THE PRINCE HAS THE MUMPS
YOUNG Prince Ernest was ill. He had, in fact, the mumps. “Beastly nuisance,” he remarked to his valet. He wanted very much indeed to say “damned inconvenience”; and, considering the circumstances, even this would not have been putting the case too strongly; but he did not say “damned inconvenience,” because a prince must not set a bad example; and, mumps or no mumps, Ernest Cosmo Adelbert Oscar James never forgot that he was a prince.
“Every inch a prince,” said the newspapers of his native land in referring to him, which they did in every edition from the first, or bulldog, to the last, or five-star extra-special sporting final.
That made sixty-six inches of prince, for Ernest was a rather pretty boy of medium stature, with a pink, almost waxen complexion, blond hair impeccably parted, and a brow as unruffled as a pan of skimmed milk. At the moment the symmetry of his features was somewhat marred by the presence of two mature mumps; and, noting this in the gold-rimmed mirror near his bed, Prince Ernest gently groaned.
Physiognomists might have argued from the serenity of his brow that the prince was not a thinker; but they would have been in error, for in his twenty-three years he had, not infrequently, thought. Happily his thoughts had not been disturbing ones. It had taken no soul-struggle to make him entirely content with his princely lot. Having been born a prince, nursed as a prince, breeched as a prince, taught as a prince, at twenty-three and a few days it seemed completely natural to Ernest to be a prince. It was quite impossible for him to imagine himself anything else.
Sometimes he thought: “Of course, I don’t say I have a divine right to be a prince; nowadays that isn’t considered in good taste. But, since I’m being perfectly frank with myself, I must admit that there is something—well, if not exactly sacred, at least sacerdotal about royalty. Being a prince isn’t at all like filling a place in the cabinet or the civil service or the army, where almost any sort of fellow can get ahead if he has enough push. A prince has no use for push; he’s a prince, and that’s all there is to it.”
And at other times he thought: “It’s the fashion in these times to pretend that a prince is just like any other man in the country, and not a bit better. That’s rot, of course, and no one knows it better than the people. If I am like all the rest of them, why do they stand in the rain for hours to see me whisk by in a limousine? Why do they crowd into some stuffy hall to hear me tell them I am glad to be there, gazing into their open, manly countenances?”
Or, on other occasions, he thought: “To hear some of these radical chaps talk one would think any fellow could be a prince. Really, you know, that’s nothing more than twaddle. If they tried it they’d soon find that it takes generations of royal blood behind one to give one that—well, that authority, that—so to speak—presence. I’d just like to see one of those long-haired johnnies try to lay a corner stone—with the proper dignity, I mean. Why, the people would laugh at him! They never laugh at me.”
By nature a modest and candid young man, Prince Ernest had but one vanity. He was proud of the appearance he made at public functions. He loved to lay corner stones, to unveil monuments, to visit hospitals, to address meetings. On these occasions he invariably made a neat speech, and he had never, he was glad to say, in any of his speeches given offense to anybody. He accepted, with becoming graciousness, the tributes paid him by the crowds. It pleased him exceedingly to hear his subjects punctuate his speeches with their uncouth but sincere evidences of approbation. Often he read about it afterward in the press, and secretly glowed.
“Prince Ernest”—the front page of the Morning Stiletto is speaking—“was greeted with vociferous enthusiasm when he laid the corner stone of the new polo field being built by the Coal Mine Workers’ Union for the use of its members. The prince shook hands with a number of the men and made one of his felicitous and witty speeches. In part His Highness said: