you will lend me the
books you have mentioned. When may I look for them?"

"Sir," said the Professor, in smooth matter-of-fact tones, "it so
happens that I have them with me in my carriage. I will have them
conveyed to your Majesty immediately."

And therewith he bowed over the King's hand and departed.

II

Left to himself the King stood considering for a while. He was pleased,
but puzzled. What had this man, wise and kindly, been telling him? What
advice were his words intended to convey? He was quite sure now that
this minister had come and talked to him for a purpose: and what he had
mainly talked about was "pace." It was "pace" that mattered. That was
all very well, but with pace he himself had nothing to do--except in a
negative sort of way. He, occupying the position of guard with brakes to
his hand but no steam-power, could only cause delay; he had no means,
and no object that he could see, for accelerating matters. Besides, had
not the Professor said that in his estimation the pace was about right?
All his efforts to secure delay would--he was already aware of it--fail
of their effect; ministerial resignation threatening, he would have to
give in. The alternative, the mad alternative that had for a moment
occurred to him--no, it would not do! The results might be too
tremendous, might lead even to revolution and a republic, and so he gave
the problem up. And then a pile of six large volumes "with Professor
Teller's humble duty" was brought in and set down before him; and John
of Jingalo sat down to read the marked passages.

It was a reading that for its completion extended over many days.

What first attracted his attention, however, was a chronological series
of plates, showing the map of Europe in all its political changes from
the tenth to the twentieth century. This was, in fact, a key to the
whole work, for as the author rightly pointed out in his opening
paragraph the history of Europe was inextricably bound up in the history
of Jingalo, and the one could not be properly studied without some
understanding of the other.

These maps of Europe he turned from century to century; and there, as he
marked their many variations, there always to be recognized was Jingalo
occupying its proud historical position--so often challenged, yet still
on the whole unchanged. It had found room to live and breathe, not by
its own strength, but by a careful adjustment of the political balance
between others, and a n