their carriage and the care of
the anxiously waiting detectives. But somehow, as the play ended, a
whisper got round from the stage and, like an electric flash, through
the whole theater the fact of the royal visit became known.

Instantly, with cheer upon cheer, the audience broke into loyal and
excited plaudits. The orchestra struck up the national anthem. Hands
down popular opinion had won; for in this matter of "the new censorship"
as it was called--in this attack upon the interests and liberties, not
of a foolish minority, but of a sacred and freedom-loving public,
Jingalo and its monarch had joined forces, and bureaucracy was
dethroned.

The next day it was on all the posters; newspapers celebrated the event
in flaring headlines--"THE KING CONDEMNS THE CENSOR!" And before
the week was over, the Lord Functionary had resigned his high office on
grounds of health.

The King was much puzzled over the whole affair; and his advisers did
their best to keep him mystified. Both the Prime Minister and the late
Lord Functionary himself earnestly assured him that his conscientious
interference had had nothing whatever to do with the latter's
retirement; for at this juncture it would never have done for the
monarch to suppose that he held so much power over the official lives of
his ministers. Quite by accident he had come in contact with that great
unknown quantity "the popular will," and, without in the least realizing
what he was about, had first touched it on the raw, and then tickled it;
and the "dear good beast," as Max phrased it, recognizing only the
second part of his performance, had turned rapturously round and given
him its paw.

The King had his scruples; he did not like thus to win popularity by
accident, and yet, the more he looked into it, the more he saw this for
a fact, that by committing a popular _faux pas_ he had secured far more
consideration from his ministers than by doing the correct thing.

John of Jingalo did not yet understand that his correctness of conduct
was one of the chief factors relied on by a bureaucratic government for
reducing him to political insignificance. He had yet to learn that a
submissive and well-behaved monarchy was essential to its very
existence.

CHAPTER VII

THE OLD ORDER

I

All this, the reader will remember, had taken place in Lent. The King
had done something which according to the accepted canons was quite
incorrect; he had been to a frivolous