Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/589

Rh cious fashion. "You have come not a moment too soon, I assure you; it was only this morning that I noticed one-sixteenth of an inch of dust upon several of the state bedroom windows. You had better begin at once."

The Count, with a smile at what he considered to be his Majesty's pleasantry, bowed low, and in a neat speech (talking Regalian with an agreeable English accent) asked his Majesty's permission to hand him the duster instead. But imagine the unfortunate young nobleman's feelings when his Majesty peremptorily refused to accept it!

"Is this the way you would do me service?" he asked. "Handing me a duster in return for all the privileges your family have enjoyed for centuries—and especially with the windows in their present state!"

"Does your Majesty, then, require me, Count Seraphin Zonnbiem, to clean a pane of glass with a silk handkerchief?" exclaimed the Count.

"I expect you to clean thoroughly every pane in the palace that requires it."

"But, your Majesty, that has never been the custom. The office has been merely honorary for centuries."

"When your ancestors first undertook this duty, there was no mention of anything honorary," replied the King, "and I am astonished that a perfectly healthy young man like you should make such an excuse."

And thereupon he commanded two gentlemen ushers to conduct the Count to the state bedrooms and provide him with the implements necessary for his honorable employment.

"To think of my Hereditary Cleaner refusing to clean!" he said to the Baron von Spank.

The hapless Count had already turned to the Vice-Chancellor for assistance, but unluckily von Spank happened to nurse a private grievance against the house of Zonnbiem, which rendered him suddenly blind to Seraphin's imploring glances, and without more ado the Hereditary Cleaner was hurried off to do his duty for the first time in three hundred and fifty years.

Armed with a pail of water, an assortment of serviceable dusters, and a patent apparatus for preventing window-cleaners from falling into the area, this noble of seventy-two quarterings and the politest upbringing in Europe was left to the company of his own reflections and thirty-nine sheets of soiled glass eight feet by five in dimensions.

In a short time, however, he heard a great bustle coming along the corridors, and presently his Majesty, accompanied by several officers of state and a company of life-guards, came round on a tour of inspection.