effective' parts in which 'star' actors could strut across the
stage, make their bow before an extremely distinguished audience, and
speak their lines in the ears of royalty as the accepted representatives
of modern drama. And how they did speak them! How they clung to their
entries and exits, how they gassed, and gagged, and threw in fresh
'business' to extend the all too brief time of their appearing; and what
an abysmally boring performance the whole thing was! Over a score of
these leading actors and actresses had appeared in a similar gala
performance on the occasion of your coronation, twenty-five years ago.
Most of them are now living on their past reputations, but they have
become established; and so that woeful exhibition of utterly used-up
material was royalty's public recognition of drama in this country!
There, then, you have our connection with art! What good do you suppose
we do by countenancing performances like that? We are merely employed to
flatter the popular choice and to fatten out the drama in its most
commercial connection. All that was done to suit the managers. It gave a
pleasant little fillip to the star-system on which most of our theaters
are now run; every theater contributed its quota and secured its
proportion of reward."

"I was under the impression that they all gave their services."

"Just as you gave yours. You were all busily engaged in making each
other popular, and in maintaining your prestige; and you were all very
well paid for your trouble."

"But what else do you expect me to do?" exclaimed the unhappy monarch
irritably. "All this destructive criticism of yours is so easy; but what
does it lead to? Nothing!"

"Revolution," declared Max, "peaceful, bloodless revolution! Whenever
any matter is submitted to you over which you have control and a
deciding voice, do the unexpected, and you will nearly always be right!
That is the biggest revolution in this unwritten Constitution of ours
that I can suggest. Do it, and then watch the results."

"But, for instance, do what?"

"Well, go for a beginning to the very plays your Comptroller refrains
from recommending or tries to dissuade you from. Oh, you won't come upon
anything shocking; quite the reverse. That play, _The Gaudy Girl_, which
I spoke of just now, is about to be revived in a new form--with
additions. No doubt it will draw enormously; and as a fortune has been
spent on it you would do a popular thing by attending the firs