Part 32 (2/2)
”I fear that I do not follow your Majesty's argument.”
”I was merely recalling what the Prince told me for a fact just before I went abroad. He had been informed of it by a social worker who gave him chapter and verse. Two years ago the medical profession published a book exposing all the fraudulent patents and quack medicines which occupy so large a s.p.a.ce in the advertising columns of our newspapers. The book was put authoritatively upon the market, and, as I understand, was advertised in all the leading papers. When the paid-for advertis.e.m.e.nts terminated not a single paper would renew the contract. The holders of those quack medicines and patents had found means to shut down (so far as the advertising of it was concerned) a scientific work which threatened to diminish their profits. That is why I ask what price we are prepared to pay for the protection of trade interests.”
”I should like to be a.s.sured of the truth of that statement, with all respect to your Majesty, before I pa.s.s any comment.”
”You can write to the College of Medicine if you really wish for the facts. I myself made very much the same query, and was shown as proof a letter from its president to one of the medical journals.”
But even this did not induce the Prime Minister to regard the matter very seriously. ”After all, sir,” said he, ”viewed in a certain light it is only a method of trade compet.i.tion; for when the sales of patent medicines decrease no doubt the doctors begin to profit.”
”The State has thought it worth while,” said the King, ”to give to the medical profession a certificated monopoly. Is it outside its province to warn the public against charlatans?”
”Is not charlatans an extreme term? I believe, sir, that many of these patents are quite excellent and in their first effects a stimulant to health; and in these days when 'suggestion' and 'faith-healing' are so much talked of it is an arguable proposition that those drugs which give to mind and body a certain preliminary incentive afford the best leverage for faith to work on. Of course there are a great many matters which need control, supervision, and reform; vested interests do tend to create abuses; but I must remind your Majesty that in the pus.h.i.+ng of its reforms the Government has not been quite a free agent. In many respects we have been greatly hindered; that is still the crux of the political situation.”
”Ah, yes,” said the King, ”you do well to remind me. You are, I take it, now engaged in educating the country; the terms of your proposals are before it. May I ask whether your antic.i.p.ations of popular support have proved correct?”
”We find no reason to alter our opinion as to the necessary solution.”
”Or as to your determination to proceed with it?”
The Prime Minister was very urbane. ”Your Majesty has been good enough to indicate a date when all difficulties will be removed.”
It was a sufficient statement of what was in store.
”Thank you,” said the King, ”I did wish to know. Have you done well at the by-elections?”
”Beyond the inevitable tear-and-wear due to our period of office we have nothing to complain of.”
”I have been longer in office than you,” said the King, smiling rather sadly, ”and I suppose that in my case the inevitable wear-and-tear has been proportionately greater. You will make allowances, therefore, if I have been slow in arriving at my conclusion. After the date we agreed upon I think you will have no ground for complaint.”
”I hope your Majesty has never regarded as a complaint the advice which I have felt bound to offer.”
”There is a complaint somewhere,” said the King; ”perhaps a const.i.tutional one. All I wanted to avoid was quack remedies.”
He was rather pleased with himself at thus rounding off the discussion: for while reiterating his promise he had indicated that his own opinion was quite as unchanged as that of his ministers. And so with a little time still left in which to turn round he bethought him of the duty which lay on him to set his house in order against future events. And then it struck him how very important it was that Max should now ”settle down” and eliminate for good and all certain elements from his life.
Yes, it had become quite necessary that Max should marry.
III
Max was back again in his proper quarters, and the Queen had been to pay him a visit of motherly condolence. She, too, was set upon eliminating from his life those things which ought not to be in it; and finding him still rather feeble from the blow that had fallen on him, and with a head still bandaged, she thought it a seasonable opportunity to press him in the way he should go. But she was not one of those who have any taste for probing into young men's lives; she had an instinctive feeling that such a line of ethical exploration lay entirely beyond her; and so when she approached the subject her touch was only upon the surface.
”Max, my dear,” she said fondly, ”I do wish you would marry.”
Max smiled at her with filial indulgence, and then, perceiving that there might be entertainment in a conversation well packed with double meanings, he fell in with her suggestion.
”I wish I could,” he said, ”but there are difficulties that you don't understand.”
”Oh, yes, I think I do,” she answered. ”Of course with us there are always difficulties. The choice is so limited.”
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