eat of my brow, and to work with my
fellow-men. Present my kindest regards to our good friend Mr.
Windsor, who has dared so much for our sake, and believe me, my
dear old friend,

"Yours faithfully,

"No. 5 (_ne_ JAMES SYDNEY)."

The Duke, when he had finished reading the letter, folded it carefully,
and returned it into his pocket. His eyes were full of tears, and his
voice broke as he read the quaint, pathetic words.

Mr. Windsor slapped his bony knee energetically, and arose from his
chair.

"I must try to set the poor fellow free," he said energetically. "I do
not believe that a forcible prison delivery would be successful again,
when our former attempt is so fresh in the mind of the prison governor;
but the presidential election in Great Britain and Ireland is
approaching, and if I judge the signs of the times aright, the Radicals
under Bagshaw will enter the campaign heavily weighted. If the
Liberal-Conservatives put up such a man as Richard Lincoln they will
re-elect him, and if the administration is changed, diplomacy and
entreaty may accomplish a general release of political prisoners. The
cause of the House of Hanover is so dead that, as Mother Goose says:

"'All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again.'

By the way, I believe they call George King Humpty Dumpty in the comic
papers."

The Duke smiled ruefully; in his heart he despised the King, and faintly
saw that his class had lost their privileges, but he could not get used
to it. He knew that he was a broken old man, an exile from home, and
dependent upon the kindness of Mr. Windsor; and he sighed deeply,
wishing that he had died before the deluge which had gulfed all that was
holy and precious to him.

Mr. Windsor saw that his thoughts were too sad and solemn for an alien
intrusion, and left the old gentleman, still motionless, looking
vacantly at the wall. The old Duke saw no Mount Ararat rising from the
troubled waters; all that made life worth living for him had passed
away, and he lagged superfluous on the stage; a supernumerary with a
pasteboard coronet; laughed at and ranted about in the pantomime at
which the world had laughed, "King Humpty Dumpty."

That afternoon Maggie Windsor had gone for her usual walk upon the
Charles River embankment, a fine esplanade stretching for seven miles
along the river-side. It wa