Page:The King of the Dark Chamber.djvu/77

Rh our instructions. But now you can go and join the festivities in the royal arbour with all possible splendour and magniﬁcence.

Grandfather, I cannot help saying—yes, and repeating it five hundred times—that our King is a perfect fraud.

Why only five hundred times? There is no need to practise such heroic self-control—you can say it five thousand times if that adds to your pleasure.

But you cannot keep up a dead lie forever.