why, here he comes” exclaimed the m.d., as a very tall, aristocratic-looking gentleman opened the door and walked hurriedly down the steps.
“my dear sir, this is really too bad; you mustn’t think of going out, ill as you are,” he said.
“oh, nonsense, my dear m.d.” said the lord high fiddle-de-dee. “state matters of the utmost importance demand my immediate attendance at the house of words, and i must go whether i am well or not. who are these persons with you?” he continued, staring rather hard at boy and one-and-nine.
“oh! i really don’t know their names,” replied the m.d. “i think they are respectable persons, though.”
“have they a vote?” inquired the lord high fiddle-de-dee anxiously.
“yes, i think so,” said the m.d., referring to his watch. “they have been in the town over an hour.”
“oh, that’s all right, then,” said the lord high fiddle-de-dee; “every one who has lived here for more than an hour is entitled to a vote. bring them along; they may be useful. what’s your name?” he continued, turning to boy.
“my name is cyril, but i am usually called boy,” was the reply.
“and yours?” asked the lord high fiddle-de-dee of the wooden soldier.
“one-and-nine, your honour,” replied he, saluting respectfully.
“rubbish, i didn’t ask your price,” said the lord high fiddle-de-dee impatiently. “i want to know your name.”
“one-and-nine, your honour,” repeated the wooden soldier.
the lord high fiddle-de-dee stared at him for a moment, and then turned to m.d. and said, “is this man a little——and he tapped his forehead inquiringly.
“yes; softening of the grain,” replied the m.d., nodding.
“ah, i thought so,” remarked the lord high fiddle-de-dee. “never mind, bring him along; even lunatics can vote here, you know,” and linking his arm in that of the m.d. they proceeded down the street, followed by boy and one-and-nine.
“he is a person of great dignitude, evidently,” whispered the wooden soldier, who was apparently greatly impressed by the lord high fiddle-de-dee’s aristocratic bearing. “and although he is rather abrupteous in his manner, i think i admirationise him, don’t you?”
“yes. he seems to be a very nice gentleman,” agreed boy. “i wonder what we shall see and hear at the house of words? oh! i suppose this is it,” he continued, as they turned a corner, and an imposing-looking building surrounded by an excited crowd of people came in sight.
the lord high fiddle-de-dee seemed to be a very well-known personage, and the crowd respectfully divided and allowed them to pass through to the entrance of the building, where an attendant opened the door and showed them along a corrider to another door marked committee room, which the lord high fiddle-de-dee opened and they all passed in.
a number of grandly dressed individuals were walking about, or chatting in little groups as they entered.
“oh! here comes the lord high fiddle-de-dee,” cried some one directly they were inside the door. “any news?” he inquired anxiously.
the lord high fiddle-de-dee shook his head sadly.
“well, we are all here now, so we had better proceed to business; take your seats, please, gentlemen,” said a very important-looking gentleman in a red gown and wig, seated at the head of a long table on which were pens and paper arranged neatly before each chair.
“members of the committee will please take their seats in the following order of precedence,” drawled a melancholy voice from a desk at the further end of the room, where a worried-looking little old man, in a very rusty black gown, and who wore enormous green goggles, sat with a large book open before him, and a quill pen stuck behind his ear:—
“the king’s exaggerator,” he called out;
“the lord high fiddle-de-dee;
“the first lord of the cash box;
“the advertiser general;
“the minister of experiments;
“the public persecutor;
“the busybody extraordinary;
“the gentleman of the glove box;
“the first groom of the boot brushes;
“the kitchen poker in waiting; and
“his insignificance the court poet.
“other persons to sit-where they can.”
as each one of these names was called out one of the gentlemen sat down, so that boy was able to tell exactly who they were; and as all the seats at the table were now occupied, the m.d., one-and-nine, and boy found seats against the wall near the clerk who had called out the names.
as soon as they were seated, the old gentleman got out of his box and shuffled forward with some paper, a pot of ink and some pens. these he put into boy’s hands and muttered something about “fetching a table.”
“what are these for?” inquired boy.
“paper for your impressions,” drawled the clerk. “i suppose you have come to report this meeting, haven’t you?”
“no, indeed i haven’t!” said boy in alarm.
“dear me! what have you come for then?” asked the old clerk in an amazed voice.
“hush! hush!” called out some one, “his importance is about to speak,” and the old clerk hobbled back to his seat, looking more worried than ever, while the gentleman seated at the head of the table, and who boy found was called the lord high adjudicator, arose and made the following speech:—
“gentlemen, we are met for the purpose of discussing the grave situation caused by the extraordinary absence of his serene importance the crown prince of zum——”
“hereditary grand duke of grumbleberry plumbhop, knight of the order of——” began the king’s exaggerator, when he was interrupted by the public persecutor, who inquired,—
“what’s the use of all that, when there is no one but us to hear you?”
