“And jolly good reason,” said the prince, “for they’d see the strings Duffus is pulling to make the thing salute.”
The brow of the prince was no longer bland, no longer was it free from lines of disillusionment. He was thinking of what he had seen.
His voice was tragic, as he said, “So this is what it means to be a prince! A dummy serves just as well! A dummy; the sort of thing they have in cheap ready-made clothing stores—Very Nobby! Newest and Niftiest Cut! Take Me Home for Fourteen Goobecs. What a blind ass I’ve been! But it’s not too late. I’m not going to go on with this miserable sham. I’m not going to be a stuffed uniform any longer. If a dummy can be a prince I don’t want to be. Let them have a dummy in my place. I’m going to be a man.”
He addressed these words to the emptiness of the royal chamber, and his tone was steeped in the vinegar of bitter realization. Prince Ernest was working himself up to quite a pinch of resolution, when the chamber door opened and in came the king. Behind him wabbled the vast bulk and incandescent nose of the Emperor of Zabonia.
“His Zabonian Serenity,” explained the king, “insisted on coming to see you. His Serenity understands, of course, why political expediency made it necessary for you to be represented before the people by a—er—substitute. Don’t you, Your Zabonian Serenity?”
“Zshur,” rumbled the royal visitor; his voice was thick as if his words came through a blanket. “I didn’t know,” he added, “it wasn’t the prince until the king told me.”
Emotions were bubbling and sputtering inside the bosom of Prince Ernest.
“I’m ashamed,” said the prince, “to deceive my people like that.”
His Zabonian Serenity, who had taken a chair, arranged two or three of his chins and part of his expanse of jowl into a grin.
“Ernie,” cautioned the king, “no nonsense now!”