le affair from beginning to end. "The Prince
of Wales is not as other men. His position demands a sobriety, a
self-restraint, and a dignity from which people of less exalted
position and lighter responsibilities are absolved." The religious press
put no bounds to its denunciation. The _Christian World_ spoke of the
matter as an "outrage to the public conscience" and the _British Weekly_
thought it "enough to sober the strongest supporters of the Monarchy."
Resolutions were passed at some Church meetings of a similar character.

AFTERMATH OF THE INCIDENT

Then the re-action came. His Royal Highness expressed to the Military
authorities and the House of Commons his apologies for an unintentional
infraction of Army regulations; it was pointed out that playing a game
of cards in a private house was not setting a public example and that
the situation was so unique that any man in the Prince's place would
have been pardoned in not knowing what to do; the cause of the trouble
was dismissed from the Army and expelled from his clubs. The _Daily
Telegraph_ pointed out that the carrying of the Baccarat counters, which
was apparently deemed the most serious part of the matter by many
commentators, was a very common habit with players of this game as the
symbols for money tended to moderation in playing, and were better in
every way than slips of paper. Years afterwards, Mr. Arnold White stated
it as a fact that these famous bits of pasteboard were actually a
present from the Princess of Wales. The public came to feel after the
first hasty judgment was given that, after all, the Prince had risked a
good deal for a friend and the _Observer_ went so far as to say that
"under the most difficult and trying circumstances His Royal Highness
has acted as ninety-nine Englishmen out of a hundred would have done."
The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Berry, the eminent Non-conformist divine,
declared that the people were not going to be unduly severe in their
judgment. "They recognize the fact that he does a great deal of public
work and is compelled to live almost continually a life of unnatural
pressure. It is, therefore, to say the least, understandable that he
should seek pleasure and relaxation in some form of excitement."

Then the issue cooled down as suddenly as the tempest had arisen, and
before long it would have been hard to recognize that so stormy a stage
of criticism had swept over the popular Prince's head. In the _Life_ of
Archbishop B