And straight down the great central aisle we went and stood at last before the queen herself.
And what were the thoughts of the queen as she saw before her two men from another world?
Chapter 41
A HUMAN RAPTOR
There is nothing, as we then saw, servile, debasing in Droman court ceremonial. The meanest Droman, indeed, would never dream of kneeling before his queen. A Droman kneels to no man or woman, but to the Deity only.
The sovereign does not owe her queendom to birth, but to merit, or to that which the Dromans deem as such. She is chosen, and she is chosen queen for life, though, if she prove herself unfit for the throne, the Dromans may remove her. I say she, and I mean she. The Salic law excluded a woman from the throne of France; the Salic law of Drome excludes a man; or, as the Dromans are wont to put it. "No man may be queen." A proposition that even the most Socratical Droman philosopher, and Drome has had many a one, has never been known to dispute!
As to the choosing of the Droman sovereign, I should perhaps explain that every one does not have a voice in this. Beggars, prodigals, sociophagites, dunces, nincompoops, fuddle-caps, half-wits, no-wit-at-alls, sharpers, crooks, bunko-men, bandits, thieves, robbers, highwaymen, burglars, crack-pots, fools, madmen and murderers, and some others, are all (I know that this is perfectly incredible and awful, but I solemnly assure you that it is a fact) interdicted the ballot.