For instance, when Greece, not long ago, revived an ancient and picturesque tradition and decided to restore the Olympic Games and when it became evident that these would draw large numbers of foreigners to Athens, the pickpockets held a meeting and pledged themselves one and all to suspend hostilities as long as the games lasted, in order to guard the reputation of the country. They even took care to inform the public of the resolution which they had passed; and they did more; they kept their word, with this unprecedented result, that the police had a holiday, thanks to the strike of the thieves!
Last year, Mme. Jacquemaire, a daughter of M. Clémenceau, then prime minister of France, made a journey to Greece. Returning by rail from Athens to the Piræus, where she was to take ship for Trieste, she missed her travelling-bag, containing her jewels. This valuable piece of luggage had evidently been stolen; and she lost no time in lodging a complaint with the harbour-police, although she was convinced of the uselessness of the step. The quest instituted was, in fact, vain. But meanwhile the press had seized upon the incident and stirred up public opinion, which was at that time persuaded that M. Clémenceau, whose Philhellenic leanings are notorious, had promised the Greek government his support in its efforts to obtain the annexation of Crete. The daughter of the man upon whom the Greeks based such hopes as these must not, people said, be allowed to take an unfavourable impression of Greek hospitality away with her. The newspapers published strongly-worded articles entreating the unknown thief, if he was a Greek, to give up the profit of his larceny and to perform a noble and unselfish act; placards posted on the walls of Athens and the Piræus made vehement appeals to his patriotism. Twenty-four hours later, the police received the bag and its contents untouched; and they were restored to Mme. Jacquemaire on her arrival at Trieste.
2.
The pilot's trade is a hard one when you have to steer through continual rocks, to keep a constant eye upon a turbulent crew and to look out for the "squalls" which are perpetually beating down from the always stormy horizon in the East. It is easily understood that King George should feel a longing, when events permit, to go to other climes in search of a short diversion from his absorbing responsibilities.
"You see," said King Leopold of the Belgians to me one day, "our real rest lies in forgetting who we are."
And yet it cannot be said the distractions and the rest which King George knew that he would find among us were the only object of the journeys across Europe which he made every year until the year before last. He always carried a diplomatist's dispatch-box among his luggage; he is one of those who believe that a sovereign can travel for his country while travelling for pleasure.
"I am my own ambassador," he often said to me.
The King used to come to us generally at the beginning of the autumn, on his way to and from Copenhagen, where he never omitted to visit his father, King Christian, and his sisters, Queen Alexandra and the Empress Marie Feodorovna. He delighted in this annual gathering, which collected round the venerable grandsire under the tall trees of Fredensborg, the largest and most illustrious family that the world contains, a family over which the old king's ascendency and authority remained so great that his children, were they emperors or kings, dared not go into Copenhagen without first asking his leave.
"When I am down there, I feel as if I were still a little boy," King George used to say, laughing.
In France, he was a young man. He divided his stay between Aix-les-Bains and Paris; and in Paris, as at Aix, he had but one thought in his head: to avoid all official pomp and ceremony. He would have been greatly distressed if he had been treated too obviously as a sovereign; and, when he accepted the inevitable official dinner to which the President of the Republic always invited him, he positively refused the royal salute. When at Aix, he used to yield to the necessity of attending the festivities which the authorities of that charming watering-place, where he was very popular, arranged in his honour; but only because he did not wish to wound anyone's feelings, however slightly. And, when invited to go to some display of fireworks: