ister."

His Majesty did not extend his hand; but by a motion of the head showed
that the interview was over; and there was nothing left for the Minister
of the Interior to do but retire from the room.

And the next day he retired from office; for though the Prime Minister
urged many things in his defense, and more particularly the
misapprehension which his present retirement might cause, the King
remained obdurate; he was bent upon making an example. In the great
political game he had miscalculated and lamentably failed, but red-tape
was still his cherished possession; and you can do a good deal with
red-tape when you have an unquestioned authority to fall back upon.
Professor Teller's volumes of Constitutional History still lay upon a
retired shelf in the royal library (indeed it was from one of them that
he had extracted with slight changes his formal pronouncement of
abdication); and if he could not get anything else out of his ministers
he was determined to secure official correctness. Though they slighted
his opinion, they should recognize his authority; punctiliousness at
least they should render him as his one remaining due.

And so when the Prime Minister urged how small and accidental was the
omission, his Majesty remarked that it was one of many; and when he
argued how any delay might have proved dangerous, the point at which
delay had begun was again icily indicated. More pressingly still did he
invite the King to consider in what light, if unexplained, this
resignation would be popularly regarded; would it not be taken as an
admission of blame by the head of the Home Department for the occurrence
of the late outrage?

"Very likely," assented the King; "after all it took place on
Government premises." Whereat the Prime Minister, looking somewhat
startled and distressed, inquired whether any such imputation of blame
had been his Majesty's ulterior motive for his present action.

"I have no motives left," said the King wearily; "I am merely doing my
duty."

In which aspect he was proving himself a very difficult person to deal
with. "I am not arguing, I am only telling you," was an attitude which
put him in a much stronger position with his intellectual superiors than
any attempt at converting them to his views. From this day on he stood
forth to his ministers as a rigid constitutional reminder; and with six
volumes of the minutiae of constitutional usage at his fingers' ends the
amount of time he was a