Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/210

 into the office of the Whirler, the leading Rushahead paper.

"King! New Idea!" said the editor of the Whirler. "Here, do me five columns of amiable satire upon the King's Idea; keep up the tone of loyalty—tolerant loyalty—of course; and try to keep hold of those the Immovable is fishing for, of course."

"Very good," said Brown.

"Shall I tell you the Idea?" asked the reporter.

"Ah! yes; if you want to," replied the editor. Then the reporter rushed off to the Shouter, the leading revolutionary journal.

"Here!—hi!—Cruncher!" shouted the editor; "King's got a new Idea. Do me a whole number scathing satire, full of bitter recrimination, vague menace, and so on, about the King's Idea. Dwell on the selfishness and class-invidiousness of the Idea—on the resultant injury to the working classes and the poor; show how it is another deliberate blow to the writhing son of toil—you know."

"I know," said Redwrag, the eminent Trafalgar Square journalist.

"Wouldn't you like to hear what the Idea is?" asked the reporter.

"No, I should NOT!" thundered the editor. "Don't defile my ears with particulars!"

The moment the public heard how the King had got a new Idea, they rushed to their newspapers to ascertain what judgment they ought to form upon it; and, as the newspaper writers had carefully thought out what sort of judgment their public would like to form upon it, the leading articles exactly reflected the views which that public feebly and half-consciously held, but would have feared to express without support; and everything was prejudiced and satisfactory.

Well, on the whole, the public verdict was decidedly in favour of the King's Idea, which enabled the newspapers gradually to work up a fervent enthusiasm in their columns; until at length it had become the very finest Idea ever evolved. After a time it was suggested that a day should be fixed for public rejoicings in celebration of the King's Idea; and the scheme grew until it was decided in the Lords and Commons that the King should proceed in state to the cathedral on the day of rejoicing, and be crowned as Emperor in honour of the Idea. There was only one little bit of dissent in the Lower House; and that was when Mr. Corderoy, M.P. for the Rattenwell Division of Strikeston, moved, as an amendment, that Bill Firebrand, dismissed by his employer for blowing up his factory, should be allowed a civil service pension.

So the important day came, and everybody took a holiday except the pickpockets and the police; and the King was crowned Emperor in the cathedral, with a grand choral service; and the Laureate wrote a fine poem calling upon the universe to admire the Idea, and describing the King as the greatest and most virtuous King ever invented. It was a very fine poem, beginning:

It became tacitly admitted that the King was the very greatest King in the world; and he was made an honorary fellow of the Society of Wiseacres and D.C.L. of the universities.

But one day it leaked out that the Idea was not the King's but the Prime Minister's. It would not have been known but for the Prime Minister having taken offence at the refusal of the King to appoint a Socialist agitator to the vacant post of Lord Chamber-