“We must do our utmost,” Malone said. “Sir Thomas—”
“Yes, Sir Kenneth?” Boyd said.
“This task requires our most fervent dedication,” Malone said. “Please come with me.”
He went to the desk. Boyd followed him, walking straight-backed and tall. Malone bent and removed from a drawer of the desk a bottle of bourbon. He closed the drawer, poured some bourbon into two handy water-glasses from the desk, and capped the bottle. He handed one of the water-glasses to Boyd, and raised the other one aloft.
“Sir Thomas,” Malone said, “I give you Her Majesty, the Queen!”
“To the Queen!” Boyd echoed.
They downed their drinks and turned, as one man, to hurl the glasses into the wastebasket.
In thinking it over later, Malone realized that he hadn’t considered anything about that moment silly at all. Of course, an outsider might have been slightly surprised at the sequence of events, but Malone was no outsider. And, after all, it was the proper way to treat a Queen, wasn’t it?
And....
When Malone had first met Her Majesty, he had wondered why, although she could obviously read minds, and so knew perfectly well that neither Malone nor Boyd believed she was Queen Elizabeth I, she insisted on an outward show of respect and dedication. He’d asked her about it at last, and her reply had been simple, reasonable and to the point.