“i must perform my official duties,” remarked the king’s exaggerator.
“you can have no official duties now that there is no king and the prince has disappeared,” objected the public persecutor.
“gentlemen, gentlemen, pray don’t argue,” interrupted the lord high adjudicator, “or we shall waste all day in discussion. if the king’s exaggerator wishes to do a little exaggerating on his own account, i am sure no one will object, but he must do it outside and not here; and now, in order that you may understand it all more clearly, i will call upon his insignificance the court poet to read us ‘the cause of dismay.’”
the court poet, who was a very curious-looking man, was dressed in a tightly-fitting velvet costume with a deep lace collar, and wore his hair very long. he had most prominent eyes, which he rolled about in a grotesque way as he spoke. when thus called upon he arose, and tragically clutching his hair with one hand, he waved the other about frantically, while he began in a shrill voice:—
the cause of dismay.
“oh, men of zum, what shall we do?
our king has no successor;
the prince has vanished from our view,
and—and-”
“well, go on!” shouted several voices.
“vanished from our view,
and—and——”
repeated the court poet, turning very pale.
“why don’t you proceed?” inquired the lord high adjudicator.
“i’m afraid i can’t find a rhyme for successor,” admitted the court poet, looking greatly confused.
“dear me! this is the second time this week you have failed in your rhyming,” exclaimed the lord high adjudicator impatiently. “it’s most annoying.”
“it’s unbearable,” declared the public persecutor.
“if he can’t do his work properly, we had better reduce his salary,” suggested the busybody extraordinary.
“hear, hear!” shouted several voices at once.
“oh, please don’t!” pleaded the court poet. “my stipend is very small as it is.”
“six pounds a year is a great deal more than you are worth!” declared the first lord of the cash box emphatically.
“so it is, so it is!” agreed the rest of the committee.
the poor court poet looked very crestfallen, while the two gentlemen sitting near him frowned at him severely, the kitchen poker in waiting looking particularly disgusted.
“ahem! i should like to suggest,” said the minister of experiments, coughing importantly and standing up to address the meeting, “that instead of reducing his salary we should reduce his title, and that, instead of his being known as his insignificance the court poet, he should in future be called his absolute nothingness the public rhymester.”
this proposal seemed to find favour with the whole company, and, being put to the vote, was carried unanimously; and his absolute nothingness the public rhymester was told to sit down, which he did very meekly, looking half inclined to burst into tears.
“now then,” said the lord chief adjudicator when this was all over, “we really must get to business; and as the public rhymester is not capable of setting forth ‘the cause of dismay’ in verse, as is the custom here, i must try and explain to you in prose. the facts, as you are aware, are as follows: our late sovereign, king robert the twentieth——king of zum and emperor of——” began the king’s exaggerator, evidently intending to enumerate all of the late king’s titles; but he was forcibly prevented from doing so by the two gentlemen sitting next to him, one of whom held him down, while the other tied a handkerchief tightly over his mouth.
the lord high adjudicator nodded approval and proceeded.
“our late sovereign, king robert the twentieth, being deceased, and the crown prince having mysteriously disappeared some five years since, and there being no legal successor to the throne, what are we to do for a king? as you are aware, this land has always been governed by a hereditary absolute monarchy, and his late never-to-be-sufficiently-lamented majesty left absolutely no relations whatever; what are we to do about the government of the country? that is the question, gentlemen, which we have met here to discuss to-day.”
almost before the lord high adjudicator had finished, every member of the committee got up excitedly and began to unfold his own particular plan for the government of the land, each trying to drown the other’s voice. the noise was deafening, and the poor old clerk was so alarmed at the uproar, that he collapsed into his box and was found after the meeting still sitting on the floor with his fingers pressed to his ears and trembling with fright.
for some time the utmost confusion reigned, but at last the lord high adjudicator stood up in his chair and motioned them all to sit down, which, after a time, they did.
“gentlemen, gentlemen, this is disgraceful!” cried the lord high adjudicator when order was somewhat restored. “we shall never get on at this rate. now, one at a time, please.”
the busybody extraordinary at once got up and began as follows:—
“i have been preparing a little scheme for the government of zum, which is bound, i think, to meet with the approval of every one here—it is so delightfully simple, and at the same time so effective. there is no king. very good, we will govern the land; we will form ourselves into a council for the management of everybody’s business in the kingdom, with the power to take over all property, public and private, have control of everything and everybody in the land. think what a benefit it would be to the public not to have to worry about anything at all, simply to do as we told them, and think how delightful it would be for us!”
