HEADS OR TAILS
I
It is no use pretending that all history is equally interesting, even
though the facts which it contains are necessary for an understanding of
what follows. And I am well aware that much of this history so far has
been very dull. We have been exploring interiors, moldy institutions,
cast-iron conventions, and one poor human mind,--with a tap on the back
of its head as an incentive--wriggling to find a way out. But from this
point on you see him wriggling no more; the slow wave of his resolve has
crept to its crest and now breaks into foam.
A month has now passed by; and four weeks hence the enamored Max will be
coming for his answer--Max asking for the impossible thing. Like the man
who set fire to the tail of his night-shirt in order to stop the
hiccoughs, so now John of Jingalo had at his heels that terror of his
own planting driving him on. Perhaps nothing else would have given him
the courage.
The day for the last Council meeting had arrived, the last before the
closing of that long session of Parliament which, beginning in February,
had run on at intervals into November. Then only a brief month, and the
winter session with the new Government program would open.
It was to this Council that the Cabinet's latest scheme for squeezing
the Bishops out of the Constitution was to be presented; and for that to
be possible, since he was so great a stickler for constitutional
propriety, the King's consent had been necessary. A few days before,
therefore, the Prime Minister had once more formally submitted the
question; and the King had given his leave. "Produce what you like, Mr.
Premier; I will no longer stand in your way."
The brief autumn session was closing with a clangor of agitation which
had not been heard in Jingalo for half a century at least. Everybody
outside the machinery of party was profoundly dissatisfied with the
parliamentary system and with all its doings and undoings; and this
general dissatisfaction was being quaintly expressed by a refusal to let
Parliament rise. The Women Chartists were battering at its closed doors;
and from peep-holes and other points of vantage within, smiling and
indifferent legislators saw those bruised bodies, those strangely
obsessed minds, those indomitable spirits carried off to magisterial
lack of judgment and to prison.
With a good deal more concern they saw strikes breaking out in their own
constituencies, and riot becoming the normal accompaniment of the
industrial demand for better conditions. Three strike leaders were in
prison under sentence of death for having killed by purposeful accident
a few over-zealous policemen; and from great working centers over a
hundred miles away thousands of men were marching to demand remittance
of the death penalty.
The Government was, in consequence, in a great hurry to get the session
closed. It was an undignified scramble of the red-tape worms of various
departments to be well out of the way before those slow, heavily shod
feet of labor arrived upon the scene. At every town they came to they
stopped, made inflammatory speeches, gathered funds and adherents, and
then, a swelled body of discontent, marched stolidly on toward the
capital; and this not from one point alone but from half-a-dozen at
once. If there was not to be conflict between the police and these
converging forces, appeasement of some sort must be devised, or official
vacuum must be there to meet them.
And behind all this was the ministerial fear that, if they were not
quick about it, it would be impossible to close Parliament with due
ceremony. The Lord High Functionary had put it bluntly to the Prime
Minister. "If those men get here we can't have out the piebald ponies
and the state coach; they wouldn't stand it."
And as the piebald ponies and the state coach were necessary for the
prestige of the Government and for proof that the King and his ministers
were working amicably together, therefore the red-tape worms were all
wriggling their level best under pressure from above, and in the small
hours every morning millions of public money were being voted into the
hands of the Government by an obedient majority of sleepy legislators,
bound by party loyalty neither to criticise nor to control.
It was in the midst of affairs thus disarranged that on a morning three
days before the rising of Parliament the Royal Council met, and awaited
with official calm the advent of its titular head.
Since his outbreak of a few months ago the King had once more become
amenable to that deferential guidance which was his due; and now word
had gone round that all further opposition was to be withdrawn, and the
Ministry to have its way.
And so the _pièce de résistance_ is at last in full brew and we see the
twenty cooks of the national broth waiting without any trepidation of
spirit for the royal flavoring to arrive. And they talk among themselves
in carefully modulated tones; for it is not etiquette, when the doors
are thrown open to the royal presence, that the King should hear
conversation going on.
The Prime Minister enters a little later than the rest, carrying his
brief, and moves to his place near the head of the board through a
circle of congratulatory looks and smiles. For all know that in this
long bout with titular kingship, obstinate for the preservation of its
rights, the representative of Cabinet control has won, and that a new
and very comfortable stage in the subservience of monarchy to
ministerial ends has been attained.
And how quietly this important little bit of constitutional revolution
has been carried through!--without any passing of laws or petition of
rights, merely by internal pressure judiciously applied. And Jingalo,
that well-represented State governed by the popular will, knows nothing
of what has been done; like a body in absolute health it is unconscious
of the working of those vital functions so necessary for its
constitutional development. Oh, admirable popular will! in searching for
your whereabouts and to come into touch with you, old monarchy has had
yet another tumble--and at the right and preconcerted time will reach
the ground without any outward revolution at all.
