The door was opened by a verger and the journalists entered the Abbey and were led up some very narrow and dark and damp stone stairs until at last they emerged on to a rude platform of planks high up in the roof. At one end of the platform a pole had been placed breast-high between two pillars, and against this the journalists were invited to lean. Far below, the ceremony was to take place. John felt giddy as he looked down on the floor of the Cathedral.
"We shan't be able to see anything up here," he said to the Funeral Expert.
"What do you want to see?" was the reply he received. "You've got a programme of the ceremony, haven't you, and an imagination. That's all you need. I suppose you've never done a job of this sort before?"
"No. I'm a beginner!"
"Well, write a lot of slushy staff about the sun shining through the rose-coloured window just as the King entered the Abbey. That always goes down well. There are three psalms to be sung during the service. If you quote the first one, I'll quote the second, and then we shan't clash. Is that agreed?"
"All right!"
Half the journalists retreated from the pole-barrier and sat on a pile of planks at the back of the platform. Like John, they suffered from giddiness. They had their writing-pads open, however, and were busily engaged in inventing accounts of the ceremonial that was presently to be performed. John glanced over a man's shoulder and caught sight of the words, "As His Majesty entered the ancient abbey, a burst of sunlight fell through the old rose window and cast a glorious crimson light on his beautiful regalia!...."
"Lord!" said John, moving away.
He went to the end of the platform, and then, moved by some feeling which he could not explain, descended the dark, stone stairs which he had lately mounted. He could hear the music of the organ, and presently the choir began to sing an anthem.
"I suppose it's beginning," he thought.