t
once. If there was not to be conflict between the police and these
converging forces, appeasement of some sort must be devised, or official
vacuum must be there to meet them.

And behind all this was the ministerial fear that, if they were not
quick about it, it would be impossible to close Parliament with due
ceremony. The Lord High Functionary had put it bluntly to the Prime
Minister. "If those men get here we can't have out the piebald ponies
and the state coach; they wouldn't stand it."

And as the piebald ponies and the state coach were necessary for the
prestige of the Government and for proof that the King and his ministers
were working amicably together, therefore the red-tape worms were all
wriggling their level best under pressure from above, and in the small
hours every morning millions of public money were being voted into the
hands of the Government by an obedient majority of sleepy legislators,
bound by party loyalty neither to criticise nor to control.

It was in the midst of affairs thus disarranged that on a morning three
days before the rising of Parliament the Royal Council met, and awaited
with official calm the advent of its titular head.

Since his outbreak of a few months ago the King had once more become
amenable to that deferential guidance which was his due; and now word
had gone round that all further opposition was to be withdrawn, and the
Ministry to have its way.

And so the _piece de resistance_ is at last in full brew and we see the
twenty cooks of the national broth waiting without any trepidation of
spirit for the royal flavoring to arrive. And they talk among themselves
in carefully modulated tones; for it is not etiquette, when the doors
are thrown open to the royal presence, that the King should hear
conversation going on.

The Prime Minister enters a little later than the rest, carrying his
brief, and moves to his place near the head of the board through a
circle of congratulatory looks and smiles. For all know that in this
long bout with titular kingship, obstinate for the preservation of its
rights, the representative of Cabinet control has won, and that a new
and very comfortable stage in the subservience of monarchy to
ministerial ends has been attained.

And how quietly this important little bit of constitutional revolution
has been carried through!--without any passing of laws or petition of
rights, merely by internal pressure judiciously applied. And Jingalo,
that