cerned with the King."

Auberon put up his hand with indescribable grandeur.

"Not with the King," he said; "with the special war correspondent of
the _Court Journal_."

"I beg your Majesty's pardon," began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully.

"Do you call me Majesty? I repeat," said Auberon, firmly, "I am a
representative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense of
responsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawn
over the past."

"Very well, sir," said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, "in our
eyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of the
throne. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our glories
should be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any
objection to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?"

"The Provost I have had the honour of meeting," said Auberon, easily.
"We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be most
delighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, it
would be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting.
We of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them."

"Will you be so good as to step this way?" said the leader of O
company.

"I am always good," said Mr. Pinker. "Lead on."

CHAPTER III--_The Great Army of South Kensington_

The article from the special correspondent of the _Court Journal_
arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King's
arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet
were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at
first, as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer
appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several
journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, "Try
American style," and the fragment began--

"The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very ...;"
and then broke off, followed by the note, "Good sound journalism
safer. Try it."

The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin--

"The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any ..."

This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost
undecipherable, but seemed to be something like--

"How about old Steevens and the _mot juste_? E.g...."

"Morning winked a little wearily at me over the curt edge of Campden
Hill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt black
cardboard of the outline,