If these or suchlike thoughts were in the mind of the Cabinet, just then
they were diverted by the sound of opening doors; and there entered, not
the King himself, but a Court functionary in full dress attended by two
others, and bearing before him on a crimson cushion a sealed document.
A few eyebrows went up; what revival of old forms was this? The
functionary advanced and with a low bow presented the document not to
the Prime Minister, but to the Lord President of the Council. "By his
Majesty's gracious command," said he, "a message from his Majesty the
King to his faithful people."
Then, with another bow, the Court functionary withdrew.
The Lord President looked at the seal in some embarrassment, for he did
not quite know how to break it; it was very large, some three inches
across, and was composed of a wax of specially resistant quality.
"Cut it!" said the Prime Minister, and to that end he presented his
pocket-knife.
The document was opened; and the Lord President and Prime Minister,
glancing together at its contents, suddenly went white.
"Gentlemen," said the Lord President (his voice and hands trembled as he
spoke), "his Majesty the King abdicates!"
II
Around that ministerial board it would have been amusing to an impartial
onlooker to see how many mouths of grave and reverend Councilors did
actually open and drop chins of dismay. A gust of horror and
astonishment blew round the assembly; it was a word unknown in the
Jingalese Constitution; no place had been there provided for it,--it had
never been done. Strictly speaking--legally speaking, that is to say--it
could not be done. Kings had been deposed, exiled, their heads cut
off--all without their own consent--but never without the consent of
Parliament, or of some portion of it at all events. Yet nothing whatever
could prevent it; for clearly on this point the King could insist; but,
if he did, the Constitution would be in the melting-pot, and the
consequences could not be foreseen. What right had this pelican in piety
to go pecking his own breast and shedding the blood of his ancestors?
Viewed in any constitutional light it was a revolutionary and bloody
deed.
The Prime Minister was not slow to see its bearing on the whole
political situation and on the fortunes of his ministry.
"Gentlemen," said he, "if this abdication is allowed to take effect, our
plans are defeated and the Government must go."
"You mean we shall have to resign?"
"We cannot even do that; we are forestalled. Though not yet publicly
announced this is an absolute abdication here and now." And then that
all might hear, the Lord President proceeded to read out the terms.
"WE, John, by the Grace of God, King of Jingalo, Suzerain of Rome,
Leader of the Forlorn Hope, and Crowned Head of Jerusalem, do hereby
solemnly declare, avow, render, and deliver by this as Our own act,
freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and
succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this
day henceforward. WE do utterly renounce, relinquish, and abjure all
claim to rank, titles, honors, emoluments, and privileges holden by US
in virtue of OUR inheritance and succession as true and rightful
Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of Jingalo. And for the satisfying of
OUR Royal Conscience and the better safety and security of those things
aforetime committed to OUR trust and keeping, under the Constitution of
the said Realm of Jingalo; to the preservation whereof WE are bound by
oath, therefore WE do now pronounce, publish, and set forth, that it
may be known to all, this OUR ABDICATION, made in the 25th year of OUR
reign and given under OUR hand and signet----"
Then came date and signature; and following these the old form of mixed
German and Latin, without which no State document was complete--"Der Rex
das vult."
When the reading ended there was a short pause. Here at all events, in
their very ears, history was being incredibly made.
"Remarkably well drawn," observed Professor Teller, admiringly: "copied,
you may be interested to learn, from the actual instrument wrung by
Parliament out of King Oliver the Second under threat of torture four
hundred years ago. As legal and regular a form, therefore, as it would
be possible to devise."
"You mean we shall have to recognize it?"
"If we recognize anything at all."
"Gentlemen," said the Prime Minister, "it must not be recognized; it
would mean for us not merely defeat but disaster. As against the Bishops
we have a certain amount of popular opinion to back us; but if once it
appears that dislike for our policy has driven the King into abdication,
then our ruin will be immediate and irremediable. We have to recognize
that during the past year his popularity has greatly increased, while
our own, to say the most, is stationary."
"Yes, and he knows it!" said the Minister of the Interior, bitterly.
"I call it a treacherous and a cowardly act!" exclaimed the Secretary
for War.
"He is trying to bully us!" said the Commissioner-General.
"I should say that he is succeeding," remarked Professor Teller in a dry
tone. "Had we not better recognize, gentlemen, that his Majesty has made
a very shrewd hit? Can we not--compromise?"
"Impossible!" asseverated the Prime Minister. "It is too late."
