d to himself,
and rolling them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the pure
journalistic flavour.

"The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as it
is--awful as it is--(no, distressing as it is), may do some good if it
draws attention to the what's-his-name inefficiency (scandalous
inefficiency, of course) of the Government's preparations. In our
present state of information, it would be premature (what a jolly
word!)--it would be premature to cast any reflections upon the conduct
of General Buck, whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha,
ha!), and whose honourable scars and laurels, give him a right to have
judgment upon him at least suspended. But there is one matter on which
we must speak plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from
feelings, perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty.
This situation would never have arisen but for what we can only call
the indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us to say such things,
but, speaking as we do in the public interests (I plagiarise from
Barker's famous epigram), we shall not shrink because of the distress
we may cause to any individual, even the most exalted. At this crucial
moment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a single
tongue, 'Where is the King?' What is he doing while his subjects tear
each other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are his
amusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to be
ignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishing
nation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warn
that exalted person that neither his great position nor his
incomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from the
fate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have met
the English people in the rare day of its wrath."

"I am now," said the King, "going to write an account of the battle by
an eye-witness." And he picked up a fourth sheet of wall-paper. Almost
at the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had a
bandage round his head.

"I was told," he said, with his usual gruff civility, "that your
Majesty was here."

"And of all things on earth," cried the King, with delight, "here is
an eye-witness! An eye-witness who, I regret to observe, has at
present only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the special
article, Buck? Have you a rich style?"

Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approach