f the utmost respectability; and shocked at the poverty
of the display he had been glad to learn that a more Christian gift of
tea, clothes, snuff, and tobacco was added outside the Church door when
the ceremony was over. But even so its ritual had not attracted him: it
had lost its human values, and seemed to have been kept in life merely
for archeological association.

Now on looking into the matter once more (the _Encyclopedia Appendica_
gave him the required information) he was astonished to find that the
old foot-washing ceremony of Holy Thursday was originally the chief
function at which every year the Knights of the Holy Thorn were bound,
if not unavoidably prevented, to appear and do service. Nay, when he
turned to it, he found that it still stood so expressed in the Charter
of the Order, and that each new Knight, upon admission thereto, swore
solemnly to keep and observe the same--so help him God--faithfully unto
his life's end.

If he had had any doubt before, the terms of that oath, which he himself
had taken--probably without understanding it since it had been read to
him in Latin--were sufficient to decide him. Without loss of time he
sent word by his Comptroller-General to the Prime Minister that he
intended in the following week to revive the full ceremony and to recall
the Knights of the Thorn to the duties they had so long neglected. The
ceremony, as of old, was to take place in public at noon outside the
doors of the metropolitan cathedral.

"The King is going off his head," said the Comptroller-General by way of
preface to the announcement with which he was charged; and the Prime
Minister was ready to agree with him when he heard it.

"Preposterous!" he exclaimed.

"He has got chapter and verse for it," lamented the Comptroller-General.

"Can't you persuade him that it's a forgery?"

"It's in the oath," replied the other; "you yourself have taken it."

"Oh, yes, the form; but the ceremony--the accompanying service, I
mean--was cut out of the Church Prayers at the time of the Reformation.
It has become illegal."

"Inside a church, yes; not outside. At least that is his contention. Oh,
I have already done my best! He got quite excited when I ventured to
discuss the matter,--asked me if I understood the nature of an oath, and
whether I had ever taken one."

"Is he much set on it?"

"I have had to write to the Archbishop."

"What do you think he'll say about it?"

"Ordinarily he would oppo