“How do I regard it?” I bowed low:
“I am glad to be of service to Your Majesty.”
“Well, yes, that’s what they all say. But will you give me any money? Continue, Marquis.”
The Marquis, smiling gently at me and Magnus (despite his obesity he looked quite hungry) continued to weave his thin flimsy web about the misunderstanding, until the bored king again interrupted him:
“You understand: these fools thought that I was responsible for all their misfortunes. Wasn’t that silly, Mr. Wondergood? And now they are worse off than ever and they write: ‘Come back, for God’s sake. We are perishing!’ Read the letters, Marquis.”
At first the king spoke with a trace of excitement but apparently any effort soon wearied him. The Marquis obediently took a packet of papers from the portfolio and tortured us with the complaints of the orphaned subjects, begging their lord to return. I looked at the king: he was no less bored than we were. It was so clear to him that the people could not exist without him that all confirmations of this seemed superfluous.... And I felt so strange: whence does this miserable man get so much happy confidence? There was no doubt that this bird, unable to find a crumb for himself, sincerely believed in the peculiar qualities of his personage, capable of bestowing upon a whole people marvelous benefactions. Stupidity? Training? Habit? At that moment the marquis was reading the plea of some correspondent, in which, through the web of official mediocrity and the lies of swollen phrases, gleamed the very same confidence and sincere call. Was that, too, stupidity and habit?
“And so forth, and so forth,” interrupted the king listlessly: “that will do, Marquis, you may close your portfolio. Well, what you think of it, dear Mr. Wondergood?”
“I will be bold enough to say to Your Majesty that I am a representative of an old, democratic republic and....”
“Stop, Wondergood! Republic, democracy! That’s nonsense. You know well enough yourself that a king is a necessity. You, in America, will have a king, too, some day. How can you get along without a king: who will be responsible for them before God? No, that’s foolish.”
This creature was actually getting ready to answer for the people before God! And he continued with the same calm audacity: