Light interviews with shades

by Robert Webster Jones

“‘Who do you want to see?’ he inquired gruffly.

“‘Whom do I want to see?’ I said, ‘Why—’

“‘No, who, not whom,’ he returned. ‘Anybody who uses good grammar is bourgeois and an enemy of the Commune. Down with fool laws and rules. This is the land where all speak and do as they choose.’

“‘But you’re not letting me speak as I choose,’ I retorted. ‘How’s that for consistency?’ He said anyone who was a Bolshevik, whatever that was, didn’t have to be consistent. Consistency was a jewel. Jewelry was wealth. The Bolsheviki were opposed to wealth and private property in any form. I was about to force my way past this lunatic when a number of other rough-looking persons, armed with guns and bayonets, rushed out of the palace and surrounded me.

“‘I want to see the king!’ I exclaimed. And immediately by their faces, or as much of them as I could see peeping out from beneath the whiskers—I saw that something was wrong.

“‘He wants to see the Czar,’ they shouted, and then laughed in a way that made my blood run cold. ‘There are no more kings. They’ve been abolished.’ And one huge fellow, drawing a long knife out of his belt, shook it menacingly under my nose and began to cross-examine me. It took me about one-fifth of a second to make up my mind to be about the most enthusiastic revolutionist and all-around king hater that ever was born. ‘What did you want to see the Czar for, eh?” he asked. ‘I want to kill him,’ I replied. And a chorus of cheers rent the air. But it was an exceedingly narrow escape. I learned later that the Czar was no more, that the country was being ruled by a little band of lunatics calling themselves Bolsheviki, and that it was a crime even to utter the word king unless a strong adjective was put before it.

“I couldn’t understand it at the time, but I didn’t wait to investigate. I decided to get back to civilization by the shortest route, and so I projected my astral body over to Poland. To save time, I’ll just say that Poland was as benighted as Russia. No king. Then I hopped over to Jugo-Slovakia, I believe you call it. Same thing there. On I sped over the kingless countries of the Balkans and up to Budapest. A big sign on the front door of the palace: ‘Beggars, Peddlers and Kings Not Admitted to This Building.’ I moved on. I went hopefully to Vienna. Picking up a newspaper, I read these headlines: ‘Open Season for Aristocrats Begins. In First Day’s Shooting Twenty-nine Counts and Forty-three Barons Bagged. Slaying Parties Now Favorite Winter Sport. Special Prize Offered by Government to First Person to Kill King.’ Two minutes later I was on my aerial way to Berlin. Here, at least, I was sure I should find royal autocracy firmly entrenched. But as I went up the palace walk one glance told me that Germany, too, had cast off her royal rulers. Sitting on the front steps in his shirtsleeves, smoking a corncob pipe, was a slouchy, unshaven citizen whom I mistook for the janitor. In the old days you know no such uncouth specimen of humanity would have been permitted within half a mile of the palace. And who do you think he turned out to be? The President of the German Republic. A harness-maker, or cobbler, or something of the sort. I learned that, as in Russia, the very name of king was tabooed. Just a day or two before a prominent author had been executed for absent-mindedly remarking that he was fond of collecting his royalties. In a German deck of cards instead of having a king they have two knaves. So I lit out for France. Here I found they hadn’t had a king for many years. I inquired anxiously about my old kingdom, England. ‘Oh, they have something over there they call a king,’ I was told. ‘You might cross the Channel and have a chat with him. It would cheer him up.’

“I decided to act on the hint. I didn’t see many changes in London. I thought I recognized some familiar faces among the cab horses. I got an audience with King George by pretending to be the business agent of the Pavers’ and Rammers’ Union. Labor is all-powerful in England today (where is it not?) and George sent word to walk right in the minute he got my card. He was wearing that morning the fool dress uniform of an Honorary Vice-President in the Royal Hibernian Highlanders, Ltd. As soon as we were alone in his private office and I disclosed my identity, he fell on my neck and wept, and called me Uncle Alf. It was very affecting. ‘You’re the only king left that I can talk confidentially to,’ he said, ‘and you’re not really alive. It used to be that almost every country in Europe had its king and royal family. Everybody with a drop of royal blood in his veins was on the public payroll. It kept me busy exchanging birthday greetings with my fellow monarchs. I got a stack of letters from them every day. Today the annual convention of the European Kings’ Mutual Benefit Association could hold its meetings in a telephone booth. Where have they all gone? Some are dead and others wish they were.

“‘There’s not much to choose between the mighty dead and the mighty near dead,’ King George continued. ‘Cousin Mohammed, the last I heard of him, was running an elevator in a Swiss hotel. Cousin Ferdinand was an old clothes man in Naples. Cousin Ludwig had got a job as janitor of an apartment house—determined to be an autocrat to the end. Cousin Wilhelm was engaged in writing his auto-obituary and reading a book on ‘St. Helena As a Health Resort.’ Cousin Charles got upset and left for good. All the retired kings I know are retiring indeed. About the quickest way to unpopularity these days is to proclaim the divine right of kings. Even my oldest boy feels it, poor Wails. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ The man who wrote that knew what he was talking about. It makes the poorest nightcap on record. I’ll s’y.