge. Don’t let him fall down, boys. Bless me, how these Americans do drink.”
“… I should Crump it a great Majesty if Mrs. Esteem …”
And his Honour Judge Skimp of the Federal High Court began to laugh rather
