The Monikins

by James Fenimore Cooper

“You were about to remark?—” most graciously inquired his majesty, a little at a loss to understand what his visitor would be at.

“Why, I could not contain my astonishment at your memory, Mr. King, which has enabled you to recall a name that you probably never before heard!”

There was now a great, and to me, a very unaccountable confusion in the circle. It would seem, that the captain had unwittingly trespassed on two of the most important of the rules of etiquette, in very mortal points. He had confessed to the admission of an emotion as vulgar as that of astonishment in the royal presence, and he had intimated that his majesty had a memory; a property of the mind which, as it might prove dangerous to the liberties of Leaphigh, were it left in the keeping of any but a responsible minister, it had long been decided it was felony to impute to the king. By the fundamental law of the land, the king’s eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender, may have as many memories as he please, and he may use them, or abuse them, as he shall see fit, either in private or in the public service; but it is held to be utterly unconstitutional and unparliamentary, and, by consequence, extremely underbred, to insinuate, even in the most remote manner, that the king himself has either a memory, a will, a determination, a resolution, a desire, a conceit, an intention, or, in short, any other intellectual property, that of a “royal pleasure” alone excepted. It is both constitutional and parliamentary to say the king has a “royal pleasure” provided the context goes to prove that this “royal pleasure” is entirely at the disposition of his eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender.

When Mr. Poke was made acquainted with his mistake, he discovered a proper contrition; and the final decision of the affair was postponed, in order to have the opinion of the judges on the propriety of taking bail, which I promptly offered to put in, in behalf of my old shipmate. This disagreeable little interruption temporarily disposed of, the business of the drawing-room went on.

Noah was next conducted to the queen, who was much inclined (always by deputy) to overlook the little mistake into which he had fallen with her royal consort, and to receive him graciously.

“May it please your majesty, I have the honor to present to your majesty’s royal notice the Lord Noah Poke, the lord high admiral of a distant and but little known country, called Great Britain,” said the gold stick of the evening—Judge People’s Friend being afraid of committing Leaplow, and declining to introduce the captain to any one else.

“Lord Poke is a countryman of our royal cousin, the Prince Bob!” observed the queen, in an exceedingly gracious manner.

“No, marm,” put in the sealer, promptly, “your cousin Bob is no cousin of mine; and if it were lawful for your majesty to have a memory, or an inclination, or anything else in that way, I should beg the favor of you to order the young blackguard to be soundly threshed.”

The majesty of Leaphigh stood aghast, by proxy! It would seem Noah had now actually fallen into a more serious error than the mistake he had made with the king. By the law of Leaphigh, the queen is not a feme couverte. She can sue and be sued in her own name, holds her separate estate, without the intervention of trustees, and IS supposed to have a memory, a will, an inclination, or anything else in that way, except a “royal pleasure,” to which she cannot, of right, lay claim. As to her, the king’s first-cousin is a dead letter; he having no more control over her conscience than he has over the conscience of an apple-woman. In short, her majesty is quite as much the mistress of her own convictions and conscience as it probably ever falls to the lot of women in such high stations to be the mistress of interests that are of so much importance to those around them. Noah, innocently enough, I do firmly believe, had seriously wounded all those nice sensibilities which are naturally dependent on such an improved condition of society. Forbearance could go no further, and I saw, by the dark looks around me, that the captain had committed a serious crime. He was immediately arrested, and conducted from the presence to an adjoining room, into which I obtained admission, after a good deal of solicitation and some very strong appeals to the sacred character of the rights of hospitality.

It now appeared that, in Leaphigh, the merits of a law are decided on a principle very similar to the one we employ in England in judging of the quality of our wines, viz., its age. The older a law, the more it is to be respected, no doubt because, having proved its fitness by outlasting all the changes of society, it has become more mellow, if not more palatable. Now, by a law of Leaphigh that is coeval with the monarchy, he who offends the queen’s majesty at a levee is to lose his head; and he who, under the same circumstances, offends the king’s majesty, necessarily the more heinous offence, is to lose his tail. In consequence of the former punishment, the criminal is invariably buried, and he is consigned to the usual course of monikin regeneration and resuscitation; but in consequence of the latter, it is thought that he is completely thrown without the pale of reason, and is thereby consigned to the class of the retrogressive animals. His mind diminishes, and his body increases; the brain, for want of the means of development, takes the ascending movement of sap again; his forehead dilates; bumps reappear; and, finally, after passing gradually downwards in the scale of intellect, he becomes a mass of insensible matter. Such, at least, is the theory of his punishment.