he couldn't have done a wiser thing. It would also be a good
idea to add five hundred officers to it; in fact, add as many
officers as there were nobles and relatives of nobles in the
country, even if there should finally be five times as many officers
as privates in it; and thus make it the crack regiment, the envied
regiment, the King's Own regiment, and entitled to fight on its
own hook and in its own way, and go whither it would and come
when it pleased, in time of war, and be utterly swell and independent.
This would make that regiment the heart's desire of all the
nobility, and they would all be satisfied and happy. Then we
would make up the rest of the standing army out of commonplace
materials, and officer it with nobodies, as was proper--nobodies
selected on a basis of mere efficiency--and we would make this
regiment toe the line, allow it no aristocratic freedom from
restraint, and force it to do all the work and persistent hammering,
to the end that whenever the King's Own was tired and wanted to go
off for a change and rummage around amongst ogres and have a good
time, it could go without uneasiness, knowing that matters were in
safe hands behind it, and business going to be continued at the
old stand, same as usual. The king was charmed with the idea.

When I noticed that, it gave me a valuable notion. I thought
I saw my way out of an old and stubborn difficulty at last. You
see, the royalties of the Pendragon stock were a long-lived race
and very fruitful. Whenever a child was born to any of these
--and it was pretty often--there was wild joy in the nation's mouth,
and piteous sorrow in the nation's heart. The joy was questionable,
but the grief was honest. Because the event meant another call
for a Royal Grant. Long was the list of these royalties, and
they were a heavy and steadily increasing burden upon the treasury
and a menace to the crown. Yet Arthur could not believe this
latter fact, and he would not listen to any of my various projects
for substituting something in the place of the royal grants. If I
could have persuaded him to now and then provide a support for
one of these outlying scions from his own pocket, I could have
made a grand to-do over it, and it would have had a good effect
with the nation; but no, he wouldn't hear of such a thing. He had
something like a religious passion for royal grant; he seemed to
look upon it as a sort of sacred swag, and one could not irritate
him