“That,” said the king, “is part of the work, a mighty important part, too. If you are to have schools, hospitals and all that, you must have money to support ’em. And rocks, big round silver washers I mean, comes from what you sell. But first of all,” he grinned a good-natured grin, “you’ve gotta sort of knock their thick heads together an’ git ’em to be good. And that’s no job fer a Y. M. C. A. secretary.”
“I’m a Marine, and Marines, so they say, are hard-boiled—tough as old sole leather baked in the sun. They put me here with twelve rough and readys and said, ‘Make ’em be good’. That was my job. I’d of liked somethin’ else but Marines have to take what they get—and be happy.
“Right off I discovered that there was two of these Christophes wantin’ to wear this brass ring on his old bean and neither one succeedin’ more than a day at a time.
“What did I do? What would you have done?” He turned to Johnny.
“Why I,—er,—”
“You’d a done what I done,” replied the king with a hoarse laugh. “You’d a said, ‘Here, gimme the thing. I’ll wear it.’ That’s what I done and it worked; worked mighty well.
“I’ve no great amount of education. Don’t take a college professor to see that. But I believe in it—education I mean. If I can get enough high hatters to teach ’em and enough money I’ll have the best educated little kingdom this side of the Golden Gates. We’ve no school at all yet. We’ll have one though. You’ll see.
“If this crown was set with diamonds,” he said, thumbing the spots where diamonds might once have been, “I’d take them out and sell them for money to buy a school house. For a school house is more important than diamonds or Persian rugs or anything like that.”
“I know where there is one diamond,” said Doris impulsively.
“So do I, several of them,” smiled the king. “Trouble is, folks won’t sell their diamonds to help me build my school.”