“but would the public agree to all this?” inquired the lord high fiddle-de-dee dubiously.
“the public,” said the busybody extraordinary contemptuously, “will do just whatever we wish it to. it may grumble a little at first, but it will do it all the same.”
“but what shall we be called?” asked the public persecutor, who seemed greatly interested in the scheme.
“well, i was going to propose that we should call ourselves public councillors,” replied the busybody extraordinary. “of course, we should have to give up our present official titles and simply use our ordinary names with the letters p.c. added. thus i should be known as ebenezer smith, p.c., and you would be sir peter grumble, p.c., and so on.”
“but how would it be possible to manage everybody’s affairs?” inquired another.
“my dear sir,” replied the busybody extraordinary, “that is the great point of the whole system—it is as easy as a.b.c. we should of course begin by commanding that nothing whatever should be done without our sanction; that would simplify matters to start with. then we should turn our attention to public improvements; for instance, we should begin by pulling down this building and erect for our use some fine municipal buildings on a very large and handsome scale, with portraits of ourselves painted on all the windows.”
“but who would pay for them?” objected the first lord of the cash box.
“the public, of course,” said the busybody extraordinary. “what a silly question!”
“but supposing they refused?” persisted the first lord of the cash box.
“the public refuse to pay rates and taxes?” exclaimed the busybody extraordinary. “who ever heard of such a thing? really, my dear sir, you are most childish in your remarks. then,” he continued, “we should pull down all those buildings opposite and make a wide, handsome road, with trees on either side, with a large park at the end of it, beautifully laid out with lakes, etc., where we could drive in the afternoon. of course, it would have to be railed in or we should have the public trespassing in it.”
“wouldn’t the public expect to be allowed to use the park if they paid for all these improvements?” asked the advertiser general.
“but they mustn’t expect anything of the sort,” said the busybody extraordinary impatiently. “the public must be taught not to question anything that we do. it will never do for us to be hampered by mere public opinion, you know; besides, they would not have time to use the park if they wanted to, because they would all be at school.”
“but not grown-up people, surely!” exclaimed the first gentleman of the glove box.
“why not?” retorted the busybody extraordinary. “it will keep them out of mischief, and i am sure some grown-up people require to go to school quite as much as the youngsters. the gymnastic exercises will be so good for them, too—especially the old ones. why, i have known some old men of eighty, or even ninety, who positively didn’t know how to turn a somersault. such ignorance is absolutely appalling. and you must be aware that at the present time not more than one-third of the servant-girls of zum can play the piano. we can’t allow this sort of thing to go on, you know. then there is too much liberty allowed the public in the matter of pleasures and entertainments; an occasional tea-party or a spelling-bee ought to satisfy any reasonable public, and we could insist that in the case of tea-parties a plan of the house should be sent us, and a list of all the invited guests submitted for our approval with their certificates of birth and vaccination. in this way we should gradually get the public completely under our control, and would hear no more of such nonsense as their presuming to object to anything we chose to do.” and the busybody extraordinary sat down triumphantly, but somewhat breathless, after this long speech.
“h’m! there seems to be a great deal to be said in favour of his scheme,” said the lord high adjudicator thoughtfully.
“a most brilliant proposal,” agreed the public persecutor enthusiastically.
“there is only one thing,” said the kitchen poker in waiting, getting up and addressing the meeting generally, “that i should like to suggest, and that is, that instead of this proposed public council a king should be elected from our number, and although i don’t wish to boast, i feel sure that there is no one in the entire assembly who would fill the position more ably and with greater dignity than myself.”
“it’s like your cheek!” exclaimed the first groom of the boot brushes. “i should think if any one is elected king i ought to stand before you.”
there was evidently going to be a squabble unless the lord high adjudicator interfered, and he had just arisen in his seat for that purpose when there was a knock at the door, and an attendant entered.
“av ye plaze, yer honours, there’s a woman and a bit of a child wanting to see yer honours on a mather of importance,” he said.
“what nonsense!” exclaimed the lord high adjudicator. “tell the woman that we are engaged.”
“i did, yer honour,” exclaimed the attendant, “and she wouldn’t take the answer, but told me to bring yez this bit of a letter.”
the lord high adjudicator took the note which the attendant handed him, and after reading a few lines jumped up excitedly.
“show her in at once,” he cried; and when the attendant had gone out of the room he announced, in a voice trembling with excitement: “she says that she has news of the crown prince.”