Professor Teller leaned back in his chair and let the discussion flow
on. His attitude was noticeable; he was the only minister who was taking
it sitting down.
"When does this abdication take effect?" asked one. "I mean, how long
can it be kept from the press?"
"Who knows? If his Majesty has done one mad thing he may have done
another."
"I must see him at once," said the Premier, "this cannot be allowed to
go on."
"You will have to take a very firm tone."
"I would suggest that we all send in our portfolios."
"We have tried that once; he would not accept them now, and we have no
power to make him."
"No; that is the damnable thing! That is what makes his position so
strong."
"Do you think he knows?"
"Of course; why else has he done it? It's really clever; that's what I
can't get over, he has done a clever thing!"
"Who can have put it into his head?"
"It is the most unjustifiable stretch of the royal prerogative that ever
I heard of."
"There's no prerogative about it; it's sheer revolution and rebellion."
"An attack on the Constitution, I call it."
Thus they talked.
"Strange!" murmured Professor Teller, irritating them with his
philosophic tone and his detached air,--"strange that when it threatens
itself with extinction monarchy becomes powerful."
"It is no question of extinction," said the Prime Minister tetchily; "we
should still have his successor to deal with; and Prince Max, I can tell
you, gentlemen, is a very dark horse. You all know what happened three
months ago; and now, within the last week, we have learned that he is
publishing a book--a revolutionary book with his own name to it. You may
take it from me that if he comes to the throne our present scheme for
the evolution of the Cabinet system will be over. Anything may happen!
Read his book and you will understand."
"Has any one yet seen it?"
"A privately procured copy has been shown me; it was by the merest
chance we heard of it. I could only read it very hurriedly in the small
hours; it had to go back where it came from."
"Is it a serious matter?"
"Perfectly appalling."
"And are you going to allow it to be published?"
"How can we prevent? It is being printed abroad."
And then spoke the Prefect of the Police, holding technical place upon
the Council as Minister of Secret Service.
"Over the present edition, gentlemen, you may make your minds quite
easy. I have received intelligence that last night the establishment at
which it was being printed was burned to the ground."
The Premier cast a keen and confidential glance at his colleague.
"How much does that involve?" he asked.
"Only the insurance company, I should suppose."
"I meant of the book?"
"Oh! everything except the manuscript. There will be no publication this
year at any rate."
"I make you my compliments," said the Prime Minister, "on the
particularity and speed with which your department has become informed.
That at all events gives us time."
"And meanwhile?"
"I must see the King immediately. It is no use our remaining here to
discuss a situation that is not yet explained. The first thing to find
out is whether this has gone any further; but I do not think his Majesty
really means it as anything more than a threat."
"Had you no hint that it was coming?" inquired the Commissioner-General.
The Prime Minister was on his way to the door. "No," he said; "not a
word." And then he paused, as the particular meaning of a certain
carefully chosen and repeated phrase flashed on him for the first time.
"He said to me yesterday--repeating what he said four months ago when we
tendered our resignations--'I will no longer stand in your way.' And now
I suppose we have it."
"Good Heavens!" cried the Minister of the Interior, "does he call this
not standing in our way?"
The Prime Minister cast an expressive glance at his chagrined and
embarrassed following--a glance of self-confidence and determination,
one which still said "Depend upon me!"
But only from one of his colleagues was there any look of answering
confidence, or speech confirming it.
"When you are disengaged, Chief, may I have a few moments?"
It was the Prefect who spoke, a man of few words.
Eye to eye they looked at each other for a brief spell.
The Prime Minister nodded. "Come to me in two hours' time," he said. "We
shall know then where we are." And so saying he left the room.
III
In the next two days a good many things happened; but carried through in
so underground and secret a fashion that it is only afterwards we shall
hear of them. And so we come to the last day of all; for on the morrow
Parliament closes and when that is done the King's abdication is to
become an acknowledged and an accomplished fact.
It was evening. His Majesty had just given a final audience to the Prime
Minister; the interview had been a painful one, and still the ground of
contention remained the same. But the demeanor of the head of the
Government had altered; he had tried bullying and it had failed; now in
profound agitation he had implored the King for the last time to
withdraw his abdication, and his Majesty had refused.
"I will close Parliament for you," he said, "since you wish it; it will
be a fitting act for the conclusion of my reign. But my conscience
forbids any furthering on my part of your present line of policy; and as
I cannot prevent that obstacle from existing, in accordance with my
promise I remove it altogether from the scene."
