FullReads

“I don’t want to be a king! I want to be an Apache!” wailed Terry, but no one heeded.

Everyone (excepting Terry, Terry’s mongrel pup and the butler) listened with hot eyes, as they were caught up by the whirlwind of Lilac’s genius:

“Terry is the boy king of a Near–Eastern country. Scenes in the palace—poor kid, awful’ lonely, sitting on throne, end of a big throne room—the Diplomatic Hotel might let us shoot their lobby again, like we did in ‘Long Live the Czar!’ Big gang of guards in these fur hats. Saluting. Show how he’s a grand kid—scene of him being nice to a poor little orphan in the yard at the castle and his kitty had busted her leg, but he’s so sick and tired of all this royal grandeur that he turns democratic on his guard and the court and all them, and he’s meaner than a toothache to his guards and the prime minister—the prime minister’ll be a grand comedy character, with long whiskers. And the sub-plot is an American reporter, a tall, handsome bird that’s doing the Balkans, and say, he’s the spitting image of the king’s uncle—the uncle is the heavy; he’s trying to grab the throne off the poor li’l’ tike. Well, one day the king—the kid—is out in the castle grounds taking his exercise, riding horseback. He’s followed by a coupla hundred cavalry troops, and he treats ’em something fierce, hits ’em and so on.

“Well, this American reporter, he’s there in the grounds, and the king sees him and thinks it’s his uncle, and he says to his troops, ‘Go on, beat it; there’s my uncle,’ he says; ‘he wants to grab the throne, but I’m not scared of him; I’ll meet him alone. ’ And so he rides up to this fellow and draws his sword. ”

“Would he have a sword, li’l’ kid like that?” hinted T. Benescoten.

“Of course he would, you fathead!” snapped Bessie. “Haven’t you seen any pictures of the Prince of Wales? Kings and all like that always wear uniforms and swords—except maybe when they’re playing golf. Or swimming. ”

“Certainly!” Lilac looked icily at T. Benescoten.

Everybody, save his son Terry, usually looked icily at T. Benescoten.

“Ziz saying,” Lilac continued, “he draws his sword and rushes at what he thinks is his uncle, but the fellow speaks and he realizes it ain’t his uncle. Then they get to talking. I think there ought to be a flashback showing the reporter’s—the hero’s—happy life in Oklahoma as a boy; how he played baseball and all that. And then the reporter—he’s seen how mean the boy king is to his men, and he gives the poor li’l’ kid his first lesson in acting nice and democratic, like all American kids do, and the king is awful’ sorry he was so mean, and he thinks this reporter is the nicest bird he ever met, and they’re walking through the grounds and they meet the king’s sister—she’s the female lead—I can see Katinka Kettleson playing the rle—and the reporter and the princess fall in love at first sight—of course later the reporter rescues the princess and the king from the uncle—big ball at the palace, with a ballet, and the uncle plans to kidnap the king, and the reporter, he’s learned all about the extensive secret passages, or maybe they might even be catacombs, under the palace, and he leads them away and there’s a slick fight in the woods, the reporter used to be a fencing champion and he engages the uncle in battle—swords, you know— while the poor little king and the unfortunate princess crouch timorously amid the leaves on the ground and the reporter croaks the uncle and—say, SAY, I got it, this’ll be something ab-so-tively new in these royal plot pictures, they make their getaway, after the fight, by airplane—probably they might cross the ocean to America, and the pilot drops dead, and the reporter has a secret wound that he has gallantly been concealing from the princess and he faints but the pilot has taught the king how to fly and he grabs the controls—”

“Can I fly, really?” gloated Terry.

“You can not!” snapped his mother. “That part’s doubled. Go on, Lilac!”