Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/51

, and his eyes softened to a more friendly shade.

"His Majesty was not" began the chancellor.

"Suppose you let him tell it," interrupted the financier. "He seems to have maintained his position as well as you did yours."

The king lifted his hand, palm outwards, toward the chancellor, and it was quite as effective as if the open palm had been clapped over the chancellor's mouth.

"Go ahead," Kent urged the king. "You tried reforms and they didn't succeed. Most of them don't. Er — what particular mania — I mean brand of reformation, was yours? Anti-gambling? Prohibition? Eugenics? Votes for women? Universal peace? What was it you tried?"

At first the king scowled at the American, a good, hearty scowl of outraged dignity, and then discerning that beneath the banter was more or less of sympathy, smiled a trifle sadly.

"I tried," he said, quietly, "to give them more liberty."

"Oh!" Kent let the exclamation slip. And then, after a slight pause, "I remember that yours was an absolute monarchy. Always has been; people brought up to respect the king boisterously when he happened to be respectable, and to swallow their disrespect when he happened to be the [47]