Part 6 (1/2)
”Yes, Max. I am thinking of him a good deal!” said the King, in a tone wherein sarcasm and indulgence were pleasantly blended.
”You mean that I myself need the discipline?” smiled Max, ”that my political ideas are even worse than my morals? Well, here is what you should do. Choose for me an exemplary young priest of the Established Church, let him be gentle and comely to attract the hearts of women, athletic and erudite to command the respect of men; and when I become a cause of scandal or forget what is due to my position, let him be set to stand in the old stocks at the doors of the Cathedral on a given day, for a given number of hours; let it be announced in the Court Circular that he is there to do penance for my sins, and let it be my privilege, if penitent, to come in person after the first hour and release him before the eyes of all. What more effective form of control could you devise for me than this? How could I remain impenitent and unsubmissive when for my faults an innocent man stood exposed in contumely to the public gaze? Sir, you would have me exemplary in a week, or a fugitive from that country which set so high a standard of honor for its princes.
As it is, our whipping boys go unlabeled with our names; and our offenses are expiated by countless thousands who know not for whose sins they suffer.”
”Max,” said his father, ”you sound as if you were quoting from some book.”
”I am,” answered the Prince; ”it is one that I am writing myself, that being the only form of free action that is left to me. At the threshold of manhood I recognized what my fate was to be, and that I was not really intended to do anything. That is why I talk. Activity is necessary to me. To keep myself in physical vigor I run about and play; to keep myself in mental vigor I read, I examine life, and I propound theories. This book which I am now writing would probably excite no comment if published anonymously, but will be regarded as revolutionary when it is known to have been written by the heir to a crown.”
”Do you mean to publish it, then?” cried the King in awestruck tone.
”Certainly,” answered the Prince. ”Has not the nation every right to know the opinions of its possible future King? Never shall it be said that Jingalo accepted me blindly under the dark cover of heredity.”
At this news the King looked really aghast. ”And you propose, while I am spending myself in trying to add l.u.s.ter----” he began, then checked himself; ”you propose to publish a work which may destroy the confidence at present subsisting between the sovereign and the people?”
”Would not false confidence be a worse alternative, sir?” inquired Max.
”But you are doing it in my time,” said the King plaintively; ”it is my reign you are disturbing, not your own. I don't think you have any right.”
”My dear father,” answered the Prince, ”the more impossible I prove myself to be, the more popular you will become.”
But the King was not to be consoled by that prospect; he was working not for himself alone--not for himself, indeed, at all.
”Max,” he said earnestly, ”believe me, monarchy, even at the present day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing can adequately take its place.”
”Do not forget, sir,” said his son, ”that if we follow our heredity back far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation to accept the burden of heredity. No; let us have the matter quite clear. If the people--as they have done by others in the past--claim the right to reject me, should I prove myself an outrageous and impossible character, I equally claim the right to reject them; and I must see them capable of making a reasonable use of my services before I will consent to be made use of.”
”Well,” said the King, breathing in resignation, ”I suppose I ought not to mind too much. 'After me the Deluge,' is a wise enough saying when one has no power to prevent it.”
”'After me the Deluge,'” said Max, ”has come down to us with a muddled application. If monarchy would only adopt it as its motto, monarchy would be good for another thousand years. Louis XV said it; and Louis XVI failed to give it effect. Had he but placed himself at the head of the Deluge, in the very forefront of its rush and roar, waved his hat to it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am going to put on the t.i.tle-page of my book.”
”Good gracious!” cried the King.
Max was pleased to see what an impression he had made: he did not usually get so good a listener. ”And to think,” said he, ”that all this talk came of your having asked me a question on a matter that is already five years old. I am sorry to have taken up so much time explaining myself.”
”On the contrary,” said the King, ”I am glad. Five years? Yes, I am very glad to know that.” He got up and moving to the table made a call on his private telephone. ”Would you mind waiting a few minutes,” he went on, ”perhaps I shall need your countenance.”
A secretary answered the call; and presently the Comptroller-General himself appeared to learn the royal pleasure.
”I am sorry, my dear General,” said the King, ”to trouble you at so late an hour. But about that matter of the widow--who is not a widow. I wish fifty pounds to be sent to her--anonymously. Yes, fifty pounds. Will you see that it is done to-night?”
Turning to Max he said, as though referring to conversation already pa.s.sed, ”You have effectually interested me in her case.”
Max saw that he was being used as a p.a.w.n in a game he did not understand, and held his tongue; and the Comptroller-General, finding himself dismissed, retired to do for once as he was told.
And so, by the inglorious device of anonymity and lavishness combined the King maintained his point, and sent his gift to the relief of one who was, as a matter of fact, just as legally a widow as any other you or I may like to name.
John of Jingalo had not yet broken the official leading-strings, but on this occasion he had circ.u.mvented them. Flushed with his triumph, he bade his son an affectionate good-night. ”Come and talk to me again,” he said. ”I don't agree with anything you say, but you help me to think.”