"You're not king," he said.
"No, but I shall be some day, and till I am, my father will let me have anything I like, so long as it's wise and good. It's quite right for you and your father to stay here, for it's doing you both good, and us too. Father said only the other night that it was a grand thing for the country to have wise Englishmen here to instruct us in everything."
"Do you think so, Phra?"
"Of course I do. Why, look at last year, when that dreadful plague came and the people were dying so fast till Doctor Cameron made them keep the sick people to themselves, and had their clothes and things burnt. Father always says he stopped it from going any further. It's so with everything, if people would only learn."
"But they don't like us," said Harry.
"The sensible ones do. It's only the silly, obstinate, old-fashioned folk who like to go on always in the same way, and who think that they know everything and that there's nothing more to be learnt. Here's something you never heard. Some of the other king's people put it about last year that father was making poisons in his room so as to kill the people."
"Oh yes, I know it," said Harry bitterly.
"And they say the bad diseases come in the cases father has from England. I daresay they'll think that there's another plague come in our case with the cricket bats and balls."
"They do say so," said Harry.
"How do you know?" cried Phra sharply.