The wine, or rather spirit, was produced from a bottle in the corner, and poured out into a great bowl, from which each drank in turn, pledging the sleeper in their midst. Then with a shout of "The King! The King!" and with revolvers pointing carelessly aloft and an Alsandrian banner borne by Peronella in the van, the little party streamed out into the alley, and hardly were they in the street when their shout seemed to re-echo all round them and a tremendous cry rose up, thunderous, to heaven, "The King! The King!"
[CHAPTER XVII]
BATTLE
When you paint a battle-scene let every inch of the foreground be dabbled with blood.
Leonardo da Vinci.
On this very day the King was inspecting the throne-room in the company of Dr Sforelli, who was a person endowed, like most of his race, with a sound artistic instinct. They were gazing on the broken plaster cupids, the faded chinoiseries and singeries, and the immortal lion throne of the Kradenda.
"You must have this renewed," observed Sforelli, stroking his swarthy beard. "It will make a splendid and royal hall."
"Some day," said the King. "Not while there remains a road unpaved or a street lamp unlit in the city of Alsander. Not till my harbour is deep enough for all the navies of the world. And then it shall not be renewed, it shall be cleaned of all the plaster and paint, and left to stand with the ornament of its proportion and no other, save the lion chair of the first Kradenda."
"It rings false, sir. You think you will attain the high ideal of artistic restraint by taking away all the art like your Galsworthy. These little monkeys running up the vine leaves are so well done that I doubt if you would find out of France a painter fit to repair them. Those engaging Chinamen have an idiotic expression which fills the heart with delight. If you do not want them here, where I admit they are out of keeping, you must not destroy them but have them transferred to form a lady's bower, for which some day there will be room in the palace. And when your Majesty has stripped the walls of these pretty things it would be, not merely inaesthetic, but mean-spirited, unroyal, to leave the vast walls white. The great Kradenda would not have left them white, he who himself, the story tells, planned the rose pattern mosaic beneath the cathedral dome. If you say these Chinamen, these monkeys, are vilely out of place, you must find a design that will be in place and keeping."
"Allegorical figures," said the King, sardonically. "Justice with her eyes bandaged, Plenty with a cornucopia, War scowling, Peace smiling, Charity giving away a loaf of bread, Labour with a very red body and big calf muscles smiting at a forge, Commerce watching her ships, Wool Industry watching her sheep, and similar genial devices, such as I believe you see in the offices of banks."