d!" said the governor, and he looked very much tickled.

"And this poor woman is old, now, and has no revenue, and has to get
along as well as she can, which is pretty poorly, I know, and nobody
ever treats her any better than if she had been born a common person,
and we want to give her a chance of having as many of her rights as she
can before she dies."

"At any rate," said Rectus, who had been waiting for a chance to make a
fresh start, "if we can't give her all her royal rights, we want to let
her know how it feels to be a queen, and to give her a little show among
her people."

"You are talking of an old native African woman?" said the governor,
looking at Corny. "I have heard of her. It seems to be generally agreed
that she belonged to a royal family in one of the African tribes. And
you want to restore her to her regal station?"

"We can't do that, of course," said Corny; "but we do think she's been
shamefully used, and all we want to do is to have her acknowledged by
her people. She needn't do any ruling. We'll fix her up so that she'll
look enough like a queen for those dreadfully poor people."

"Yes," put in Rectus, who had been getting warm on the subject, "they
are dreadfully poor, but she's the poorest of the lot, and it's a shame
to see how she, a regular queen, has to live, while a governor, who
wasn't anybody before he got his place, lives in the best house, with
tables and books, and everything he wants, for all I know, and a big
flag in front of his door, as if he was somebody great, and----"

"What?" said the governor, pretty quick and sharp, and turning around
square on Rectus.

"Oh, he don't mean you!" said Corny. "He's talking about the black
governor, Goliah Brown."

"Ah, indeed!" said he, turning away from Rectus as if he didn't like his
looks. "And what does Brown think of all this?"

I thought I'd better say a word or two now, because I didn't know where
Rectus would fetch us up next, if we should give him another chance, and
so I said to the governor that I knew Goliah Brown would make no
objections to the plan, because we had talked it over with him, and he
had agreed to it.

"Well, then, what do you want that I should do for you?" said the
governor to Corny.

"Oh, nothing sir," said she, "but just to make it all safe for us. We
didn't know exactly what the rules were on this island, and so we
thought we'd come and see you about it. We don't want the policemen, or
the soldiers