Then came the Latin hymn with its chorus, in which I was supposed to join lustily; but throughout which I was silent.
“Eya! Eya! Virgo Deum genuit quern divina voluit potentia.” ...
It was a corrupt Latin and out of tune, which the boys sang; and when they had finished, they rose, conscious of the fact that there was something wrong with them or their audience, and there was. I was in the thick of a desperate fight with the Pany’s son who was trying to throw me. Ordinarily, he would not have had a difficult task; but my wounded, royal pride had given me unknown strength, and majestically I held my ground.
“Get down, you dirty peasant!” the lad cried viciously, while I, loudly protesting that I was not a peasant, fought him back until, coming to close quarters, we rolled on the floor, I holding him down with my hands and knees.
“Enough of this, you impudent fellow!” the angry voice of the Pany said, as he lifted me roughly from the badly damaged form of his scion. “Enough of this! Get out of here!”
I was ready enough to go; but fate willed otherwise.
“Why didn’t you kneel?” the Pany asked, as I picked up my demoralized crown and the star, which in the scuffle had been ruthlessly torn from my mother’s yardstick, on top of which it had guided our footsteps.
“Because I am a king and not a peasant, and I won’t kneel to any one.”
Loud laughter greeted this speech, for it betrayed my race and religion. Mockingly, the Pany took me by the back of the neck.
“Ah, so!” he said; “that’s your new business, being a king. Now, you dirty little Schid, get out of here, quick!” And down the broad stairway, which a few minutes before led me up to Paradise, I stumbled onto earth again.