Nobly the press performed its task of giving to every factor in the situation its due prominence; even the Church got its share; and when favorable bulletins became the order of the day, their origin was generously ascribed, even by the ministerial press, almost as much to the prayers of the people publicly offered as to the skill of the six best medical authorities. But when all was said and done it was to the King's marvelous constitution, his patient courage, and his quiet submission to the hands of his nurses (foremost of whom was her Majesty the Queen), that the praise was chiefly due; for it was necessary, in order to complete the situation, that the loyalty so nobly tendered should be nobly earned.
And nobly tendered it certainly was. Never could the nation have had so good an opinion of itself as during those dark weeks when, taught by its press the meanings of the various symptoms, it sat by the King's bed feeling his pulse, holding his breath, and scarcely daring to raise any voice above a whisper. Various sections of the public were informed in their daily journals how they and other sections were behaving themselves; how business men went to office almost apologetically, and only because they could not help themselves; how nursemaids hushed the voices of their charges as they wheeled them past the precincts of the palace for their morning's airing in the royal park; and how Jingalo only consented to its accustomed portion of beer in order that it might drink to the King's health and his quick recovery.
Every week in the streets at the back of the palace fresh straw was laid down, not so much for the benefit of the sufferer (whose room was too far away for any sound of traffic to disturb him), but as a stimulus to popular imagination. The men who laid it down performed their task as though the eye of the whole nation were upon them; and even upon the Stock Exchange one learned that the rise and fall of prices were but the harmonious accompaniment of a stupendous national anxiety.
All these things Jingalo was told by its newspapers, and some of them were true; and in the reading and the doing of them how Jingalo enjoyed itself! It had never had such a time of feeling good, unselfish, and thoughtful on a large and homogeneous scale, without having to do anything particularly unpleasant in return. The theaters suffered, but not nearly so much as the charities; for though Jingalo was still able decorously to amuse itself—and did so at her Majesty's special request, for the sake of trade—it could not have its heart successfully wrung by human compassion in more than one direction at a time—at least, not to the same extent. And so, charitable appeals had to wait till a livelier sense of gratitude prompted by the King's recovery should revive them.
In the conduct of human affairs association plays a very curious part. When a man is shouting for joy he can scatter largesse with a free hand, but he cannot loosen his purse-strings while he is holding his breath; and even when it is only being held for him by a sort of hypnotic suggestion, his nature is still undergoing a certain impedimental strain.
And as a visible embodiment to all this strain of calculation and suspense, small crowds could be seen standing constantly at the gates of the palace, waiting for bulletins and watching with a curious fascination the flag that so obstinately continued to float mast high. They watched it as a crowd watches for a similar sign outside the walls of a jail: not that they wanted it to fall—but still, if it had to, they dearly wished that they might be there to see. Thus, even in their griefs, did the sporting instincts of the Jingalese people rise to the surface and bring them a consolation which nothing else could afford.
My readers will give me credit, I trust, for not having sought to impose on them that fear of impending doom, that apprehension of what the next hour might bring forth, on the strength of which the Jingalese press so sedulously ran its extra editions from day to day. I have never for a moment pretended that the King was going to die, seeing, on the contrary, that he was destined to make a complete recovery. But he was not to be quite the same man again—not at least that man whom we have seen in these pages bumping his way conscientiously through a period of constitutional crisis. For when the six Jingalese medicos came to put their heads together over him, they found in the back of his head a small dislodgment of bone, rather less than the size of a florin, and protruding almost an eighth of an inch from the surface of the skull. Great was their speculation as to how such a thing could have come about without their knowing it—for here, of course, was the root of the whole mischief. This fracture, brought about perhaps by some flying fragment of bomb, unnoticed in the excitement of the moment and afterwards ignored, had evidently been the cause of the brain-fever; and when a cause of this sort is discovered nothing is easier for medical science than to put it right again.
And so, seeing that the bone was out of place, they put it back just where it ought to be, that is to say, where it had been. And as soon as that was done, and the right pressure once more restored to the King's brain, then his temperature went down, his delirium abated, and his mind, as it gradually came back to him, recovered the dull, safe, and retiring qualities which had belonged to it a year ago; and with its old constitutional balance restored to it, it became once more contented with its limitations and surroundings, and made a very quiet, happy, and peaceful convalescence. And though on his recovery the King still remembered the events of the past months they appeared to him rather in the light of a bad dream than as a slice of real life.
The Prime Minister came to see him on the very first day when he was allowed to sit up and receive visitors, and they met without any sign of constraint or enmity.
"Well, Mr. Prime Minister, how are things going?" inquired the King.