r Majesty--"

"Oh, you've got no enterprise," said Auberon. "What's that roll in the
corner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in the
home, Pally? Fling it over here, and I'll paint such posters on the
back of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you'll paste
the original pattern against the wall." And the King unrolled the
wall-paper, spreading it over the whole floor. "Now give me the
scissors," he cried, and took them himself before the other could
stir.

He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as a
door. Then he took a big blue pencil, and went down on his knees on
the dusty oil-cloth and began to write on them, in huge letters--

"FROM THE FRONT.
GENERAL BUCK DEFEATED.
DARKNESS, DANGER, AND DEATH.
WAYNE SAID TO BE IN PUMP STREET.
FEELING IN THE CITY."

He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and got
up, with a sigh.

"Not quite intense enough," he said--"not alarming. I want the _Court
Journal_ to be feared as well as loved. Let's try something more
hard-hitting." And he went down on his knees again. After sucking the
blue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily. "How will
this do?" he said--

"WAYNE'S WONDERFUL VICTORY."

"I suppose," he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking the
pencil--"I suppose we couldn't say 'wictory'--'Wayne's wonderful
wictory'? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it."

"WAYNE WINS.
ASTOUNDING FIGHT IN THE DARK.
_The gas-lamps in their courses fought against Buck._"

"(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else can we
say? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;" and he added, thoughtfully, in
smaller letters--

"Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck."

"Those will do for the present," he said, and turned them both face
downwards. "Paste, please."

The Paladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of an
inner room.

The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing with
treacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in each
hand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positions
over the front of the office.

"And now," said Auberon, entering again with undiminished
vivacity--"now for the leading article."

He picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, laying it
across a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing with
feverish intensity, reading clauses and fragments alou