he room, and presently we heard her very busy in the
kitchen, making an almost unnecessary noise with pots and pans. But
perhaps that was intended to cover other sounds.

Elsie now demanded information about the interior of Buckingham Palace.
I invented splendours, and she listened with rapture; she said it
sounded more like Heaven than anything else. She put a plain question to
me as to the value of the enormous diamond on my finger. She found that
it had cost even more than she supposed, and she was interested in
hearing the history of it. The diamond had once been the eye of an idol
in India.

Presently she said, with distress: "Oh dear me, King, I do wish you
could stop. There is such a lot more I want to ask you. But you will
only just have time to catch the nine-thirteen, and that's the last
up-train to-night."

"It is of no consequence," I said. "I had arranged to return to-night by
motor-car."

"Shall I see it?"

"No," I said, "because by that time you will be asleep. It would not be
a good thing for you to keep awake much longer. And if I tell you to go
to sleep, then of course you must do it, because I am the King."

"Of course," she echoed. "Because you are the King."

But I could tell her all about the motor. It was really more like a
house than a car. It had three rooms in it, and all the walls and
ceilings were covered with a pattern of lilies made in silver and gold.
The stalks and the leaves were silver and the flowers were gold. One of
the rooms in the car was like a bedroom, and in one of the other rooms
there was a cupboard which was entirely filled with glass jars of
sweets. Elsie named several kinds; they were all there.

She held my hand as she talked, and she was still holding it as she fell
asleep. The room was almost dark now, though outside it was a light
night. Then quite suddenly she sat up in bed and flung wide her arms.

"God save the King!" she cried.

In a moment she was asleep again, and I slipped from the room. I was a
king no longer. She slept well that night.

Old White-whiskers had his points after all. He took it into his head to
have a look into his cottages himself, and in consequence a highly
respectable firm lost a highly lucrative job. When Elsie and her mother
get back from the seaside--White-whiskers is paying for them--they will
find their cottage in decent repair.

And this morning I take the road again, never to return. Of course Mrs
Crewe thinks that it is