se it as savoring of Rome; under present
circumstances my impression is that he will welcome it as giving the
Church an added importance. You don't like it?"

"Of course, I don't."

"Then you had better see the King yourself. You have only a week left;
and he has already begun looking at the weather-glass and wondering if
it's going to be fine."

"That's just like him!" said the Prime Minister.

"Yes, and he's getting more like himself every day. My part is not a
sinecure, I can assure you."

Accordingly the Prime Minister went over to the Palace and saw the King.
Informed as to what line of argument had already been tried and failed,
he approached the matter from a new standpoint: he spoke in the name of
Protestantism. This ceremony had only survived in Catholic countries; in
Jingalo the Reformation had killed it, and it had gone with graven
images, the invocation of saints, and the worship of relics to the limbo
of forgotten foolishnesses.

"The Charter of the Holy Thorn has not gone," said the King.

"Nor has your Majesty's title to the Crown of Jerusalem; but who ever
thinks of enforcing it?"

"I am willing to resign it any day," replied his Majesty. "I can also,
if you think it advisable, abolish the Charter of the Holy Thorn and the
Knighthood with it. But I don't think the Knights would quite like
that."

"If it comes to a question of liking," said the Prime Minister, "I do
not think they will quite like washing beggars' feet in public."

"Oh, I do the washing and the drying," said the King. "They only carry
the basins and put on the boots. I have looked up the whole ceremony;
it's very impressive. You have only to read it and you will become
converted: it is so symbolical."

The Prime Minister objected that though in its origin the ceremony might
have had symbolic meaning and beauty, its performance now-a-days would
be looked upon as a mere form and superstition, contrary to the spirit
of the age.

This reminded the King of a certain "maxim."

"'The spirit of the age,'" he quoted, "'is the industrious collection of
bric-a-brac--good, bad, and indifferent': this one happens to be good,
and has been neglected. And talk about forms and ceremonies!--what can
be more formal, superstitious, and idiotic than the procession of Court
functionaries and King's Musketeers (with the Dean of the Chapels Royal
carrying a candle) which, on every ninth of November--the anniversary of
the Bed-Chamber Plot--comes