," he said, "and mingle with the people."

He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill,
when suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. He
paused, put up his single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a wooden
sword and a paper cocked hat, wearing that expression of awed
satisfaction with which a child contemplates his work when he has hit
some one very hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at his
assailant, and slowly took a note-book from his breast-pocket.

"I have a few notes," he said, "for my dying speech;" and he turned
over the leaves. "Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, if
by former friend--h'm, h'm. Dying speech for death at hands of injured
husband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite
sure which meets the present...."

"I'm the King of the Castle," said the boy, truculently, and very
pleased with nothing in particular.

The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like all
people who are fond of the ridiculous.

"Infant," he said, "I'm glad you are so stalwart a defender of your
old inviolate Notting Hill. Look up nightly to that peak, my child,
where it lifts itself among the stars so ancient, so lonely, so
unutterably Notting. So long as you are ready to die for the sacred
mountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of Bayswater--"

The King stopped suddenly, and his eyes shone.

"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps the noblest of all my conceptions. A
revival of the arrogance of the old mediaeval cities applied to our
glorious suburbs. Clapham with a city guard. Wimbledon with a city
wall. Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens. West Hampstead
going into battle with its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King,
have said it." And, hastily presenting the boy with half a crown,
remarking, "For the war-chest of Notting Hill," he ran violently home
at such a rate of speed that crowds followed him for miles. On
reaching his study, he ordered a cup of coffee, and plunged into
profound meditation upon the project. At length he called his
favourite Equerry, Captain Bowler, for whom he had a deep affection,
founded principally upon the shape of his whiskers.

"Bowler," he said, "isn't there some society of historical research,
or something of which I am an honorary member?"

"Yes, sir," said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, "you are a member
of 'The Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance,' and 'The Teu