"But your Majesty's abdication is the greatest obstacle of all, it is a
profound upheaval of the whole constitutional system; and its acceptance
will involve a far, far greater expenditure of time than we are able to
contemplate or to provide for. I am bound, therefore, to appeal from the
letter of your Majesty's promise (which no doubt you have observed) to
the spirit in which as I conceive it was made."
"When I made it, Mr. Prime Minister, I had no spirit left. Nothing
remained to me but the letter of my authority, and even that was dead. I
told you that I would no longer stand in your way, and I will keep my
word."
"By throwing us into revolution!"
"By throwing you upon your own resources. You have been working very
assiduously for single chamber government, you may now secure it in your
own way."
"Your Majesty takes a course entirely without precedent."
"What?--Abdication?"
"Against the wish or consent of Parliament."
"Ah, yes," said the King, "that is precisely the difference. Abdications
have, like ministerial resignations, been forced upon us--I mean on
kings in the past--at very unseasonable times and in most inconsiderate
ways; and we kings have had to put up with it. Mr. Prime Minister, it is
your turn now; and I only hope that you may find as clean a way out of
your difficulty as I had to find when four months ago you threatened me
with a resignation which you knew I could not accept."
The Prime Minister's face became drawn with passion; but there was no
more to be said after that. "Is that your Majesty's final word?" he
inquired.
"I hope so," said the King, rising and making a formal offer of his
hand.
And so the interview ended.
Left alone the King felt badly in need of comfort, for now in the hour
of triumph depression had begun to enter his soul. He did not like
hurting people even when he was not fond of them; and on the Prime
Minister's face as he went out he had seen something like tragedy. "Is
he going to cut his throat?" he wondered; but, no, it was not the look
of a beaten man--rather that of a gambler prepared to make his last
throw.
The King had already made his own--he had nothing more to do; and now he
wanted companionship, some one to humor him with more understanding and
sympathy than his own wife could supply. And it so happened that just
then his only two possible comforters were away. Max had gone to the
Riviera to recruit before the regular sittings of the Commission began,
and Charlotte three days ago had taken that leave of absence which had
been promised her; for in less than a month's time the Prince of
Schnapps-Wasser would be paying his promised visit.
As he could not have the society he craved he chose solitude, and
wandered out into the deepening dusk of the November garden; and there,
gazing up through its now thinned foliage at the quiet and misty heavens
above him, thought of steeplejacks and the death of kings, and how at
the root of every great downfall in history there had probably been some
poor human heart like his own, conscious of failure, longing for the
kindred touch which pride of place makes so impossible. And yet he knew
that he had brought himself to a better end than, with all the defects
of his qualities, he could ordinarily have hoped to secure; perhaps this
dramatic taking of himself off (which he felt in a way to be so out of
character) would help Max to make something out of the situation
startling and unexpected. But Max would have to give up the idea of
marrying the Archbishop's daughter.
The quiet, dusky paths had led him to a point where high walls carefully
shrouded in creepers shut off the royal stables from view. Through
circular barred grilles he could hear the noise of horses champing in
their stalls; and the comfortable sound drew him round to the entrance.
Opening a wicket, he stood in a dimly lighted court, but the buildings
surrounding it contained plenty of light, and in the harness rooms a
brisk sound of furbishing went on.
Turning to the left he passed into the largest stable of all, a spacious
and well-aired chamber of corridor-like proportions divided up into
stalls. To right and left of him stood the famous piebald ponies,
lazily munching fodder and settling down to their last sleep before the
unusual exertions which would be required of them on the morrow.
But these pampered minions did not know as he did what the morrow had in
store: how, for the sake of effect, they would be harnessed to a huge
obsolete coach weighing a couple of tons, each clad in an elaborate
costume of crimson and gold weighing by itself considerably more than a
full-grown rider. To the King this presumed ignorance of theirs was a
matter for envy; he knew his own part in the affair well enough; the
thought of it oppressed him.
He walked down the double line--twelve in all--pausing now and then to
take a closer look and judge of their condition, but keeping always at a
respectful distance, for he was aware that almost without exception they
were an ill-tempered crew. Contemplating the astonishing rotundity of
their well-filled bodies, the spacious ease of their accommodation, the
outward dignity of circumstances, and the absolute lack of freedom which
conditioned their whole existence, he was struck with the resemblance
between himself and them; and recalling how, with a similar sense of
kinship, St. Francis had preached to the lower forms of life he too
became imbued with the spirit of homily and prophecy, though it did not
actually find its way into words.
"You and I, little brothers"--so might we loosely interpret the
meditations of his heart--"you and I are much of a muchness, and can
sing our 'Te Deum' or our 'Nunc Dimittis' in almost the same words. We
are both of a carefully selected breed and of a diminished usefulness.
