FullReads

“Villain, art guilty?”

“What do I say? I’ve never played this game before,” begged Max.

“Neither have I, stupid! Haven’t you got any imagination? What woulda villain say if a king bawled him out like that?”

“I don’t know. Oh, I fancy he’d say, ‘No, I aren’t. ’”

“You are too! Commander in Chief, isn’the guilty? Didn’t you catch him treasoning?”

“Ra-ther!”

“Then—(Now you’re Lord High Executioner. ) Then off with his head!”

“Oh, I say!” protested Max. “Kings can’t have people’s heads cut off!”

“Of course they can! Don’t be silly. Maybe they can’t in Slovaria, but lots and lots of places they can. ”

“Can they, honest?” admired Max. “I wish I could! By Jove, I’d have old Michelowsky’s head off in two twos! He’s my tutor—a horrid man!”

“Dry up! You hadn’t ought to interrupt a king, don’t you know that? Now you get your head cut off. And Josephus, too. Now you form a procession. See, I walk in front, and then you and Josephus, and Ginger in behind with the headsman’s sword—here, you can take my skepter for sword, Ginger. ”

And they marched to the sweetly solemn tune of “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” chanted by Terry, and the noble tragedy of the event was only a little marred by Ginger’s peeping at his 3/6 watch just before he dealt the awful blow, and exclaiming, “It’s one o’clock! We must find a bit of lunch. I’m not going to start pirating on an empty stomach!”

Bessie Tait, whenever she felt depressed and put upon, slept late in the morning, waking only to think of the broiling letters she would write to her enemies, and to doze off again. This morning, at ten, she was still sunk among the little pink-and-white lace pillows with which she had adorned the Hotel Picardie bed when she was roused by her maid and her secretary, crying, “Oh, madame, there’s a lady; I think it’s—”

As Bessie sat up, iron-jawed and furious in her mosquito-netting nightgown, the maid and secretary were thrust aside by a woman who dashed into the room raging, “What have you done with my son?”

She was a tall woman, not unlike Bessie herself, and if her voice was not so harsh, she was more voluble. “If you have kidnaped him, if you have let him go off with your brat—”

“Are you crazy? Get out of here! Miss Tingle, call a policeman!” wailed Bessie.

“Oh, madame, it’s Queen Sidonie of Slovaria!” whimpered the secretary.

“Queen! … Sidonie! … Oh, my Lord!” howled Bessie, capsizing among the pillows.

The queen flew to the bed, savagely seized her arm. “Where is he? Is he here?”

“Your son? The king?”

“Naturally, idiot! I know you lured him here yesterday—”

“Now, you can’t talk to me like that, queen or no queen! How do I know where the boys are? I don’t get up in the dawn! We’ll see. ”

Bessie huddled into a dressing gown that was like the froth on sparkling Burgundy. Hoping, in her agitation at this somewhat unexpected way of meeting royalty, that Queen Sidonie was noticing her superior chic, she led Sidonie quickly through the living room, into Terry’s room.

And it was empty.

In the room beyond, Humberstone, the valet whom Bessie had hired just for this purpose of impressing Sidonie, slumbered in a fume of gin, and instead of an edifying morning coat he exhibited the top of a red flannel nightgown.

If Sidonie had landed on Bessie somewhat precipitately, it had been a lover’s greeting compared with the way in which Bessie hailed the valet, seizing an ear in each hand. The tempestuous Sidonie, for a generation the storm cloud of the Balkans, looked almost admiringly at Bessie’s vocabulary, and the flower of English Service quaked as he stated that, because of his neuralgia, he had overslept, and of Master Terry and of all kings whatsoever he knew nothing.

Bessie flew at Terry’s cupboard. “His blue suit is gone!” She flew at the telephone. “Ginger—that’s the no-‘count bell boy Terry plays with—he’s missing, they say downstairs. Oh, Queen! He’s missing! My little boy! And I been so hard on him! Oh, you may love your kid, the king, a lot, but you don’t love him one bit more than I do mine and—”

And two women, Her Majesty of Slovaria and Mrs. Rabbit Tait of Mechanicville, sobbed on each other’s shoulders.