Joe's face sobered as he looked from Tessie to Mr. Bill.
"Pooh!" he said again. "What do kings and queens amount to now? They're being knocked off their thrones pretty fast. Look at Russia and Germany! And at the best, they were never anything but a fairy tale. Keep your eyes on the other countries, on England and Italy and Spain, and some day you'll see things happen there. People are learning that they can pay too much for a figurehead and a pageant. An honest workingman is worth all the kings in the world. You know that, Tess! At least you used to know it. I told you. And just because your Uncle Pete was washed up on the Sunshine Islands, and was able to stop the Sunshine king's toothache the king adopted him and left him the islands. As if any one had the right to will human beings to any man! The natives were fools to accept him. You know they were! And as for your Uncle Pete, you'll be wise if you don't inquire about his life on the islands. Filthy brute!" Joe quite forgot himself as he talked about kings and queens.
"Why, Joe Cary!" Tessie could scarcely speak. But she could look, and her eyes flashed fire at the man who dared to stand before her and call her royal uncle names. What would Granny say? She was glad that Granny hadn't heard him.
"Look here, Cary, you can't slander the dead!" exclaimed Mr. Bill indignantly. "And keep your mouth shut about things you don't know," he advised curtly.
"Know!" Joe repeated the word scornfully. "I bet I know more about the Sunshine Islands than the Queen there!" He nodded at big-eyed Tessie. "I've made it my business to know. Every one else has been so wrapped up in the fact that Tess was a Queen that they haven't cared if her kingdom was only half a dozen little islands inhabited by cannibals."
"They're not cannibals now!" declared Tessie.
"They were! Your Uncle Pete was almost eaten by them!"
"They've been civilized and Christianized!" insisted Tessie. "Uncle Bill built a church. It has a corrugated tin roof, and when the sun shines on it the natives think it's silver. The Home of the Silver God, they call it. Ka-kee-ta told me!" She flashed an indignant glance at the scoffer.
"That shows how civilized and Christianized they are," laughed Joe. He was determined to express his thoughts for at least once. "Your Uncle Pete built a motion picture theater, too, Tess, and it saved him from a revolution. But once a cannibal always a cannibal. It's in their blood, and it will take more than one generation to get it out. I wish you'd give up the job. You don't want those islands. You can't live on them! Give them up!"
"Give them up!" Tessie could not believe her own pink ears.