‘Your Royal Highness,
‘Little did I think when we had the honour so short a time ago of welcoming your Royal Highness to Eton that it would be my painful duty to write this letter to you. Your son, Prince Leonard, was found last week to have visited the Windsor races, where he was seen smoking and talking to a successful jockey, whose equestrian skill, so it appeared, had been the means of winning your son a considerable sum of money. This offence could not, of course, be passed over, and it was my duty to visit it on him in the most severe manner—in short, I gave him a flogging. But he refused, apparently, to take the warning to heart, and yesterday evening his housemaster, going into his room, found him, with several other boys, engaged in a game of roulette. This was more particularly heinous, since I well remember how warmly your Royal Highness urged on us not to allow roulette in the school. I therefore beg to advise your Royal Highness to remove Prince Leonard at once from Eton, to save him the disgrace, which must otherwise be inevitable, of being expelled. The roulette-board I send to you to-day by parcel post. I must add that Prince Leonard was most anxious to have it understood that he had persuaded the others to play, in spite of their unwillingness.’
Sophia did as she was advised, and instantly telegraphed to the headmaster, saying that she intended to remove her son at once from Eton. She was exceedingly annoyed at what had occurred, and felt quite angry with Leonard. She had expressly desired him not to play roulette; it was very tiresome to be disobeyed like this. She had hoped that he would have learned obedience at school. As for his removal from Eton, it was most inconvenient; she was at her wits’ end to know what to do with him. It would hardly be possible, at his age, to send him to Harrow; besides, she believed that Harrow boys always fought with Eton boys, and wore swallow-tail coats in the morning, which would never do. That the headmaster of Harrow would not be infinitely delighted at his entering there did not for a moment occur to her.
Her annoyance was very materially increased by the arrival of the roulette-board. It was a villainous piece of construction, faulty in carpentering, odiously coloured with the crudest and most violent tints; and it contained two zeros. She had, as the reader will have gathered, no moral objection at all to gambling, but her horror of not doing the thing properly was vital and ineradicable. In a fit of anger she smashed it into bits and threw the pieces on to the fire.
Later in the day Leonard arrived, completely himself.
‘How could you be so stupid and disobedient!’ cried the Princess. ‘And, Leonard, to play with that roulette-board is a disgrace.’
Leonard looked up in surprise.
‘How have you seen it? Where is it?’ he asked.
‘It is at present in ash in the grate, and its finer particles are contributing to the London fog,’ said the Princess, with some asperity. ‘In fact, I threw it into the fire. The headmaster sent it me.’