us to his own satisfaction that
there are no such things as music or colour."

"Go on, please," said Olivia eagerly.

"Olivia, I'm sure," protested Mrs. Hastings, "I think it's very
unwomanly of you to show such an interest in these things."

"Will you bear with me for one moment, Mrs. Hastings?" begged the
prince, "and perhaps I shall be able to interest you. The submarine
returned, bringing the sole survivor of the wreck of the African
transport."

"Ah, now," Mrs. Hastings assured him blandly, "you are dealing with
things that can happen. My brother Otho, my niece's father, was just
this last year the sole survivor of the wreck of a very important
vessel."

"I have the honour, Mrs. Hastings, to be narrating to you the
circumstances attending the discovery of your brother and Miss
Holland's father, after the wreck of that vessel."

"My father?" cried Olivia.

The prince bowed.

"After this manner, Chance had rewarded us. We crowned your father
King of Yaque."

CHAPTER V

OLIVIA PROPOSES

Prince Tabnit's announcement was received by his guests in the
silence of amazement. If they had been told that Miss Holland's
father was secretly acting as King of England they could have been
no more profoundly startled than to hear stated soberly that he had
been for nearly a year the king of a cannibal island. For the
cannibal phase of his experience seemed a foregone conclusion. To
St. George, profoundly startled and most incredulous, the possible
humour of the situation made first appeal. The picture of an
American gentleman seated upon a gold throne in a leopard-skin coat,
ordering "oysters and foes" for breakfast, was irresistible.

"But he shaved with a shell when he chose,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man"

floated through his mind, and he brought himself up sharply.
Clearly, somebody was out of his head, but it must not be he.

"What?" cried Mrs. Hastings in two inelegant syllables, on the
second of which her uncontrollable voice rose. "My brother Otho, a
vestry-man at St. Mark's--"

"Aunt Dora!" pleaded Olivia. "Tell us," she besought the prince.

"King Otho I of Yaque," the prince was begining, but the title was
not to be calmly received by Mrs. Hastings.

"_King_ Otho!" she articulated. "Then--am I royalty?"

"All who may possibly succeed to the throne Blackstone holds to be
royalty," said the lawyer in an edictal voice, and St. George looked
away from Olivia.

_The