"But the priests must be taken at once," the minister protested. "They have been waiting a long time, and they are already late for the morning service in the royal temple."
"Well, they'll have to wait still longer," was the unruffled answer. "Tell them not to get impatient. I'll get round to them as soon as I finish with the animals. Think what it will mean to them to have their pictures shown on the same screen with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford! I know lots of people who would be willing to wait a year for such a chance."
Just then there approached across the courtyard a trio of youths in white uniforms and gold-laced képis, their breasts ablaze with decorations. At sight of them the minister doubled himself in the middle like a jack-knife. They were, it appeared, some of the royal princes—sons of the King.
There ensued a brief colloquy between the minister and the eldest of the princes, the conversation evidently relating, as I gathered from the gestures, to the Lovely Lady and the Winsome Widow, who at the moment were delightedly engaged in feeding candies to a baby elephant.
"His Highness wishes to know," the minister interpreted, "when the ladies of your company are to appear. His Highness is a great admirer of American actresses; he saw your most famous one, Mademoiselle Theda Bara, at a cinema in Singapore."
It seemed a thousand pities to destroy the prince's delusion.
"Tell his Highness," I said, "that the ladies will not act in this picture. They only play comedy parts."
The princes received the news with open disappointment. If the Lovely Lady and the Winsome Widow had only consented to appear on the back of an elephant, or even in a palanquin, I imagine that they might have received a mark of the royal favor in the form of a Cambodian decoration. It is a gorgeous affair and is called, with great appropriateness, the "Order of a Million Elephants and Parasols."
