The Project Gutenberg EBook of Long Live the King, by Guy Boothby

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Title: Long Live the King

Author: Guy Boothby

Release Date: April 25, 2010 [EBook #32132]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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"LONG LIVE THE KING!"

BY GUY BOOTHBY

_Author of "Dr. Nikola," "The Beautiful White Devil," "A Maker of
Nations," "A Bid for Fortune," etc._

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO

[Illustration: "'Farewell, your Majesty,' he said."]

LONG LIVE THE KING!

CHAPTER I.

How strange it seems, after this long lapse of time, to look back upon
those days, and after all that has come between. When I think of the
child whose curious fancies, strange whims, and still stranger life, I
am about to portray, I find myself inclining towards what is certainly a
feeling of bewilderment, and one that might almost be said to be akin to
physical pain. That the little fellow I see in my mind's eye, playing so
happily on the far side of that River of Years, can be _myself_, the man
sitting in this chair, who, pen in hand, is trying so hard to arrange
his thoughts, is to me scarcely believable. Between the two there looms
so vast a difference, that it would appear as if no possible connecting
link could serve to unite them with each other. Whether I am better or
worse for the change must be left for more competent judges to declare.

Looking back, I can scarcely determine which is the first event in my
life that I can recall. I have always declared that I have the very
faintest recollection of being held up by my mother at a window to see
my father present some new colours to his favourite regiment of Guards
in the square below. But if, as they say, that occurrence happened
exactly five-and-twenty years ago, and the records of the Regiment are
there to prove it, my memory must be a more than ordinarily good one,
seeing that, at the time, I could not have been more than three years of