“What Leader?” said I, breathless with curiosity.

“Who has always been the leader of the Conservative Party, whatever puppet may have appeared to mortal eyes to hold that office?” said Mr. King.

I knew, of course. That is to say, I knew who had always appeared to Mr. King to be the Tory Leader. My mind trembled on the verge of total disorder. “Mr. King,” I whispered, “are you telling me that you have brought about Separatism in—” But I did not like to speak the word. To a Presbyterian it might seem offensive. I changed the form of the question. “Mr. King,” said I; “where are you?”

At that instant, it seemed to me that the Little Table became extremely hot. But it tapped merrily. And what it tapped amazed me greatly. Mr. King was not a slangy man, but I suppose that when he was a youth, an undergraduate in this University, he had acquired a few of the slang expressions of his contemporaries. Anyhow, what the Little Table rapped, almost giggling as it did so, was: “None of your beeswax!”

“But Mr. King!” I persisted. “Don’t leave me just yet. You must know that your successor on earth has recently been described in an extremely influential American newspaper as ‘perhaps the world’s most gifted leader’. Tell me something helpful that I may pass on to Pierre Elliot Trudeau.”

The table stopped its giggling in an instant. It became, not hot, but icy cold. “You tell Trudeau this from me!” it banged—yes, it banged on the floor. And then it began to tap so fast that it took all my concentration to make out the letters of its clumsy, rattling language. They seemed to mean little, until I understood that the tapping was now in French. But what French! It was politician’s French, which is a language in itself, understood by few. I could not make out, with clarity, what Mr. King wanted me to tell Mr. Trudeau, except that he seemed to be summoning him to join himself, wherever he was, with the utmost speed. Mr. King seemed to have a place for Mr. Trudeau in his new dominion, but I gathered that it was not in the Cabinet. I thought I caught something about “the hot-seat.”

The Little Table was not made to withstand such vehemence. At the height of the tirade, one of the little feet broke off, and suddenly there was silence.

I had the Little Table mended, the next day, by Norbert. He said he had a suitable piece of wood, which he had taken out of one of the fixtures of the College Chapel, that would do the job almost invisibly.

But the Little Table never spoke again. I suppose there are things, such as pieces of wood from our Chapel, that are intolerable to Presbyterian ghosts, and especially those who have achieved Separatism by what used to be called the Harrowing of Hell.

A hundred and fifty years is a long time, you will all agree, for a man to suffer misunderstanding and wrong. My task tonight is to attempt to put right such a misunderstanding. The length of time I have mentioned makes it clear at once that I am speaking on behalf of a ghost. Oh, if it were only one ghost! Because there are two; and I can feel them very near me as I address you now. Both are determined that I should support the version of the history of this University that they think the right one. Much hangs on which side I take.

A week ago tonight we held our College Christmas Dance. My wife and I left at about one o’clock, and went to bed, but I was unable to sleep. I had an uneasy sense that someone had been there whom I had failed to greet, because I try to speak, or at least leer hospitably, at everybody. I rose: I prowled. I went to a window and, looking down, I was surprised to see someone in the quadrangle walking alone in a posture of dejection—someone in an academic gown.

Gowns are often seen in the quad, but—at two in the morning? And was there not about the figure a singularity, a distinction greater than is common among academics? I went out into the night for a nearer look.

Whoever it was paced up and down the stone paths, and as I came nearer, I heard what was unquestionably the sound of deep sobs. The figure was weeping! Some unhappy youth who had been, as they say, given the mitt by his partner at the dance? I hid behind a tree, to hear better. The broken utterance became audible: “O, the black ingratitude of it,” said the rich, fruity voice; “All this fuss, and not a word—not one solitary word—about me. It’s cruel, cruel!” I am not a man to withhold sympathy from any suffering soul, and I popped out from behind my tree.

“Excuse me,” said I; “may I be of any assistance—” At that moment the figure moved into a gleam of moonlight, and you may judge of my dismay when I saw that the moonlight passed right through it! A cold greater than that of December seized upon me and my heart sank. For I knew that this much-haunted establishment was once again being visited by a ghost. But whose ghost this time?

Then I knew. It could be none other. What I had mistaken for a gown was in fact a voluminous cloak, and when the figure turned to me the elegance of the clothes beneath the ghostly yet blinding blaze of stars and orders and diamonds in the moonlight, and more than anything else that great head, that florid, fleshy face, that beaky nose, those drooping eyelids, and the splendidly curled chestnut hair could belong to but one person. It was King George the Fourth. I bowed. It is not easy to bow elegantly in pyjamas, but old theatrical training came to my aid and I think it was not a bad bow. “Your Majesty,” said I.

“So you know me,” said the figure. “I had concluded that I was utterly forgotten here.”

I muttered something about the University Department of History.

“Pah,” said the King. “Deluded toadies to a totally wrong principle. I should know. I am History, suppressed and distorted History. O Ingratitude! How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have founded a thankless University.” I mumbled some disclaimer, but the King spoke on. “It is now 1977 and this graceless institution is celebrating what it is pleased to call its Sesquicentennial. But has a word been said about the Monarch who, by a stroke of the pen, brought it into being? Don’t think I’m angry. No, no. But I am hurt. Deeply, terribly hurt. So what have you to say?”

Me? It is not my job to deal with such things. Let the Public Relations people explain. Let the President explain. Let the Lieutenant-Governor, who acted as Chairman of the Sesquicentennial Committee, explain. But none of them were there. No, no; they were snug in their beds, and I was face to face with a sobbing, ignored Founder.

“I can only appeal to your magnanimity, Sire,” I said. “You know what academics are. Simple folk whose minds rarely stray beyond the present. And really, I—what can I do?”

“I’ll tell you in good time,” said the King. “But first a matter of curiosity; something led me here; something led me to this place; some notion that in this College, at least, I might find understanding. What do you think it can have been?”

What was I to say? “Humble as I am,” I ventured, “I apologize on behalf of us all. I am sure no affront was intended.”

He was not mollified. A look of bitterness succeeded to grief in his countenance. “Pshaw,” he said. “I notice none of you forgot John Strachan. Tell me, what does this University find that is so special about John Strachan?”

I spoke without thinking. “As our Founder—” said I, causing the King to interrupt in a temper.

“Oh Founder, Founder, Founder! Strachan was forever founding something! McGill University, your great rival—he had a finger in that pie. And Trinity, your neighbour—they toady to him there as a Founder. But in this University he wasn’t a Founder, he was merely an organizer! Did he ever open his sporran and lay down a penny-piece? Because I did! This University would have been nowhere without my money.”