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And Terry listened gloomily while Lilac led the boy king on to a climax in which he was kidnaped by New York gun men and finally rescued by the reporter and the prime minister—whiskered, comic, but heroic.

“It’s swell!” said Abraham Hamilton Granville.

“It’ll be all right, I guess,” said Mrs. T. Benescoten Tait.

“Oh, Lord!” said Wiggins the press agent.

And as for Terry Tait and the Tait mongrel, they said nothing at all, and said it vigorously.

While Castello Marino, the residence of the Benescoten Taits, was not so extensive as the mansion of Mr. Abraham Granville, it was a very tasty residence, with a campanile that was an exact copy of the celebrated Mangia tower at Siena, except that it was only one fifth as tall, and composed of yellow tiles instead of rusty old-fashioned brick.

In this select abode, the loving but unfortunate parents, trying so hard to give their little boy a chance to get on in the world, were having a good deal of trouble.

This morning Terry simply would not let his nice valet dress him. He said he did not like his nice valet. He said he wanted to be let alone.

“I think, Polacci,” Mrs. Tait remarked to the valet, “that Master Tait ought to wear his polo suit to Mr. Granville’s office. ”

“Oh, no, please, Mother!” Terry begged. “It looks so foolish! No other boy wears polo costume. ”

“Of course not! That’s why I got it for you!”

“I won’t wear it! Not outside the house. Everybody laughs at me. If I wear it, I won’t act. ”

“Oh, dear me, why I should be cursed by a son that—”

“Now put on your polo rags and mind your mother,” said T. Benescoten Tait.

“Rabbit!”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Shut up! … Now, Terry, I’ll let you wear your sailor suit. The English one. Imported. But I want you to realize that your disobedience just almost breaks your mother’s heart! Now hurry and let Polacci dress you. The limousine is waiting. ”

“Oh, Mother, please, have I got to go in the limousine? It isn’t any fun to ride in a limousine. You can’t see anything. I want to go on the trolley. You can see all kinds of different people on the trolley. ”

“Why, Terence McGee Tait! I never HEARD of such a thing! Who in the world has been talking to you about trolleys? They’re common! There’s just common vulgar folks, on trolleys! Besides! Give people a chance to look at you without paying for it? What an idea! Oh, dear, that’s what comes from mixing with these extra people on the lot, picking up these common ideas! If you don’t come with me in the limousine, I won’t give you one bit of caviar for dinner!”

“I hate caviar!”

“Oh, I just don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this!”

T. Benescoten spoke tentatively: “How about me and Terry going on the trolley and meeting you at Abe’s? I’d kind of like to ride on the street car myself, for a change. ”

“And pick up one of those Hollywood cuties? Not a chance!”

They took the limousine.

In Mr. Granville’s office were gathered the higher nobility of the Jupiter–Triumph-Tait organization, to listen to the completed scenario of “His Majesty, Junior,” the film suggested three weeks ago by Lilac Lavery Lugg. But before Miss Lugg had a chance to read it, Wiggins, the press agent, prowling up and down in the ecstasy of an idea as he talked, announced that the evening newspapers said young Maximilian III of Slovaria, with his mother, Queen Sidonie, was about to visit London.

It was hinted in the papers that the astute Sidonie wanted to secure the sympathy and alliance of the British people by exhibiting the boy king.

“And here,” squealed Wiggins, “is the grandest piece of publicity that’s ever been pulled. Bessie, you and Tom and Terry go to London. I’ll stay out of it, so they won’t smell a mice. Clapham, our London agent, is a smart publicity grabber, anyway. You fix it, somehow, so Terry and this King Maximilian get acquainted. The two boy kings, see? They get photographed together, see? Besides, Terry’s public know him as a common newsboy, and they won’t hardly be loyal to him as a king unless they see him really mixing up with the lite, see?”