purely gratuitous fling, that was, at one of my
most eminent patrons, or rather two of them, for latterly both Solomon
and Henry the Eighth have yielded to the tendency of the times and gone
into business, which they have paid me well to advertise. Solomon has
established an 'Information Bureau,' where advice can always be had from
the 'Wise-man,' as he calls himself, on payment of a small fee; while
Henry, taking advantage of his superior equipment over any English king
that ever lived, has founded and liberally advertised his 'Chaperon
Company (Limited).' It's a great thing even in Hades for young people
to be chaperoned by an English queen, and Henry has been smart enough to
see it, and having seven or eight queens, all in good standing, he has
been doing a great business. Just look at it from a business point
of view. There are seven nights in every week, and something going on
somewhere all the time, and queens in demand. With a queen quoted so low
as $100 a night, Henry can make nearly $5000 a week, or $260,000 a
year, out of evening chaperonage alone; and when, in addition to this,
yachting-parties up the Styx and slumming-parties throughout the country
are being constantly given, the man's opportunity to make half a million
a year is in plain sight. I'm told that he netted over $500,000 last
year; and of course he had to advertise to get it, and this Xanthippe
woman goes out of her way to get in a nasty little fling at one of my
mainstays for his matrimonial propensities."

"Failing utterly to see," said I, "that, in marrying so many times,
Henry really paid a compliment to her sex which is without parallel in
royal circles."

"Well, nearly so," said Boswell. "There have been other kings who were
quite as complimentary to the ladies, but Henry was the only man among
them who insisted on marrying them all."

"True," said I. "Henry was eminently proper--but then he had to be."

"Yes," said Boswell, with a meditative tap on the letter Y. "Yes--he had
to be. He was the head of the Church, you know."

"I know it," I put in. "I've always had a great deal of sympathy for
Henry. He has been very much misjudged by posterity. He was the father
of the really first new woman, Elizabeth, and his other daughter, Mary,
was such a vindictive person."

"You are a very fair man, for an American," said Boswell. "Not only
fair, but rare. You think about things."

"I try to," said I, modestly. "And I've really thought a grea