"You've heard the news, Pally—you've heard the news?" he said.
The Editor's name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, which was an abbreviation of Paladium of our Liberties.
"Well, your Majesty," said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried, gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard)—"well, your Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I—"
"You'll hear more of them," said the King, dancing a few steps of a kind of negro shuffle. "You'll hear more of them, my blood-and-thunder tribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?"
"No, your Majesty," replied the Paladium, vaguely.
"I'm going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines," said the King. "Now, where are your posters of last night's defeat?"
"I did not propose, your Majesty," said the Editor, "to have any posters exactly—"
"Paper, paper!" cried the King, wildly; "bring me paper as big as a house. I'll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off." He began removing that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully at Mr. Hoskins' head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself in the glass. "The coat off," he said, "and the hat on. That looks like a sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. Well," he continued, turning round abruptly, "come along with that paper."
The Paladium had only just extricated himself reverently from the folds of the King's frock-coat, and said bewildered—
"I am afraid, your Majesty—"