‘I think, sir, you were a little too vigorous in your help,’ she said coldly. ‘You may leave us now.’
‘And you can all go,’ said the King from under the table.
The whole lot trooped out, shutting the door, and as soon as they were outside shouts of laughter filled the air for some minutes.
The King meanwhile scrambled out from under the table and got up, this time declining his daughter’s help.
‘It’s always the way,’ he said, as soon as the laughter had died away. ‘Whenever I do anything ridiculous and undignified there’s always a lot of people to see it. Why, only last Thursday—no, last Tuesday, I think—anyhow, it was the day of the last state banquet, my crown tumbled into the soup-tureen, and then I was so nervous that, when I was raising my wine-glass to propose a toast, my hand shook so much that I dropped the wine down the Duchess of Carabas’s neck; and then she fainted, and I helped to carry her out of the room, and as soon as I got outside they all laughed so loud that the chandelier fell into the middle of them. It broke right on a duke’s head, and he never apologised for breaking it. However, I shall get over it now you’ve come back. We really must get into more regular habits. I’ve actually never had more than ten pages to serve my breakfast since you’ve been away, and, by the bye, we’ve not had breakfast; and I’ve forgotten altogether to have the bells rung in your honour. Just knock that gong there on the table—it’s cracked, but I can’t afford a new one, and it’s quite good enough for the guards outside to hear.’
So the Princess knocked the gong, and it certainly was cracked; it sounded a good deal more like knocking an old pot than a respectable royal gong.
At the sound one of the guards outside entered and saluted.
‘Let the breakfast be brought,’ the King said.
The guard withdrew, and presently the door opened, and a page appeared with the royal coffee-pot on a cushion of cloth of gold. Next came another page with the cream-jug on a similar cushion, and then another with the slop-basin, and another with the sugar, and another with the tongs, until the table was completely furnished. Last of all came, with a loud fanfare of trumpets, four men, staggering under the weight of an enormous silver dish with an equally enormous silver cover. When this was placed on the table, amid another flourish of trumpets, the royal butler entered, and said: