don't
mind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to these
forms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual--it is
usual--that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty to
lie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towards
heaven (as the source of Royal power) to say three times 'Monarchical
institutions improve the manners.' But there, there--such pomp is far
less truly dignified than your simple kindliness."

The Provost's face was red with anger, and he maintained silence.

"And now," said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of a
man softening a snub; "what delightful weather we are having! You must
find your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your own
snow-bound land."

"They're as hot as hell," said Buck, briefly. "I came here on
business."

"Right," said the King, nodding a great number of times with quite
unmeaning solemnity; "right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad
old Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen
to the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not
whence you come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know
not when you go nor where."

The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagely
flapped them open.

"Your Majesty may have heard," he began, sarcastically, "of
Hammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten years
buying property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensation
and squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing is
stopped by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a
business man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he's
dead, and the cursed lot has fallen on a young man named Wayne, who's
up to some game that's perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer him
a better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he won't let the road
go through. And his Council seems to be backing him up. It's midsummer
madness."

The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the
Provost's nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two
words.

"What a perfect phrase that is!" he said. "'Midsummer madness'!"

"The chief point is," continued Buck, doggedly, "that the only part
that is really in question is one dirty little street--Pump Street--a
street with nothing in it but a public-house and a penny toy-shop, and
that sort of thing. All the respectable p