runk to a point which had brought him to destruction--yes, he
was like that man; his temptations, his perils, his essential
superfluity were all the same. As he went up the stair he tried to
imagine he was the man himself, going up and up, a solitary and uplifted
figure, fixing his thoughts on things above in order that he might
forget the gulf which yawned below. He took his hand from the
balustrade, and gazing upward at the gilt and crystal chandelier
suspended from the dome above, so entirely forgot his surroundings for
one moment that, missing a step, he lost balance backwards and fell with
amazing thoroughness down the full flight of steps till he reached the
bottom.

CHAPTER III

WILD OATS AND WIDOWS' WEEDS

I

Bump! bump! bump! went his head. Through a confused vision of stars,
veined marble, stained glass, and flying stair-rails he saw his legs
trail helplessly after, close in above, fling violently across him feet
foremost, and dash out of view. In other words, having reached the
bottom of the grand staircase he had turned a complete and homely
somersault.

For awhile he lay half stunned, unable to move. Something had
undoubtedly happened to his head, but he was still conscious. Cautiously
he turned himself over and looked round. No one was about; no one had
seen this ignominious downfall of Jingalo's topmost symbol on the too
highly polished floors of its own abode; and nobody must know. It was
not the right and dignified way for a royal accident to happen: falling
down-stairs suggested the same failing as that to which steeplejacks
were prone.

He picked himself up, and aware now of a sharp pain in the middle of his
spine as well as at the back of his head, crawled slowly and in a
rather doubled-up attitude toward the royal apartments.

As he moved cautiously along the private corridor, he met the Queen
coming from her room, dressed for going out. She detected at once his
painful and decrepit attitude. "What is the matter, dear?" she inquired.

"Nothing, nothing," mumbled the King, "only a touch of sciatica." And as
he did not encourage her impulse to pause and make further inquiries,
she let him go past.

He went into his room, and sat very carefully down, for he was still
uncertain whether some vertebral bit of him was not broken. Then he put
his hand to the back of his head and felt it. Yes, undoubtedly something
had happened; at contact with his finger it made a sound curiously lik