"It ain't much of a kingdom."
"About four times as large as you see afore the rest broke away. Anyway, I thought it a mighty big place when I got tossed up here goin' on four year ago. I'd been afloat on the roof of a deckhouse for three days arter the fruiter Bainbridge were cast away, and I tell you, mate, I was powerful glad to hit any old kind of terra firma then. The bunch of natives who fed me and sheltered me was a kind lot. They didn't seem to belong to no country in partikler, and though I knowed Britain claimed the Bahamas, I jes' kind a thought Teddy might want the place for a coaling station some time. So I let 'em know I was their King, and I reckon I ain't had any more trouble with them than Peter Leary had in Guam. Of course, I couldn't make it plain to 'em how the Constitution follows the flag, 'cos I didn't know myself."
"Where did you get your American flag?"
"American flag, mate?" Victor I. was offended. "Why, bless you, that ain't no stars and stripes. That there's the flag of Tortilla. There's no stars there. The red's my old undershirt, the blue I found thrown up in the surf one day and the white is a bit of sail I had with me when I dropped in to take my throne. That flag means business. I"——
His Majesty was interrupted by a shout from John Washington:
"Golly, Cap. Jim, the island's stopped!"
"Stopped, you lunkhead?"
"Yes, Cap. Jim. It ain't movin' no more. I'se been watchin' Poole's Island yonder, and we done ceased."
"Maybe it's aground," suggested the King.
"Maybe it is," replied the Rock Hall captain, "but it's more likely to have run into a current down the bay from the Susquehanna. It's just as well for you, I guess, or you'd a bumped into Cecil county so hard you wouldn't a voted next 'lection."