ht
to an accompaniment of hilarious riot and uproar such as have not been
known in our dramatic world since the public was forced to give up its
right to free sittings."

The King was startled; some alarm crept into his voice. "Do you mean
that I have done harm?"

"Not in the least; no, quite the reverse. But you have certainly doubled
the play's fortune. The run is going to be tremendous."

His Majesty felt flattered; had he not reason? For this surely must mean
that he had rightly interpreted the public taste, and that what the
popular will really wanted was a pure and carefully expurgated drama.

But Max speedily undeceived him.

"What happened," said he, "is this. The Lord Functionary obeyed your
orders, and less than a week ago word went to the management, happily
engaged with its finishing touches to the play. Your share in the
business, of course, was not mentioned; your cuttings had become the
official act of the department. What that meant, you can perhaps hardly
conceive. Here was popular musical comedy censored as it had never been
censored before. Time was too short for negotiation; besides the whole
thing was too drastic for half measures to be of any avail. Dullness,
decorum, and disaster stared the management in the face. Suddenly
perceiving that its strength lay in submission, it accepted the
situation like a man, and in all Jingalo to-day, no hand is raised for
the censorship. You have given it the _coup de grace_--it will have to
go; for you have enlisted the managers--the trade interest against it."

"I?" exclaimed the King.

"Its moral position, as I told you," went on his son, "had recently been
shaken by the attacks of the intellectuals--a camp, however, so much in
the minority that hitherto its hostility has not been seriously
regarded. But now Jingalese drama, as a great commercial enterprise, an
interest wherein hundreds of thousands of pounds are yearly invested,
has been touched on the raw, and Jingalese drama has risen and shaken
itself in wrath. The press, which depends on it for advertisement, has,
of course, rushed to its assistance, and condemnation of the censorship
now figures in stupendous headlines on all the posters. Leading
articles, interviews, and indignation meetings are the order of the day;
I wonder you can have missed them."

"I have been busy with other things," explained the King.

"Well, if you are not too busy to-night, I invite you to come and see
your handiwor