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Yes, it had been a wonderful afternoon, but trouble was waiting for her in Sixth Avenue. Trouble was never absent for very long from Katie’s unselfish life. Arriving at the little bookshop, she found Mr Murdoch, the glazier, preparing for departure. Mr Murdoch came in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to play draughts with her grandfather, who was paralysed from the waist, and unable to leave the house except when Katie took him for his outing in Washington Square each morning in his bath-chair.

Mr Murdoch welcomed Katie with joy.

‘I was wondering whenever you would come back, Katie. I’m afraid the old man’s a little upset.’

‘Not ill?’

‘Not ill. Upset. And it was my fault, too. Thinking he’d be interested, I read him a piece from the paper where I seen about these English Suffragettes, and he just went up in the air. I guess he’ll be all right now you’ve come back. I was a fool to read it, I reckon. I kind of forgot for the moment.’

‘Please don’t worry yourself about it, Mr Murdoch. He’ll be all right soon. I’ll go to him.’

In the inner room the old man was sitting. His face was flushed, and he gesticulated from time to time.

‘I won’t have it,’ he cried as Katie entered. ‘I tell you I won’t have it. If Parliament can’t do anything, I’ll send Parliament about its business.’

‘Here I am, grandpapa,’ said Katie quickly. ‘I’ve had the greatest time. It was lovely up there. I–‘

‘I tell you it’s got to stop. I’ve spoken about it before. I won’t have it.’

‘I expect they’re doing their best. It’s your being so far away that makes it hard for them. But I do think you might write them a very sharp letter.’

‘I will. I will. Get out the paper. Are you ready?’ He stopped, and looked piteously at Katie. ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to begin.’

Katie scribbled a few lines.

‘How would this do? “His Majesty informs his Government that he is greatly surprised and indignant that no notice has been taken of his previous communications. If this goes on, he will be reluctantly compelled to put the matter in other hands.”‘

She read it glibly as she had written it. The formula had been a favourite one of her late father, when roused to fall upon offending patrons of the bookshop.

The old man beamed. His resentment was gone. He was soothed and happy.

‘That’ll wake ’em up,’ he said. ‘I won’t have these goings on while I’m king, and if they don’t like it, they know what to do. You’re a good girl, Katie.’

He chuckled.

‘I beat Lord Murdoch five games to nothing,’ he said.

It was now nearly two years since the morning when old Matthew Bennett had announced to an audience consisting of Katie and a smoky blue cat, which had wandered in from Washington Square to take pot-luck, that he was the King of England.

This was a long time for any one delusion of the old man’s to last. Usually they came and went with a rapidity which made it hard for Katie, for all her tact, to keep abreast of them. She was not likely to forget the time when he went to bed President Roosevelt and woke up the Prophet Elijah. It was the only occasion in all the years they had passed together when she had felt like giving way and indulging in the fit of hysterics which most girls of her age would have had as a matter of course.

She had handled that crisis, and she handled the present one with equal smoothness. When her grandfather made his announcement, which he did rather as one stating a generally recognized fact than as if the information were in any way sensational, she neither screamed nor swooned, nor did she rush to the neighbours for advice. She merely gave the old man his breakfast, not forgetting to set aside a suitable portion for the smoky cat, and then went round to notify Mr Murdoch of what had happened.