Part 13 (1/2)

”Are you the autocrat?” inquired the King.

”At your Majesty's disposal,” returned the Lord Functionary with a bow.

”Then you are not responsible to Parliament?”

The Lord Functionary smiled, with a touch of disdain. ”I should not be holding office if I were,” said he.

”Then you are not under the Prime Minister, either?”

”No more than your Majesty,” said the magnificent one blandly. ”In the order of precedence I am, indeed, several degrees above him. It is, of course, a Government appointment; but while I hold it my discretionary powers are unlimited.”

This seemed a very great person, and the King looked on him with envy.

”To whom, then, are you actually responsible?” he inquired.

”To you, sir.”

”To me alone?”

”My official t.i.tle would make it indecent for me to consult any one but your Majesty.”

”Ah, yes, you keep my conscience for me, don't you?” said the King. Max was right, then; here was something still left for him to do. He addressed himself to the previous question.

”What exactly is the trouble?”

”A self-advertising minority, sir, has been persistently submitting plays which it was quite out of the question to pa.s.s. Being annoyed, they are now attacking the plays which _have_ pa.s.sed.”

”I should like,” said the King, ”to see some of these plays; to be in touch, if I may so put it, with my own conscience. Would you be good enough to send me three of those you have not pa.s.sed, and three of the others which are now being attacked. I would like also,” he added, ”to see _The Gaudy Girl_ in its new version.”

The Lord Functionary raised his pale eyebrows.

”May I be allowed to know why, sir?” he inquired.

”Just curiosity,” said the King. ”I thought of going to see it, and I wanted first to be sure that there was nothing--nothing, you know----”

The Lord Functionary's face became wreathed in smiles.

”Why, certainly, sir. I will see that a copy is sent to your Majesty at once. It is, of course, work of a very light and frivolous kind--but it is popular and it does no harm.” Then, as by an after-thought, the official countenance grew grave. ”Was her Majesty also intending to be present?” he inquired.

The King, discerning that a negative was invited, gave the required a.s.surance. ”As a matter of fact,” said he, ”it was the Prince who asked me to go--suggested it, that is to say.” And immediately official confidence was restored, for to the Lord Functionary Max as a reformer was still unknown, while his taste for frivolous diversion was more easily a.s.sumed. And so in due course a copy of the play reached the King's hands.

Perhaps it was through mere inadvertence that the other six did not accompany it. The King noted the omission; but when once he started to read the single play which had reached him he forgot all about the others, for he found that his hands were full. At one stroke of the scythe he had reaped a plentiful harvest.

Here was a play on the very eve of production, reeking with the sn.i.g.g.e.ring improprieties which the keeper of the King's conscience had permitted to become the popular vogue. Suggestions and innuendoes to which the ordinary theater-going public had now grown accustomed, struck his inexperienced Majesty as bold and glaring novelties. The mere cheapness of the wit he pa.s.sed uncritically by, but the indecencies were so bare and bald that even he, with all his innocence and inexperience, could not fail to understand them. The explanation, of course, was easy; this new version of an old and accepted play had received the official sanction through oversight. Providence had sent him to the rescue in the nick of time; and delighted to have found something which his hand really could do, he took up the blue pencil and set to work.

s.n.a.t.c.hes of dialogue, half lines of lyric--especially when it came to the last verse--here, there, and everywhere he scored them through with a ruthless hand; and with a renewed sense of usefulness, and a conscience well at ease, he returned the much deleted copy to the Lord Functionary.

Before long that official visited him, presenting a grave countenance.

He was by no means enthusiastic over the royal handiwork; the production was about to take place; the play had already practically been licensed--silence up to so late a moment having virtually given consent; and--most difficult point of all--these things which the King was now ruling out had almost all of them been in the previously accepted version.