“Alban is not my sort of king,” said the blacksmith.
“I’d make a better king out of a penn’orth of putty any day of the week,” said the painter.
“What’s the good of a king if you never see him?” said the landlady.
“No processions, no flags, no gilt coaches, no rubies and diamonds and sapphires, no royal robes of purple and gold—such as a loyal country has a right to expect on its sovereign’s back! Only that old white thing,” said the barmaid.
“No better than a velvet nightgown,” said the landlady.
“I like a bit of colour, I do,” said the painter. “Graining I don’t ask for, for he’s not had the education to know its beauty; but a good warm maroon, or a royal blue, now! But, no; it’s white, white, white, till I’m sick of it. And us all wearing white by law, and washing done free, by white magic, at the Palace, on Mondays from 10 to 4. And no one to have more than a quart of beer of an evening! I tell you what it is, my boys, we’re miserable, degraded slaves; that’s what we are!”
“If we must have a king,” said the blacksmith, “why not good old Negretti? He’s something like a king, he is! Ah! if he only knew how our free hearts beat with him, he’d be sitting on the throne to-morrow.”
Then Negretti threw off his disguise—the pewter with the municipal arms on it rolled on the sanded floor, and spilt what was left of the dog’s-nose on to the disguise—and the Magician stood before them, pale but firm, his dark lantern in his hand. It was a magic lantern, of course.
“Down-trodden slaves!” he cried, “poor benighted, oppressed people! Follow me! Let us dethrone a king who seeks to mask tyranny with hypocritical public kitchens, and cloaks his infamous autocracy with free washing by white magic on a Monday! To the Palace, to the Palace!”