d. Listen!" And he rose with immense
magnificence. "I solemnly give to my liege subject, James Barker, my
special and splendid favour, the right to override the obvious text of
the Charter of the Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord High
Provost of South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are all
right. Good day."

"But--" began Barker.

"The audience is at an end, Provost," said the King, smiling.

How far his confidence was justified, it would require a somewhat
complicated description to explain. "The Great Proclamation of the
Charter of the Free Cities" appeared in due course that morning, and
was posted by bill-stickers all over the front of the Palace, the King
assisting them with animated directions, and standing in the middle of
the road, with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It was
also carried up and down the main thoroughfares by sandwichmen, and
the King was, with difficulty, restrained from going out in that
capacity himself, being, in fact, found by the Groom of the Stole and
Captain Bowler, struggling between two boards. His excitement had
positively to be quieted like that of a child.

The reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the hands of the
public may mildly be described as mixed. In one sense it was popular
enough. In many happy homes that remarkable legal document was read
aloud on winter evenings amid uproarious appreciation, when everything
had been learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic,
Mr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King had every
intention of seriously requiring the provisions to be carried out, of
insisting that the grotesque cities, with their tocsins and city
guards, should really come into existence, things were thrown into a
far angrier confusion. Londoners had no particular objection to the
King making a fool of himself, but they became indignant when it
became evident that he wished to make fools of them; and protests
began to come in.

The Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West Kensington
wrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon State
occasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalities
the King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decent
householder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a
pillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with
formal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provost