o have
his shoes polished, or, to use a brighter, gayer word, shined. We are
all kings, and this happy conceit of popular government is nicely
symbolized by being, for these shining moments, so many kings together,
each on his similar throne and with a slave at his feet. The democratic
idea suffers a little from the difficulty of realizing that the slave is
also a king, yet gains a little from the fair custom of the livelier
monarchs of turning from left foot to right and from right to left, so
that, within human limits, neither shoe shall be undemocratically shined
first.

Nor is it uncommon for the kings on the thrones to be symbolically and
inexpensively served by yet other sovereign servants. Newspapers in
hand, they receive the reports of their lord high chancellors, digest
the social gossip of their realm, review its crimes, politics,
discoveries, and inventions, and are entertained by their jesters, who,
I have it on the authority of a current advertisement, all
democratically smoke the same kind of tobacco. 'You know 'em all, the
great fun-makers of the daily press, agile-brained and nimble-witted,
creators of world-famed characters who put laughter into life. Such
live, virile humans as they _must_ have a live, virile pipe-smoke.'
There are, to be sure, some who find in this agile-brained and
nimble-witted mirth an element of profound melancholy; it seems often a
debased coin of humor, which rings false on the counter of intelligence;
yet even at its worst it is far better than many of the waggeries that
once stirred laughter in mediaeval monarchs. The thought renders them
bearable, these live, virile humans, who only a few centuries ago would
have been too handicapped by their refinement to compete successfully
with contemporary humorists.

But there are a good many of us, possessors of patience, self-control,
and a sponge in a bottle, who rarely enjoy this royal prerogative. We
shine our own shoes. Alone, and, if one may argue from the particular to
the general, simply dressed in the intermediate costume, more or less
becoming, that is between getting up and going out, we wear a shoe on
our left hand, and with the other manipulate the helpful sponge.
Sometimes, too anxious, it polka-dots our white garments, sometimes the
floor; it is safe only in the bottle, and the wisest shiner will perhaps
approach the job as an Adamite, bestriding, like a colossus, a
wide-spread newspaper, and taking a bath afterward. O