King John of Jingalo Part 13

"Are you the autocrat?" inquired the King.

"At your Majesty's disposal," returned the Lord Functionary with a bow.

"Then you are not responsible to Parliament?"

The Lord Functionary smiled, with a touch of disdain. "I should not be holding office if I were," said he.

"Then you are not under the Prime Minister, either?"

"No more than your Majesty," said the magnificent one blandly. "In the order of precedence I am, indeed, several degrees above him. It is, of course, a Government appointment; but while I hold it my discretionary powers are unlimited."

This seemed a very great person, and the King looked on him with envy.

"To whom, then, are you actually responsible?" he inquired.

"To you, sir."

"To me alone?"

"My official t.i.tle would make it indecent for me to consult any one but your Majesty."

"Ah, yes, you keep my conscience for me, don't you?" said the King. Max was right, then; here was something still left for him to do. He addressed himself to the previous question.

"What exactly is the trouble?"

"A self-advertising minority, sir, has been persistently submitting plays which it was quite out of the question to pa.s.s. Being annoyed, they are now attacking the plays which _have_ pa.s.sed."

"I should like," said the King, "to see some of these plays; to be in touch, if I may so put it, with my own conscience. Would you be good enough to send me three of those you have not pa.s.sed, and three of the others which are now being attacked. I would like also," he added, "to see _The Gaudy Girl_ in its new version."

The Lord Functionary raised his pale eyebrows.

"May I be allowed to know why, sir?" he inquired.

"Just curiosity," said the King. "I thought of going to see it, and I wanted first to be sure that there was nothing--nothing, you know----"

The Lord Functionary's face became wreathed in smiles.

"Why, certainly, sir. I will see that a copy is sent to your Majesty at once. It is, of course, work of a very light and frivolous kind--but it is popular and it does no harm." Then, as by an after-thought, the official countenance grew grave. "Was her Majesty also intending to be present?" he inquired.

The King, discerning that a negative was invited, gave the required a.s.surance. "As a matter of fact," said he, "it was the Prince who asked me to go--suggested it, that is to say." And immediately official confidence was restored, for to the Lord Functionary Max as a reformer was still unknown, while his taste for frivolous diversion was more easily a.s.sumed. And so in due course a copy of the play reached the King's hands.

Perhaps it was through mere inadvertence that the other six did not accompany it. The King noted the omission; but when once he started to read the single play which had reached him he forgot all about the others, for he found that his hands were full. At one stroke of the scythe he had reaped a plentiful harvest.

Here was a play on the very eve of production, reeking with the sn.i.g.g.e.ring improprieties which the keeper of the King's conscience had permitted to become the popular vogue. Suggestions and innuendoes to which the ordinary theater-going public had now grown accustomed, struck his inexperienced Majesty as bold and glaring novelties. The mere cheapness of the wit he pa.s.sed uncritically by, but the indecencies were so bare and bald that even he, with all his innocence and inexperience, could not fail to understand them. The explanation, of course, was easy; this new version of an old and accepted play had received the official sanction through oversight. Providence had sent him to the rescue in the nick of time; and delighted to have found something which his hand really could do, he took up the blue pencil and set to work.

s.n.a.t.c.hes of dialogue, half lines of lyric--especially when it came to the last verse--here, there, and everywhere he scored them through with a ruthless hand; and with a renewed sense of usefulness, and a conscience well at ease, he returned the much deleted copy to the Lord Functionary.

Before long that official visited him, presenting a grave countenance.

He was by no means enthusiastic over the royal handiwork; the production was about to take place; the play had already practically been licensed--silence up to so late a moment having virtually given consent; and--most difficult point of all--these things which the King was now ruling out had almost all of them been in the previously accepted version.

"Then I suppose," said his Majesty, "that n.o.body really reads the plays?"

"Oh, yes, sir, they are always read," corrected the Lord Functionary, "but our readers have necessarily to go upon certain lines. They are guided by precedent and custom, which it would be highly inadvisable to disturb."

So he pleaded that the _status quo ante_ might prevail; and yet, man to man, he could not defend what the King showed him.

"Could you," inquired his Majesty indignantly, "read such things aloud to your own family? Could you comfortably, if I called upon you to do so, read them aloud to me?"

"The drama," explained the Lord Functionary, "is so different from anything else; it has not to observe the same conventions. In light comedy, especially, these things really do not count. People never trouble to think about them--they mean nothing."

"In that case," said the King, "no one will mind your cutting them out."

The Lord Functionary seemed not so sure,--his a.s.surance went, in fact, in quite an opposite direction. He pleaded hard for the trade interests which he stood to represent. The play was in an advanced state of rehearsal; many thousands had been spent upon it; and, seeing that it was but a revival, no doubt about the new version pa.s.sing had existed anywhere.

But to all his entreaties the King remained adamant.

"In this matter," said he, "you have to consult my conscience."

The point could not be further argued.

"It is very unfortunate," said the Lord Functionary in acid tones.

"I must insist," said his Majesty, "that you see to these omissions being made." And the Lord Functionary bowed his pained body over the hand which the King graciously extended.

"Your Majesty must be obeyed," said he.

It was a phrase that the King very seldom heard; it gave him a taste of power.

"Max," said he to his son, upon their next meeting, "I have been doing as you advised. And I do believe you are right."

"What did I advise?" inquired Max, a.s.suming forgetfulness.

"That I should 'do a bust' was, I think, your expression; something unexpected."

"And how have you done it?"

"I have censored _The Gaudy Girl_."

Max whistled.

IV

The sibilations of that whistle were prophetic of atmospheric disturbance to come. In a week the storm broke.

The King happened to be away, paying a visit of complimentary inspection to frontier fortresses and heard nothing about it. But on his return Max came to him charged with tidings.

He stood over his father and looked at him with a note of satirical approval in his eye, which did not inspire the King with any confidence.