“My dear Sir John,” the philosopher began, “our arrival has been the most happily-timed thing imaginable! All Leaphigh, by this time, is filled with the subject; and you can scarcely conceive the importance that is attached to the event. New sources of trade, scientific discoveries, phenomena both moral and physical, and results that it is thought may serve to raise the monikin civilization still higher than ever! Fortunately, the academy holds its most solemn meeting of the year this very day, and I have been formally requested to give the assembly an outline of those events which have lately passed before my eyes. The king’s eldest first cousin of the masculine gender is to attend openly; and it is even conjectured, in a way to be quite authentic, that the king himself will be present in his own royal person.”
“How!” I exclaimed, “have you a mode, in Leaphigh, of rendering conjectures certain?”
“Beyond a doubt, sir, or what would our civilization be worth? As to the king’s majesty, we always deal in the most direct ambiguities. Now as respects many of our ceremonies, the sovereign is known morally to be present, when he may be actually and physically eating his dinner at the other extremity of the island; this important illustration of the royal ubiquity is effected by means of a legal fiction. On the other hand, the king often indulges his natural propensities, such as curiosity, love of fun, or detestation of ennui, by coming in person, when, by the court fiction, he is thought to be seated on his throne, in his own royal palace. Oh! as to all these little accomplishments and graces in the art of truths, we are behind no people in the universe!”
“I beg pardon, Doctor—so his majesty is expected to be at the academy this morning?”
“In a private box. Now this affair is of the last importance to me as a savant, to you as a human being—for it will have a tendency to raise your whole species in the monikin estimation—and, lastly, to learning. It will be indispensably necessary that you should attend, with as many of your companions as possible, more especially the better specimens. I was coming down to the landing in the hope of meeting you; and a messenger has gone off to the ship to require that the people be sent ashore forthwith. You will have a tribune to yourselves; and, really, I do not like to express beforehand what I think concerning the degree of attention you will all receive; but this much I think I can say—you will see.”
“This proposition, Doctor, has taken me a little by surprise, and I hardly know what answer to give.”
“You cannot say no, Sir John; for should his majesty hear that you have refused to come to a meeting at which he is to be present, it would seriously, and, I might add, justly offend him, nor could I answer for the consequences.”
“Why, I was told that all the power was in the hands of his majesty’s eldest first cousin of the masculine gender; in which case I thought I might snap my fingers at his majesty himself.”
“Not in opinion, Sir John, which is one of the three estates of the government. Ours is a government of three estates—viz., the law, opinion, and practice. By law the king rules, by practice his cousin rules, and by opinion the king again rules. Thus, is the strong point of practice balanced by law and opinion. This it is that constitutes the harmony and perfection of the system. No, it would never do to offend his majesty.”
Although I did not very well comprehend the Doctor’s argument, yet, as I had often found in human society, theories political, moral, theological, and philosophical, that everybody had faith in, and which nobody understood, I thought discussion useless, and gave up the point by promising the Doctor to be at the academy in half an hour, which was the time named for our appearance. Taking the necessary directions to find the place, we separated; he to hasten to make his preparations, and I to reach the tavern, in order to deposit our baggage, that no decency might be overlooked on an occasion so solemn.