wanted to get things done. I was bored. I might have fallen into

vice, most intelligent and energetic princes do, but the palace

precautions were unusually thorough. I was brought up in the

purest court the world has ever seen… Alertly pure… So I

read books, Firmin, and went about asking questions. The thing

was bound to happen to one of us sooner or later. Perhaps, too,

very likely I'm not vicious. I don't thinkIam.'

He reflected. 'No,' he said.

Firmin cleared his throat. 'I don't think you are, sir,' he

said. 'You prefer--'

He stopped short. He had been going to say 'talking.' He

substituted 'ideas.'

'That world of royalty!' the king went on. 'In a little while no

one will understand it any more. It will become a riddle…

'Among other things, it was a world of perpetual best clothes.

Everything was in its best clothes for us, and usually wearing

bunting. With a cinema watching to see we took it properly. If

you are a king, Firmin, and you go and look at a regiment, it

instantly stops whatever it is doing, changes into full uniform

and presents arms. When my august parents went in a train the

coal in the tender used to be whitened. It did, Firmin, and if

coal had been white instead of black I have no doubt the

authorities would have blackened it. That was the spirit of our

treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to

us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an impression of

a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began

to poke my little questions into the Lord Chancellor and the

archbishop and all the rest of them, about what I should see if

people turned round, the general effect I produced was that I

wasn't by any means displaying the Royal Tact they had expected

of me…'

He meditated for a time.

'And yet, you know, there is something in the kingship, Firmin.

It stiffened up my august little grandfather. It gave my

grandmother a kind of awkward dignity even when she was

cross-and she was very often cross. They both had a profound

sense of responsibility. My poor father's health was wretched

during his brief career; nobody outside the circle knows just how

he screwed himself up to things. "My people expect it," he used

to say of this tiresome duty or that. Most of the things they

made him do were silly-it was part of a bad tradition, but there

was nothing silly in the way he set about them… The spirit of

kingship is a fine thing, Firmin; I feel it in my bones; I do not

know what I might not be if I were not a king. I could die for my

people, Firmin, and you couldn't. No, don't say you could die for

me, because I know better. Don't think I forget my kingship,

Firmin, don't imagine that. Iam a king, a kingly king, by right

divine. The fact that Iam also a chattering young man makes not

the slightest difference to that. But the proper text-book for

kings, Firmin, is none of the court memoirs and Welt-Politik

books you would have me read; it is old Fraser's Golden Bough.

Have you read that, Firmin?'

Firmin had. 'Those were the authentic kings. In the end they

were cut up and a bit given to everybody. They sprinkled the

nations-with Kingship.'

Firmin turned himself round and faced his royal master.

'What do you intend to do, sir?' he asked. 'If you will not

listen to me, what do you propose to do this afternoon?'

The king flicked crumbs from his coat.

'Manifestly war has to stop for ever, Firmin. Manifestly this

can only be done by putting all the world under one government.

Our crowns and flags are in the way. Manifestly they must go.'

'Yes, sir,' interrupted Firmin, 'but WHAT government? I don't see

what government you get by a universal abdication!'

'Well,' said the king, with his hands about his knees, 'WE shall

be the government.'

'The conference?' exclaimed Firmin.

'Who else?' asked the king simply.

'It's perfectly simple,' he added to Firmin's tremendous silence.

'But,' cried Firmin, 'you must have sanctions! Will there be no

form of election, for example?'

'Why should there be?' asked the king, with intelligent

curiosity.

'The consent of the governed.'

'Firmin, we are just going to lay down our differences and take

over government. Without any election at all. Without any

sanction. The governed will show their consent by silence. If

any effective opposition arises we shall ask it to come in and

help. The true sanction of kingship is the grip upon the sceptre.

We aren't going to worry people to vote for us. I'm certain the

mass of men does not want to be bothered with such things…

We'll contrive a way for any one interested to join in. That's

quite enough in the way of democracy. Perhaps later-when things