it gave me a valuable notion. I thought
I saw my way out of an old and stubborn difficulty at last. You
see, the royalties of the Pendragon stock were a long-lived race
and very fruitful. Whenever a child was born to any of these
--and it was pretty often--there was wild joy in the nation's mouth,
and piteous sorrow in the nation's heart. The joy was questionable,
but the grief was honest. Because the event meant another call
for a Royal Grant. Long was the list of these royalties, and
they were a heavy and steadily increasing burden upon the treasury
and a menace to the crown. Yet Arthur could not believe this
latter fact, and he would not listen to any of my various projects
for substituting something in the place of the royal grants. If I
could have persuaded him to now and then provide a support for
one of these outlying scions from his own pocket, I could have
made a grand to-do over it, and it would have had a good effect
with the nation; but no, he wouldn't hear of such a thing. He had
something like a religious passion for royal grant; he seemed to
look upon it as a sort of sacred swag, and one could not irritate
him in any way so quickly and so surely as by an attack upon that
venerable institution. If I ventured to cautiously hint that there
was not another respectable family in England that would humble
itself to hold out the hat--however, that is as far as I ever got;
he always cut me short there, and peremptorily, too.

But I believed I saw my chance at last. I would form this crack
regiment out of officers alone--not a single private. Half of it
should consist of nobles, who should fill all the places up to
Major-General, and serve gratis and pay their own expenses; and
they would be glad to do this when they should learn that the rest
of the regiment would consist exclusively of princes of the blood.
These princes of the blood should range in rank from Lieutenant-General
up to Field Marshal, and be gorgeously salaried and equipped and
fed by the state. Moreover--and this was the master stroke
--it should be decreed that these princely grandees should be always
addressed by a stunningly gaudy and awe-compelling title (which
I would presently invent), and they and they only in all England
should be so addressed. Finally, all princes of the blood should
have free choice; join that regiment, get that great title, and
renounce the royal grant, or stay out and receive a grant. Neatest
touch of