But because of our high position we are fed and housed not merely in
comfort but in luxury; and wherever we go crowds stand to gape at us and
applaud when we nod our heads at them. We live always in the purlieus of
palaces, and never have we known what it is to throw up our heels in a
green pasture, nor in our old age are we turned out comfortably to
grass--only to Nebuchadnezzar by accident came that thing, and he did
not appreciate it as he should have done. Never shall we go into battle
to prove that we are worth our salt, and to say 'Ha, Ha' to the fighting
and the captains; nor is it allowed to us to devour the ground with our
speed: whenever we attempt such a thing it is cut from under us. Little
brothers, it is before all things necessary that we should behave; for
being once harnessed to the royal coach, if any one of us struck work or
threw out our heels we should upset many apple-carts and the machinery
of the State would be dislocated. Let us thank God, therefore, that long
habit and training have made us docile, and that our backs are strong
enough to bear the load that is put upon them, and that if one of us
goes another immediately fills his place so that he is not missed."
In a vague, unformulated way this was the homily which arose from his
meditations; and if he thought at all specially of himself and present
circumstances, it was merely as an insignificant exception which proved
the general rule.
As he strolled back again he stopped at the door and spoke to the man in
charge.
"They all seem very fit, Jacobs," said he. "They do you credit, I must
say."
"Fit they are, your Majesty!" said the man, beaming with satisfied
pride; "and so they ought to be, considering the trouble we've took with
'em. We've been polishing them like old pewter for days. Ah! they know
what's coming; and you can see 'em just longing for it."
"Oh, they like it, do they?"
"Believe me, your Majesty, they couldn't live without it. It's in the
blood--been in 'em from father to son. Why, if we didn't take 'em out to
help us open and shut Parliament and things of that sort, they'd think
we was mad."
This was a new point of view; the King listened to it with respectful
interest, and then a fresh thought occurred to him.
"Jacobs," he said, "did one of them ever refuse to go?--on a public
occasion, I mean."
"Well, yes, your Majesty, it did once happen; before my time, though.
One of 'em--ah, it was at a funeral, too--he stuck his heels into the
ground and couldn't be got to start, not for love or money."
"Which did they offer him?"
"Ask pardon, your Majesty?--Oh, just my manner of speaking, that was.
Wouldn't go except on his own terms."
"And what were they?"
"Well, your Majesty, he was a clever one, you see, he was; they aren't
generally. But he, he'd got a taste for his own set of harness--knew it
by the smell, I suppose, and when they come to put it on him a bit of it
broke, and he wouldn't wear anything else. That's how it all come
about."
"They tried, I suppose?"
"Oh, they got it on him; and they got him out, before all the crowd,
with the guns going and the handkerchiefs a-waving--Ah, no; but that was
a funeral though--there weren't no handkerchiefs that day. Well, there
he was; and when he felt they was all looking at him, and the
perishables kept waiting behind----"
"The perishables?"
"The corpse, sir;--then he wouldn't move."
"Very embarrassing, I must say."
"You see, your Majesty, they couldn't beat him in public--not as he
deserved; 'twouldn't have been respectful to what was there. They had to
do that afterwards. But, believe me, he stopped the whole show for
twenty minutes and more; and they never used _him_ again."
"What became of him?"
"Oh, he was just kept, in case; but he weren't never used--he was
reckoned too risky after that. Oh, and he felt it too; I haven't a doubt
but he did. They don't like only to be one of the extras, they don't."
"What does that mean?"
"Why, you see, sir, there's always four extras here, in case of
accident; and believe me, your Majesty, when the four extras to-morrow
find 'emselves left out they'll squeal for hours, and it won't be safe
to go near 'em, not for days. Blood's a wonderful thing, sir, wonderful!
And they know, just as well as you or me."
"And what becomes of them when they grow old?"
"Well, sir, they make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the
forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people
think it's giraffe skin, but it's really our old ponies."
"So they come in useful even at the last?"
"Oh, yes, sir, they ends well, one can't deny that; and they have to be
in pretty good condition too. So they aren't none of 'em what you might
call really old."
"Very interesting," said the King. "What a great deal there is in the
world that one doesn't know till one comes to inquire."
"About horses? Your Majesty's right there!" said the man; and his tone
spoke volumes of the things which would never be written, but which
those who had the care of horses knew.
As the King moved away from that brief colloquy, one phrase in
particular stuck in his mind. "He was reckoned too risky after that."
Was that, he wondered, what the Prime Minister was thinking about him
now; had he, indeed, proved himself too risky for future use? If so
there would be no yielding at the eleventh hour; and perhaps it was as
well that to-morrow would see him harnessed to the royal coach for the
last time.