“It doesn’t strike me at all,” said Peggy. “Selim has done a very wicked and horrible thing. Queen Rosebud was ill, and she might have died, and if she had it would have been all his fault. He has told heaps of stories about her. She never told him that he was to be King after her at all. That’s one story. And he told the people she was dead. That’s another. And he has sent a lot of dolls to prison for nothing at all. He has done very wrong, and he ought to be punished.”
“That is a very eloquent speech,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Very eloquent indeed. I wish I could make one like it. But you see the trouble is that the King can do no wrong; so of course you can’t punish him.”
“But he has done wrong,” said Peggy. “And he isn’t the King. You keep on talking about him as if Queen Rosebud wasn’t alive. She is the Queen. Selim is only a usurper.”
“I’m beginning to see it,” said the Lord Chancellor. “It’s a very subtle point, but I’m beginning to see it, or at least some of it.”
Whether he would have seen all of it in time cannot be known, for just at that moment the door was opened by the housemaid doll, and in came Colonel Jim and Teddy.
XIV
THE ESCAPE
The moment Teddy came into the room, Peggy felt that the time for action had come. And she had never felt more pleased with him than when he addressed himself straight to the Lord Chancellor, and said, “Now, then, old man, you come along with us to the House of Cards. We’re going to get the Queen out of prison, and we want you with us.”
“I’m sure I’m very glad that you propose to adopt that course,” said the Lord Chancellor, speaking quickly and nervously. “It is exactly what I should have recommended myself. But why do you want me with you? I should have thought—”
“Never mind what you would have thought,” said Teddy. “We want you with us because, now the people have found out that old Selim’s a rascal, and the Queen isn’t dead, they’ve got their dander up. They’ll have some questions to ask, and you can answer them. Colonel Jim and me will be too busy.”