Part 43 (1/2)

”But I can't say that sort of thing, my dear.”

”Yes, you can, papa! It's an old right; the right of unrepresented people to come direct to their sovereign and tell him that his ministers are refusing to do things for them. And your ministers are trying to keep you from knowing about it, to keep you from knowing even that you have such a power; and by not knowing it they are making you break your Coronation oath. Oh, papa, isn't that dreadful to think of?”

”My dear, if that were true----”

”But it is true, papa! These women are trying to bring you their pet.i.tion, and they are prevented. The ministers say that you have nothing to do with it; so they go to the ministers--they take their pet.i.tion to the ministers, and ask them to bring it to you, so that you may give them an answer. Have any of them brought you the pet.i.tion, papa?”

The King shook his head.

”You see, they do nothing! And so the women go again, and again, and again, taking their pet.i.tion with them; and because they are trying to get to you--to say that their grievances shall be looked into, and something done about them--because of that they are being beaten and bruised in the streets; and when they won't turn back then they are arrested and sent to prison.”

By this time Charlotte was weeping.

”They may be quite wrong,” she cried, ”foolish and impossible in their demands; they may have no grievances worth troubling about--though if so, why are they troubling as they do?--but they have the right, under the old law, for those grievances to be inquired into and considered and decided about. And Parliament won't do it; it is too busy about other things, grievances that aren't a bit more real, and about which people haven't been pet.i.tioning at all. But you, papa (if that pet.i.tion came to you), would have the right to make them attend to it. And they know it; and that's why they won't let you hear anything about it.”

The King's conscience was beginning to be troubled. He had no confidence either in the good sense or the uprightness of his ministers to fall back upon; and he saw that his daughter, though she knew so little about the merits of the case, was very much in earnest. She had caught his hand and was holding it; she kissed it, and he could feel the dropping of warm tears.

”Very well, my dear,” he said, ”very well; I promise that this shall be looked into.”

”Oh, papa!” she cried joyfully. ”It was partly for that--just a little, not all, of course--that I went to prison.”

”Then you ought not to have been so foolish. Why could you not have come to me?”

”I don't think you would have attended; not so much as you do now.”

And the King had to admit how, perhaps, that was true.

”Well, my dear,” he said again, ”I promise that it shall be seen to. No, I shan't forget.”

And then she kissed him and thanked him, and went away comforted. And when he was alone he got down the index volume of Professor Teller's _Const.i.tutional History_, and after some search under the heading of ”Pet.i.tions” found indeed that Charlotte was right, and that the power to send messages to Parliament for the remedying of abuses was still his own.

CHAPTER XVII

THE INCREDIBLE THING HAPPENS

I

Since the break-up of his plans the King had been finding consolation in his son's book, an advance copy of which had reached him while Max was still abroad. Consolation is, perhaps, hardly the right word; it had distracted him in more ways than one; partly, and in a good sense, from his own personal depression over things gone wrong, but more with a scared apprehension of the terrible hubbub that would arise when its contents became known. The t.i.tle, _Government and the Governed_, was sober enough, and the post-diluvian motto once threatened by Max had been omitted; but the contents were of a highly revolutionary character, and the bland ”take-or-leave me” att.i.tude of the author toward the public he would some day be called upon to rule was on a par with that statement of her prison doings which Charlotte was preparing for the delectation of Hans Fritz Otto, Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser. In neither case did it seem likely that such a confession would draw parties together.

And so before the King had even finished reading he felt it his duty to write imploring his son not to publish.

Before an answer could reach him important events supervened. The reverberations of the bomb brought Max flying back to the bosom of his family; and then the Charlotte episode had followed, over which Max had not been at all sympathetic, for in spite of his emanc.i.p.ated views about things in general, he had still the particular notion that revolution belonged only to men, and that women, incapable of conducting it efficiently, had far better leave it alone.

And so it was that only when things had begun to resettle themselves was any fresh reference made to the book's forthcoming publication.

As soon as the subject was broached Max presented a face of polite astonishment.

”I thought you knew, sir,” he said.