and sat down
to write; and even as he did so material for the breaking of that
resolve presented itself,--the Comptroller-General, calm and
self-possessed, glided into the room.

He had a communication to make: the story did not take long to tell. He
had been extending his inquiries--further and more particular inquiries
into the life and domestic relations of the unfortunate steeplejack; and
he had discovered, oh, horror! but just in time, that the woman who had
lived with him was not his wife.

"But you told me they had seven children," said the King.

"That is so, Sir," replied the Comptroller-General; "it has been a
relationship of long standing. Morally, of course, that only makes the
matter worse."

The King did not know why morally the permanence of that arrangement
should make it worse. It was a statement which he accepted without
question; it came to him with authority from one whose guidance in such
matters he had ever been accustomed to follow and find correct. Before
the weight of the moral law, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost of
the dead steeplejack. The widow and the seven orphans passed out of
existence; they ceased any longer to be mouths and hearts of flesh, and
became instead abstractions to be set in a class apart--one not eligible
for rewards. To such as these no public declaration of the royal bounty
could be made.

"Very well," said the King despondently, "strike off the memorandum! The
twenty pounds need not go."

An hour later the Queen came in and found him sitting alone and
miserable in his chair. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Then as
she drew nearer, to find out if anything were really the matter, his
misery found voice.

"I can't move! I am unable to move!" he moaned.

"What is it, dear?" she inquired, "sciatica?"

His answer came from a source she could not fathom.

"No one," he murmured in a tone of deep discouragement, "no one will
ever call _me_ 'Jack.'"

III

Three hours later, after dinner, the King and his son, Prince Max, were
sitting together in the same room. The King, feeling considerably better
for a good meal, had given Max one of his best cigars, and having gone
so far to establish confidential relations, was now trying to summon up
courage to speak to the young man as a father should.

But here, as elsewhere, he was met by the old difficulty--he and his son
were not intimates. They had drifted apart, not for any lack of filial
or paternal