his pacings. Suddenly he came to a dead stop. He was
standing in front of a large mirror. For the first time since he was
seventeen he had seen his face without whiskers. His eyes still fixed
on his reflection, he beckoned the Chancellor to approach.

"Come here," he said, clutching him by the arm. "You see that?" He
pointed to the reflection. "That is what I look like? The mirror
hasn't made a mistake of any kind? That is really and truly what I
look like?"

"Yes, sire."

For a little while the King continued to gaze fascinated at his
reflection, and then he turned on the Chancellor.

"You coward!" he said. "You weak-kneed, jelly-souled, paper-livered
imitation of a man! You cringe to a King who looks like that! Why,
you ought to _kick_ me."

The Chancellor remembered that he had one kick owing to him. He drew
back his foot, and then a thought occurred to him.

"You might kick me back," he pointed out.

"I certainly should," said the King.

The Chancellor hesitated a moment.

"I think," he said, "that these private quarrels in the face of the
common enemy are to be deplored."

The King looked at him, gave a short laugh, and went on walking up and
down.

"That face again," he sighed as he came opposite the mirror. "No,
it's no good; I can never be King like this. I shall abdicate."

"But, your Majesty, this is a very terrible decision. Could not your
Majesty live in retirement until your Majesty had grown your Majesty's
whiskers again? Surely this is----"

The King came to a stand opposite him and looked down on him gravely.

"Chancellor," he said, "those whiskers which you have just seen
fluttering in the breeze have been for more than forty years my curse.
For more than forty years I have had to live up to those whiskers,
behaving, not as my temperament, which is a kindly, indeed a genial
one, bade me to behave, but as those whiskers insisted I should
behave. Arrogant, hasty-tempered, over-bearing--these are the
qualities which have been demanded of the owner of those whiskers. I
played a part which was difficult at first; of late, it has, alas!
been more easy. Yet it has never been my true nature that you have
seen."

He paused and looked silently at himself in the glass.

"But, your Majesty," said the Chancellor eagerly, "why choose this
moment to abdicate? Think how your country will welcome this new King
whom you have just revealed to me. And yet," he added regretfully,