r, your Majesty," he
said, and sat down again.

"Pace," said the King again, having for a moment lost the thread of his
discourse. Then, having clung to that anchor to recover breath, once
more he plunged on.

"If any royal prerogatives still exist," said he, "if I am to be still
free to act upon them, then I want to be told what they are, and to have
the country told also; yes, before any more of them become obsolete! At
present it seems to me that anything of that kind is obsolete when it
becomes inconvenient to the party in power."

Once more a respectfully modulated wave of protest went round the board.

"Oh, yes, gentlemen, I have become quite aware from what has recently
taken place that an unexercised authority, if not set down in black and
white, comes presently to be questioned as though it did not exist. If
the title-deeds are missing, then you are no longer on your own
premises. Well, for the future, I want to be upon mine. And here you
come to me with this bill, and not a single one of you has seen fit to
advise me as to how my own position is affected by it; no, I have had to
go to other sources, and find out for myself."

At these words the Prime Minister saw an opening, and also a possible
explanation of the manuscripts which lay under the King's hand. He put
on a bold front and spoke without waiting for the royal pause.

"Have I, then, to understand," he inquired, "that your Majesty's
advisers have lost the benefit of your Majesty's confidence?"

"By no means," replied the King. "If I am not confiding in you now, I
don't know what confidence is. I am putting all my difficulties before
you, and asking for your advice. But I don't want to have it in a
hole-in-corner way, a bit at a time, first one and then another. We are
in Council, and it is from my whole Council that I want to know how
these difficulties are to be met. When I am alone I can get anybody to
advise me, go to whomsoever I like; there is no difficulty about that."

The Prime Minister bristled; he seemed now to be on the track. "I must
ask further, then," said he, "whether upon this question of a new
written Constitution your Majesty has thought fit to consult
others--those, that is to say, who are politically opposing us?"

Under an air of the deepest respect a charge of unconstitutional usage
was clearly conveyed.

"Oh, you mean the Bishops?" said the King. "No; since all this trouble
began I have been deprived of the consolati