I don't want flattery. Do you think
that _I_ am popular?"

The young man viewed his father leniently, indulgently even; the worn,
fussy, over-anxious face appealed to his sense of pity. "Oh, yes, I
believe so," he said. "They think you are trying to do your best and all
that sort of thing. You don't enthuse them as my grandfather used to do;
but, then, he had the grand manner, and the grand way of speaking as if
he were an oracle. You have put all that aside--except when you make
speeches which have been written for you by your ministers. Well, decent
people respect you for it; but it has its drawbacks; the crowd prefers
the other thing occasionally;--it likes still to pretend, at moments of
ceremony, that it believes in divine right and the hereditary principle,
and so forth; and where it likes to pretend, the press and the
Government are always ready to play into its hands. Yes; it's a
mixture; you must attend sometimes to the unrealities,--then, with your
real moments, you get your effect."

"Your grandfather," said the King, "never talked to me about anything.
He didn't like the idea of being succeeded, hated to think of a time
when affairs would have to go on without him. I fancy that he rather
despised my mental capacity, or else thought that by just looking at him
I should learn. So he never talked to me--not on these subjects I mean;
and I am still not sure whether I ought to talk to you. I don't really
know where State secrets begin and where they end, or whether I have the
right to say anything of what goes on in Council to a single living
soul. I wanted to consult the Archbishop the other day--merely to hear
his statement of the case from his own side--but I was not allowed. I am
the most solitary man in my kingdom; and am kept so, in order that I may
remain powerless."

"As Charlotte would say," observed Max, "we haven't taught each other
the business. And yet, isn't it strange? Here are we, a long-established
firm ('limited, entire,' I suppose we should describe ourselves),
existing upon the hereditary principle, and yet not allowed to extract
any of its living values. As detached forces we succeed each other upon
the throne, each in turn reduced in power and initiative by our official
training and our inexperience. When shall we learn to organize our labor
and combine like the rest of the world?"

"I think we are combining now," said the King.

"Yes," said Max, "I really believe we are--'John Jingalo